I apologize for the delay. I’m nailed to my chair, spending my days and nights writing the final assignments of my current education. Thank you for your patience!

It’s all starting to pay off.

In the beginning of my hobbyist hackery, I managed to uncover tidbits of information about the various versus game modes of Cobalt. While exciting, it wasn’t truly what I was searching for. But today, let’s talk a bit about the dark secret of the Oxeye Labs:

Adventure mode.

I spy with my little eye, a robot circuit for me to fry… Work in progress.

Peeking in the researcher logs, I’ve learned that a lot of work is being put into the upcoming console port of Cobalt, and networked multiplayer is progressing steadily too. A lot of code restructuring is happening to speed up development, but the next big step for Cobalt is receiving some love too!

In case you missed it in the previous report, the game will be entering the beta phase once the first part of the Adventure mode is shiny enough to be thrown at us. The above screenshot is an early picture of an area outside Trunkopolis, which we’ll soon enough be able to explore in our beloved metallic hulls ourselves! The question is: How much affection can one associate with a Metalface?

In the Adventure mode, quite a lot. As opposed to the more disposable ‘Faces of the versus modes, this long anticipated game mode will feature persistent characters. The adventure consists of several chapters containing stages. While the important bits are the Adventure maps themselves, some events will be based on existing game modes such as Deathmatch or Challenge (For this article, let’s call these ’special events’.), and winning these will make it rain with volts! Or, at least, you’ll earn volts. Water and electricity don’t mix well, even on distant planets in the future. The (hopefully dry) volts and perhaps other rewards can be used to upgrade your character which you’ll be using in the normal Adventure stages.

Robots Aren’t Forever

I did write “persistent characters“, didn’t I? That’s right—In Adventure, you’ll join forces with other fellow Metalfaces! The research data seems to indicate that you’ll get to pick from your available characters at the beginning of each stage. This way, you can have several builds for different situations. The more, the merrier!

Robots don’t last forever, though. There will be a life stock system to add a bit of challenge to the whole deal. Easy is boring. How many chances will you have? I found two possible plans while digging:

Plan A: There is a global life counter like in many platformers. Losing a life will let you respawn in the same stage, but you’re kicked out of it if you’re wrecked all the way down to 0 lives. At this point, you can still enter stages, but dying will instantly kick you out, forcing you to restart the entire stage. Additional lives can be acquired throughout the stages and special events, so if you run out, you can clear some side missions to get a few more chances.

Plan B: There is a set amount of lives per stage, possibly starting at 3. Lose them all, and you’ll have to restart. While you cannot gain additional lives, you can find upgrades that extend your amount of lives per stage.

Since special events are not Adventure maps but special stages in which you gain unlockables and other rewards, these do not consume any lives—feel free to keep trying for that win! There may be small rewards for clearing a special event again, but nothing’s entirely certain here.

Personally, I’m not too sure of what I’d prefer—I have a tiny idea, but I want to hear your opinion! While I usually just steal information, it is technically possible to modify it too. Heh. Heheheh.

A shady hideout in a shady city.

This screenshot shows a hideout in Rocket City: The city of Blasters, explosives, and edgy characters. Perhaps a bit like a sci–fi downtown New York City. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been to downtown New York City. Or to a sci–fi world for that matter. Nevertheless, you should trust no one in Rocket City, for while the inhabitants are somewhat peaceful, there is a dark atmosphere of tension here. Be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you may just get your poor Metalface into an unnecessarily bad situation…

These snippets of information from the Adventure sound extremely promising to me! I can’t wait to snatch a prototype and see it myself. As a fun fact, Adventure was actually the main purpose of creating Cobalt according to the official statements of Oxeye. Multiplayer wasn’t part of the plan, but it worked so well, it became a primary point of focus while establishing a solid foundation for the story mode.

Meanwhile, In A Parallel Universe

Some readers just don’t know patience. Some of those decide to take matters in own hands. APirateHat is one of them, and he decided to write the report for me. I did say I want to write about community things outside reports, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some here too!

“Hello and welcome dear readers to this Intel Report. As there is NO news about Cobalt this time I’ll instead tell you guys about something else. Clobat, the game by the amazing APirateHat has finally been released and boy is it great. APirateHat has been struggling for months to bring you this masterpiece and when you play it you will really wonder how he could just give this out for free.

The game is packed with content that will last for about 10 minutes depending how smart you are. The artstyle is just beautiful, each one of the characters hand drawn in Paint. Not to mention the puzzles which are quite hard. I actually had to THINK! Who could imagine that a game that comes out in this day and age actually has puzzles.

Other news, APirateHat might bring you his next game soon™. Rumour has it the game will be called “Cobakt”. I really hope this is true because I just can’t get enough of his games.

The end.”

Hmm. This isn’t that far off from what a review written by myself would look like, although we fortunately do have news about Cobalt. Get the brilliant adventure game Clobat for free at the Cobalt Vault!

Meanwhile, In An Intersecting Universe

What else is happening? Well, players are breathing. Next to that, they’re mapping! The Cobalt Vault has seen quite a few new maps recently, and one of them is by the Duke himself! When I asked him to describe it, he said it was “so awesome that your great great grandma knitted a sweater about it.” Well, he doesn’t lack confidence. Calor Shrine is a pretty map, and it’s also pretty fun to play! It’s maybe a bit too big, though, but here’s an important lesson: If even the Duke can map, so can yo–

*sound of frying pan hitting face*

“Map is amazing. Big is good. Go download at discount. Wait, no, just download. Duke doesn’t do discount!”

Uh… That hurt.

Calor Shrine by DUKE.

Either way, keep an eye out on the blog! We’re entering exciting times, soon transitioning into beta and unlocking the brilliance of adventuring in Cobalt. Of course, we cannot do that without a little community party.

As if that isn’t enough, I am planning a Saturday map reviewing stream with the Duke! The date has not been decided yet, but we’re going to team up and play some Cobalt multiplayer, reviewing as many of the cool community maps as we can live! You can suggest maps in the forum thread here or in the comments below. Also, remember to write what you think of the plans for Adventure! Which plan would you enjoy the most? Stay tuned for more information and fun times. Until then!