Dobbo is a planet in the Bogon Galaxy featured in Going Commando. It is an aquatic jungle planet home to a Megacorp testing facility, which tested products for safety and rejected those that were considered too dangerous. In its orbit is a moon city known as Lunar City.
Ratchet and Clank visited the testing facility after Angela Cross ominously told them to visit the facility if they intended to resolve a crisis that they had caused by returning the Protopet to Abercrombie Fizzwidget. Along the way, they found the Ultra-Mech Pad, allowing Clank to transform to Giant Clank and travel to Lunar City. They faced the Thug Leader in a challenge; after defeating him, the Mathematician allowed them to enter the Megacorp Games on Joba.
History[]
The testing facility rejected several Megacorp inventions, including the Tiny-Tot Slingshot, the Nuclear Mousetrap, Self-Wedgifying Underwear and the lawn ninjas.[1] In spite of being rejected, the lawn ninjas were later used by Qwark for his hideout on the Thran Asteroid Belt.
Scientists testing Experiment number 13.
At some point, Megacorp scientists performed tests on the Protopet, known then as "experiment number 13". Testing was conducted by a team led by scientist Dr. James T. Fullbladder, which concluded that, despite early thinking believing the experiment was entirely docile, levels of monsterpropanase in its bloodstream triggered violent tendencies. Attempts to neutralize these failed, and Dr. James T. Fullbladder's staff recommended the experiment be destroyed at Megacorp's Deep Space Disposal Facility.[2] However, Abercrombie Fizzwidget had been kidnapped by Qwark, who was impersonating Fizzwidget. Qwark fully intended to market the Protopet because of its violent tendencies, rather than in spite of them, so that he could then save the Bogon Galaxy and restore his reputation.
On Tabora, after accidentally revealing herself to Ratchet and Clank, Angela Cross gave the two a telescreen with a recording about the Megacorp testing facility, ominously telling them to watch if they had any intention of "fixing the mess" they'd made by giving Fizzwidget the Protopet.[3] Her intention was to showcase the report video by scientist Dr. James T. Fullbladder.
Meeting the Mathematician.
In "Explore the testing facility", Ratchet and Clank arrived to search for what Angela Cross had asked them to find. On the topside facility where they landed, they did not find any leads, but found the Mathematician, who was assessing candidates for the Megacorp Games on Dobbo's moon. An Ultra-Mech Pad allowed Clank to transform to Giant Clank and travel to the moon. In "Defeat the Thug Leader", Clank defeated the Thug Leader in his mech on the Lunar City moon, satisfying the Mathematician and granting them access to the Megacorp Games.
The testing facility repair bot.
Ratchet and Clank contacting Fizzwidget using the core terminal.
In the inner facility, they eventually found a core terminal, though it was powered down. They called a repair bot, but if failed to repair, and simply returned to its point of origin. In "Repair the power generator", Ratchet and Clank then used the Glider to follow the repair bot and restore power to the terminal, only to find that it charged them 10,000 bolts to watch the message. After paying it, they viewed Dr. James T. Fullbladder's report on the Protopet. As logs indicated that they were the first to view the recording, they believed Fizzwidget was unaware and attempted to contact him.[1] Qwark, disguised as Fizzwidget, appeared completely aloof to what they were asking, but gave them coordinates to the Deep Space Disposal Facility, and a false password, "Qwarktastic".[1]
After leaving the planet, Megacorp contacted the Thugs-4-Less, giving them a better offer than Angela Cross.
Geography[]
Overview[]
Map layout of the Testing facility
Dobbo from space appears to be a largely aquatic world, with only a few, small continents and archipelagos. The planet is home to many small tropical islands with rocky mountains, and the waters are infested with sharkigators. The sky is very dark and cloudy, and the water appears to have a dark shade.
The testing facility is a series of buildings mostly built on the water and a few on top of islands. Many of the buildings are connected by pipes, and several disconnected walkways and platforms, which are well lit by small green lights on the edges. Some hold thick blocks that the Megacorp Troopers use for cover. Many of the buildings feature large water pumps leading into the water, rotating machinery, and fans. Though the aesthetic of the buildings and their machinery vary, most have a yellow trim, and feature the Megacorp logo on the walkways. The inner facility can be seen to the east of the landing pad, where one large structure stands above the others, with a yellow pyramid roof in the vague shape of an "M", placed on top of a large island.
Overground facility path[]
The facility.
The overground facility is a large cluster of platforms and buildings. The landing pad is located on a small island next to a few buildings with water pumps, and contains a Megacorp weapons vendor and a teleporter to the interior facility. A small platform across from this contains a Megacorp armor vendor, and behind is a path comprising several exterior walkways connecting the buildings, eventually leading to an island. Along the side of many walkways are small structures from which Megacorp Troopers spawn, along with towers providing the troopers a vantage point, and some metal blocks which provide the troopers cover.
A building near the exterior of the facility.
Near the end of the path is a large tower structure on a platform, adjacent to the island at the very end. The island is a tropical, with mushrooms and flora atop the plateau on which an Ultra-Mech Pad is located, and a taxi stop. This island is where the Mathematician told Ratchet and Clank about the Megacorp Games.
Inner facility path[]
The interior of the facility.
The path through the inner facility is a single long underground thin U-shaped corridor, with machinery along the walls. The path is also heavily guarded, patrolled with Megacorp Sentinels, hovering robots with spotlights that will fire on a target upon detecting them or upon behind hit, while stationary Megacorp Security Turrets produced lines of plasma to eliminate intruders. Megacorp Sweeper Bots (though not visible) cleaned ashes of intruders that were killed.[4]
Part of the Glider segment.
Throughout the corridor are narrow walkways surrounded by a strange orange liquid on either side, rotating fans or circuit grids placed around walls, and cross-shaped metal bars reaching up to the ceiling. High above the corridor path is a core terminal at one end, with the power generator at the other end, past a massive room filled with more of the liquid.[5] A Glider must be used to travel between these two ends of the facility.
Behind the scenes[]
The outside portion of the "Explore the testing facility" mission was designed by Brian Allgier, and programmed by Tim Trzepacz. The level was used as a point of study for how to do Ratchet & Clank level design correclty during the development of Up Your Arsenal, and became a standard to which later levels would be measured against.[6]
The enemies were difficult for Trzepacz to program, however, due to Megacorp Troopers being strafing enemies that used cover, as only Ratchet's character model used the animation bundling system at the time. The solution was thus for the Troopers to be made of two parts that move independently of each other.[6] Scripting waves of enemies was also difficult, as enemies in levels had previously simply been placed and ran along splines. Dobbo's successful level design led to more waves being added, meaning more complex systems were put in place to handle waves, in which every enemy had a link to all enemies that would spawn after dying. This was challenging to program and initially led to bugs.[7]
The last Dynamo section in the inside portion of the "Explore the testing facility" mission (before the Glider segment) was designed by junior designer Mike Stout, who considers it the worst thing he added to the game. Stout tuned the section for himself, without keeping average players in mind, and was dismayed when playtesters found it difficult and failed often.[8] Stout also coded the Dynamo platforms, using art that was taken from elsewhere and upscaled. This art was never replaced, as it did not look bad enough to warrant replacing.[9]
Dobbo went through a few changes in aesthetics and placement of unlockables during development. The color of the water was originally blue instead of green, and the placement of some items at the beginning changed slightly. These changes are present in old prerelease builds, as well as the Retail Employees demo.[10] In terms of unlockable placement, the nanotech boost in the Glider segment originally did not appear[11] and a platinum bolt at the very end of the Glider segment was positioned at a different place from the final release.[12]
Citations[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Going Commando script § "Megacorp Testing Infomercial"
- ↑ Going Commando script § "If you are watching this, you're fired..."
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Find a way out of the underground tunnels (gameplay)"
- ↑ Going Commando, Monsterpedia
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Repair the power generator (gameplay)"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Stout, Garcia July 2011 b 0:33
- ↑ Stout, Garcia July 2011 b 7:04
- ↑ Stout, Garcia July 2011 a 5:45
- ↑ Stout, Garcia July 2011 b 12:47
- ↑ Going Commando, demo version
- ↑ Going Commando, demo version
- ↑ Going Commando, September 4 build
References[]
- Insomniac Games (2003). Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando [Game]. Sony Computer Entertainment. PlayStation 2.
- Stout, Mike; Garcia, Tony [@uselesspodcasts] (2011, July 16). Ratchet & Clank 2 Dev Commentary: 13A - Glider and Mike's Bad Dynamo Setups [Video]. YouTube.
- Stout, Mike; Garcia, Tony [@uselesspodcasts] (2011, July 15). Ratchet & Clank 2 Dev Commentary: 13B - Definitive Ratchet Enemy Setups [Video]. YouTube.