Tutorial: your first map
In about twenty minutes you'll build a small place with a robot in it that players can talk to.
If you would rather read the finished thing than build it, open a tutorial from the start screen instead — one of them covers this same ground, already built.
1. Start a map
Start a new map on the start screen, then take the first scenario offered: the bare one. You get a small patch of floor and a spawn point, and nothing else.
2. Extend the ground
The patch is four tiles, eight metres across, so give yourself room. The quickest way is to select one of the tiles already there and Duplicate it — the copy is the same size, so the seams line up.
For a different look, search the left sidebar's library for floor and drag a piece in. They come in several sizes; a large one covers ground fast, small ones let you make an irregular shape.
Add walls and props the same way — a preview follows your cursor as you drag, so you can see where a piece lands before you drop it. Got it wrong? Ctrl+Z.
3. Line up your entities
Entities (anything placed in your map) snap to a half-unit grid as you move them, which is what keeps a kit-built floor tight. The grid button in the viewport turns this off when you want to place something freely. Two tools in the arrange toolbar clean up the rest: surface snap and drop onto surface below, so nothing is left floating or overlapping.
Select two or more entities and three more tools join the toolbar:
- Align lines them up.
- Distribute spaces them out evenly.
- Group joins them together, so you can move them as one.
More in tools and arranging.
4. Choose where the player starts
The bare scenario ships one already: the Start entity in the explorer, carrying a Spawn Location component and nothing else. That is where the player materialises — select it and move it somewhere with a view of what you just built.
Starting from a map with no spawn at all? Players then appear near the centre of the map. To choose the spot, create an entity of its own and give it a Spawn Location.
Leave the spawn point on its own. Don't add it to a robot or a prop.
5. Add a robot
Drag in the Robot prefab. It arrives able to talk: a body, an Agent, and a written personality behind it.
Select it and the inspector shows what it leaves up to you:
- Personality — its bio, knowledge and speech examples. Open it and make it yours.
- Voice — a voiceset, e.g. one of the
aws-*voices. You will not hear it until you play. - Plastic and Metal — swatches. The quickest way to make it look like your robot.
Copbot and MuniciPal Robot are the other two prefabs, each with their own character already written. See robots and personalities for what goes in a personality.
TIP
Building a robot by hand instead? Give an entity Humanoid Body Parts for the body and an Agent for the mind. The copbot model is one baked mesh, so it ignores the swatches — pair that one with Appearance instead.
6. Give it something to talk about
Your robot knows who it is, but nothing about your map yet.
Write a lore asset — a block of text on one subject — and point the robot's personality at it under Knowledge. That is what a prefab robot draws on; its own about field is fixed.
A scenery entity works the other way round: give it a Point of Interest and set its About to that same lore, and the player can ask about the statue in the square. One lore asset, both robots and scenery — or a lore collection where you want several at once.
7. Play it
- Click Play at the top.
- The editor checks your map first. If something is wrong, it tells you what to fix instead.
- The Robotopia game opens on your map. Walk up to your robot and say hello.
Where to go next
- Writing personalities that behave: make your robot fun to talk to.
- Design a map that plays well: turn one room into a place.
- Playtest in the game: try it, fix it, try again.
- Components: every setting on every component.