pass the relish

Time to blow the proverbial dust off ye olde Relish blog and talk about a mother of a project that’s been occupying a lot of our time for the past 8 months…

Late last year we were approached by the fine folks at Xenophile to build an online presence for a new kids’ show called RollBots that was going to be airing on YTV in early 2009.  Naturally we were thrilled at the opportunity to work on a big site chocked full of games and geared totally at kids.  None of us had worked on anything quite like this, so we eagerly accepted the challenge.

Meet Spin, our hero

A bit of background: RollBots are robots that can roll (hence the name) by coiling into a ball.  They live in the clouds in Flip City and roll around on tracks to get from place to place.  There are 11 different tribes a bot can belong to and each tribe has a different role in helping to run the city.  The show centres around a special (and speedy) bot named Spin who mysteriously doesn’t belong to any of the tribes.

Our goal early on was to capture the high energy level of the show and create an online extension of what kids would experience in the episodes — a world where they could explore, learn and uncover new secrets with Spin’s help.

Duking it out with Manx in the "RollBot Rumble" game

How was it accomplished?  Working with Xenophile, we developed a plan to launch with an initial site when the first episode aired in February and then build on that by adding new content on a weekly basis for the entire first season of the show.  Basically we timed it so that the site gets updated late on Friday night so that when the episode airs on Saturday morning kids can immediately go check out what’s been added that week.  All in all, that included 12 standalone games built from scratch, a video mashup tool to make your own RollBots video, a tool to build your own RollBot, a Danuga (the RollBots written language) translator and countless other features to help you rise through the ranks as a cadet at FCPD (Flip City Police Department — where Spin works).

"My RollBot" tool to customize and build your very own bot

We’re nearing the end of season one and it’s been a total blast to be involved in such a visually rich and technically complex project. We’re all looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season plays out — specifically finding out how Spin came to be and what the heck that nasty Vertex is up to… he’s such a meanie!

by Steve Palmer on July 16, 2009