Author: North Side Team

  • FREE PLAYTEST – OPEN TO EVERYONE  August 6, 2025

    FREE PLAYTEST – OPEN TO EVERYONE  August 6, 2025

    The team at North Side is pretty stoked this week, as we’ve just opened the Bot Colony _redux Playtest!

    The Playtest has far more content than the previous Demo, and will be receiving regular updates going forward as we test different slices of the game. Simply go to the Bot Colony _redux Steam store page and click the Playtest link (green button) to request access!

    FREE PLAYTEST ON STEAM

    You’ll receive an email notification and see the game appear in your Steam Library to download. No muss, no fuss!

    For this first phase of the Playtest, we have a preview of the game’s third episode for players to test (and feedback). This episode takes place on an oil rig in the Pacific Ocean, recently abandoned by human staff and taken over by robots!

    You’ll start by flying a Hunter Bot over the oil rig to remove some pesky sentries before landing. After landing, you’ll experience several of the early mission-related dialogue challenges that will be featured in the full game. We’ve enabled 11 of our bot characters for open ended conversation in the Playtest. Discover their personalities as you reveal the story!

    If you get whacked by one of the rig’s hostile patrollers, it’s not game over yet! You’ll be captured and sent to the Humanity Test, where interrogator bots grill you to determine if you’re a flesh and blood human or a next-gen android sent to sabotage the robot rebellion. You’ll have to be thick-skinned and resilient to deal with the bots’ sadistic interrogation techniques!

    The new Playtest is an important next step along our path to release, as we continue to gather valuable player feedback.

    Testing Uptime:

    • We’ll give each Playtest applicant a generous allocation of cloud resources to get started with gameplay during the initial Playtest phase.
    • The more active you are with feedback on the Steam forums and our Discord, the more uptime we will add to your account for cloud resources to play.

    As always, thank you for your interest in Bot Colony _redux and we welcome you to join the Playtest today!

    JOIN THE DISCORD

  • Closed Beta: Accepting new players!

    In recent news, we’ve been running a limited time Closed Beta (invite only). Phase 1 is scheduled to end July 4th, but we’re planning another round soon — be sure to request access on the Bot Colony _redux Steam store page by clicking the Playtest button!  The Closed Beta expands on the demo gameplay to include the Faction robots on the oil rig. As you uncover the origins of the bot rebellion on the rig, you’ll alternate between playing a die-hard communist, a true believer in capitalism, or a Greta-style environmentalist to convince each of the Factions to help you.

    We’ll be activating the next phase of the Closed Beta soon, so after you’ve applied to the Playtest be sure to keep an eye on your Steam notifications and library.
    More content and feature updates will roll out during this phase, and your participation and feedback are critical to help us refine the experience before release.

    Thanks very much for your continued interest in Bot Colony _redux as we work hard to realize the dream of dynamic, unrestricted dialogue in a unique sci-fi adventure!

  • Progress In June: Riot Remaster and Steam Next Fest

    June was a very busy month for the team here at North Side! We completed a comprehensive remastering of the “Riot” level, enhancing the appearance of the oil rig and surrounding environment with Unreal Engine 5.5’s latest rendering features. Side-by-side, compared to the original iteration of the level, the difference is – dare we say – transformative. This is not only a comprehensive update to models, textures, and level design, the new tech also cranks up the atmosphere thanks to immersive Lumen lighting effects.

    On June 9th we launched our new demo to take part in Steam’s Next Fest. The demo gives players a taste of dialogue and exploration (with a dash of self-defense!) on the remastered oil rig, before they’re captured and compelled to take the Humanity Test. Here, you’re strapped to a chair and interrogated by robots to determine if you’re human or perhaps an android spy sent to sabotage their rebellion.

    The Humanity Test is like a reverse of the Voigt-Kamp test in Blade Runner that was used to tell humans from Nexus 5 androids. In our game, you’ll get to say whatever comes to mind (no clicking on dialogue trees with ready-made lines!) to pass the test and survive. You have to stay cool under pressure and outsmart the interrogators to prove your humanity. Each of the bots in the test chamber has its own personality and interrogation style: one leans towards science and research to learn more about people, the other is a cynical, sadistic brute who thinks torture produces the best results. While it sounds pretty serious (and the torture can be pretty nasty!), there’s plenty of dark humour to enjoy throughout the test.

    We learned a great deal from analyzing demo players’ experiences and feedback, so we decided to leave the demo active after Next Fest ended. It’s still available now, and we invite you to give it a shot! Any gameplay feedback or bug reports are greatly appreciated. Feel free to Join our Discord or use the Steam forums to share your comments. Thanks!

  • Goodbye Bot Colony, hello Bot Colony _redux!

    Plan going forward – Jimmy

    Shortly, we plan to retire Bot Colony. We look forward to participating in the Steam Next Fest on June 9 with the free Bot Colony _redux demo.

    On June 16, we plan to kick off the closed beta by invitation. If you’re interested in participating in the closed beta, please reach out – we’ll need to budget servers for this event and invite you to our Discord. We’ll work with Valve to enable all existing paying customers of Bot Colony to transition to Bot Colony _redux and receive a starting game currency allocation. Bot Colony _redux and/or the free demo require cloud resources to run. We have to pay for those resources. We hope Bot Colony _redux will provide a premium immersive experience worth paying for.

    Thank you again for your support!