This idea was part of the 2025 game jam ideas project.

Robot

Robot controlled by Patreon contributors who get to vote on the choices the robot makes everyday as it moves across the country.

Anyone who contributes to my patreon gets access to a control panel. The control panel has a list of choices the robot has to make on that day, such as which direction to go at a junction. When to charge its batteries. What direction the solar panel should go into. Etc, etc. Majority rules on all votes.

Some of the choices will be for events happening a few hours or days in the future, such as which direction to turn on the road. Or when to charge. Well, other actions are notifications that need immediate attention. Such as how to respond to a civilian who is interacting with the robot. (This allows for multiple choices to happen every single day. And you can join in and contribute more or less as you'd like)

Part of your fee that you pay to the patreon is the maintenance. A live person goes up to the robot and maintains its capabilities. Replaces tires, replaces batteries, fixes broken components, maybe even adds new components. etc.

The robot has a budget and the budget comes from the patreon contributors. If they don't allocate the budget properly, the robot will break down.

Hopefully because these people are contributing money and contributing their consensus across a large group of people, we should have generally good choices on events. For example, if three bad people join the group and pay to try to drive it into traffic, there are 97 people that are choosing not to drive it into traffic. Majority rules. Hopefully people feel like they have ownership of this robot and want to keep its best interests at heart.

Vandalism

Civilian vandalism. Might be a problem. Part of the parts run fee is for someone to follow behind it and provide maintenance. Hopefully that provides enough resources to pay for someone to prevent vandalism from happening. Also, we wouldn't start it in the United States. Home of the assholes.

The choices that we allow the robot to make and the choices that we allow to show up on the control board can be curated so we don't give it impossible or stupid choices. Such as driving into the road etc.