Props for rebindable keys and it's always fun to make a thing get bigger and badder. You might consider giving the player some starting money to make it start faster. Nicely done for 48 hours!

Pretty fun even though it's so simple and games with similar mechanics were made many many times before. The movement is annoying to work with

I admit it, I cheated - but I beat the highest difficulty level :P

It was a bit boring since you couldn't control the robot in the arena :(

Played on Firefox so the sounds didn't work.

An interesting idea, but it needs more tuning. I feel that I'm too much dependent on the random movement of the robot -- if it goes over an area where it's been before, I'm much more likely to make good money.

The UI design could be better. It's annoying to have to (slowly) walk around in a room just to get to fragments of menu. Sometimes I can't buy things without apparent reason -- armour seems to max out at 19 and Auto Heal and Heat Shield at 3, which means after a while the only investment is Health. At $10 per click, that takes a while if you've just cashed $1000...

For UI things, I often find it easier to use HTML instead of drawing everything on a canvas. You get click detection, styling and event handling for free.

It was pretty satisfying though to see my tiny robot grow into a mean mine-busting monster :)

Well done. Very simple, yet addictive.
"hummm... max health does not seem to have a limit, everything else seems to be maxed out, and I have a ton of cash... Buy More Health!" 100+ clicks later... "Yay max difficulty beaten!"

Pretty fun game and I like how the robot becomes cooler looking as it gets better. I'm not sure how to beat the higher difficulty levels if all of the upgrades cap.

Really hard to understand at first sight, i desperately clicked on "Instructions" on main screen but a blank screen appeared. Luckily, the ? ingame explained the mechanic to me.
Very interesting and original idea!

Unusual idea, but totally fun to play, good job!

Loved the concept but the controls were annoying.

A for effort, but some of the objects in the game disappeared at random (like the powerup shops) and I really wasn't sure what was going on in the because I think something was missing like the shops. Did you test this in different browsers? I'm using Chrome. Congrats for doing this in HTML5 though!

Thank you everyone for the feedback!

I tested the game in Chrome and IE but not Firefox, which was a big oversight on my part. Also I understand that the upgrade system is not balanced very well. For the next LD I need to find people to test the game while I'm developing it so I can address these sorts of things.

This was surprisingly fun, I just wish that the robot was controllable in the arena. Overall, cool idea and good implementation.

I stuck with it longer than I wanted, due to the upgrade system. I not so fond of the rodeo system itself though, maybe you could tell the player if there is something to be done during the rodeo, or if it happens without input.

Not sure what's happing in that rodeo, but it seems brutal. Nice work!

Interesting idea and fun game. However, the movement is very offputting.

I love grindy games, and this one was pretty addicting.

And yes, it is possible to beat the hardest difficulty, without cheating :)

good job

The movement its a little slow, and you cpuld work more in the game design for the player could actually play de rodeo. But very well made for 48 hours.

Is the player supposed to move only once per a keypress? Also, I don't the the in-game instructions, it's all white. Using Opera 12.

I couldn't figure out how to not die. Please rate/ play my game!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=5288

So, I beat the game on the highest difficulty level :) 72115 points.
I basically kept playing until I maxed out everything and then just pumped all my money into health :)

Sure, it lacks animation, but the little black and white workshop was quite charming. The game kept me playing for an embarrassingly large amount of time. I just wanted to see if I could beat the next difficulty level, and then the next, and the next...
The balance between the available upgrades and the difficulty was surprisingly good for a 48 hour game.

Really, the only major complaint that I have is that the gameplay is largely just pure luck. If the robot stays mainly in an already cleared area, you win, if not, you're fucked :)

Good job overall though :)

Almost forgot this: My main motivation was to see how many difficulty levels I could beat. After the second one, it kind of felt like they were just endlessly procedurally generated.
That being not the case, and seeing the "you beat the highest difficulty" message was VERY rewarding :)

"Also, I don't the the in-game instructions"

That should be "Also, I don't see the in-game instructions".

I really enjoyed how Bob's robot gets bigger with the armor.
It's a great idea to have workbench instead of just menu.

For the arena part, I should admit I had trouble to understand what was happening, but I've seen you fixed that in the post compo version.

Thank you everyone for the excellent feedback! I've updated the post-compo version to address some of these issues. Also, I've now tested the game with the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and IE and I'm not seeing any of the reported issues with sound or images. Please let me know what browser version you guys are using.

I'm still working on an option for giving the player something to do during the 10 seconds in the arena. I don't want to give the player full control of the bot because it's a rodeo and you're not supposed to be in control of the ride. I have some ideas about limited manual control or adding buttons to buff/heal the bot (on a cooldown timer). I'll update the post-compo version with some more new features.

Like the idea, income is a bit slow in the beginning and then suddenly you can afford everything at once. You should do something to lower the amount of keypresses needed both for movement and for buying upgrades.

It seems like you fixed movement in the post compo version but something should still be done about buying upgrades.

Controls at the first screen need some polish and binding.
Quite innovating idea.

Still don't see the instructions, using Opera.

Pretty fun, though it would have been nice to see more kinds of upgrades, especially since all of them except health seem to have a cap.

Innovative :) I missed a more understanding of what was going on during the robots competitions.

I loved the idea of this game, though I dunno what to do while my robot is in the arena other than watch him die :/ I featured it in my video compilation series of Ludum Dare 27 games, if you would like to check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksgU2Iicu2g

The game feels extremely random.
I can ply the rodeo 5 times without updgrading near the beginningb and the results are between 1 and 5 seconds.
after few upgrades I can "try often enough" and reach 10.
So in the beginning, I just start like 10 rodeos and then begin buying stuff...
The menu would have been better with more menu-like controls.
Mouse only would be good with an option to "buy health 100 times".
The idea was good, but the only thing that kep me playing was "higher stats, higher stats"... oh geeze I love having high stats...

this was fun! i really enjoyed going from nothing to being able to survive almost anything.

It's an interesting idea. Looking forward to playing the post-compo version :)

I won - so good game :D