Splatterbot is a quality family-friendly party game about making a big mess

Need a new game to play with friends and family? Splatterbot is a good choice and it's a great laugh if you're a bit competitive. Note: a key was provided to GamingOnLinux.

Released September 3rd from developer Hey! Kookaburra, it has a Native Linux version. No current Steam Deck rating from Valve, but I can assure you it works perfectly. It's a local multiplayer splat-fest, where you each control a little cleaning robot. The bots have gone rogue though, and instead of cleaning up you're spreading paint everywhere as quickly as you possibly can.

It's a competitive game for up to 4 players (with AI bots available), where each player has a different colour, with you individually controlling a little bot to drive around the little arenas and cover them in your colour. So it's a bit like a mini Splatoon but with robot vacuums and small arenas.

It's funny as hell once you get going, with rounds that don't overstay their welcome but are long enough for you to really get into it with your friends and family. Nice little choice of dynamic maps too, each with their own interesting ways you use the map to your advantage. My favourite is easily the wrestling-like arena with the bouncy ropes, which can be total chaos once you've all picked up a few power-ups to increase your size, and spawn some coloured balls — with all 4 of you zipping and bouncing around.

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Very accessible for a younger (or older) audience with the super-simple controls. We were repeatedly beaten by a pre-teen in our testing of it, so that says a lot about it and we all had a great time with it. The amount of times they managed to bounce me into the water on one particular map — annoying! But funny.

With a mixture of power-ups like increasing your speed, size, make a big colour splat and rolling balls with your colour - it all fills up quickly. The key is using every power-up and the map layout to your advantage, to overwrite everyone else's colour with yours. The power-ups spawn in randomly, so it's a case of who can get to them first so no one really has any advantage here. Even if you manage to increase your size, another player may be able to get the speed power-ups so it's just a question of who can splat the most.

My main wish for Splatterbot is that it had a wider assortment of power-ups, as the rolling balls don't work especially well on some of the maps. If they had a few different ones for each map, that would have been perfection.

Other than that it firmly succeeds on the core idea of it to bring people together for a good laugh. Chaotic, great fun and works perfectly. One to add to your party list for sure.