Build a scrapyard war-machine from rusted parts. Deploy. Watch it ride or blow up.

Scrapyard Automata is a physics build-a-robot game. You assemble a contraption from rusted beams, wheels, armor, warheads and detonators in a workshop, then send it off on a side-scrolling mission. You don't drive it - you design it. Event-based rules handle the behavior. Your machine rolls out on its own. If it fails, tweak the design and try again.

What you do

• Build - Snap together chassis beams, motor wheels, plows, armor, fenders, warheads, and more. Parts join where anchor points line up.
• Program - Attach if-this-then-that rules to parts. No code, just conditions and actions.
• Deploy - Launch the machine into a mission. Each level has its own objective, terrain, and hazards.
• Iterate - Fail, study, rebuild. Each level unlocks new parts.

The world

Junkyard dieselpunk. Rust, oil, warning-stripe amber, cracked CRT glass. You're a mechanic for a forgotten army, building throwaway machines out of whatever the scrapyard coughs up.

Missions

1. Rolling Start - Roll east, detonate the mine. A rookie deployment.
2. Timed Detonation - Punch through obstacles, kill the armored sentry.
3. Warhead Run - Deliver two RPG warheads through the artillery zone.
4. Fuel Depot - Demolish the perimeter, crater the enemy fuel cistern.

Controls

• Left-click + drag - pick up and place parts in the workshop.
• Q / E - rotate the selected part by 15° (hold Shift to rotate just one part instead of the whole connected assembly, or vice versa).
• Right-click a deployed part - open its inspector / rule editor.
• Deploy / Return - toolbar buttons (or use the on-screen controls).

Built for

Gamedev.js Jam 2026 - theme: Machines.

Scrapyard Automata is my first game released as part of my solo project FrolicForge. If folks enjoy it I'll keep building on it past the jam (more parts, sensors, a credits/economy layer, sandbox mode, neural-net brain stretch goal).

Stack

Game: TypeScript + Vite (build) + Rapier2D (physics) + PixiJS (rendering). No game engine.

Music: internal Python tooling - procedural generation