purpose, as Akihabara refuses an offer to join them. The story unfolds to the point where The Hackers' ultimate goal is the Tetron, a mysterious stone that allows viewers to observe events past and future and travel through time. The Tetron is later found out to be an invention of the main character's ancestor Rask (Rusk) and one of his friends, Gateau, finds the Tetron's potential as the key to controlling the universe by controlling time. Rask disregards that potential and hides the Tetron in shards throughout Quintenix. Gateau, who — presumedly — formed The Hackers later on, obtains the Tetron and attempts to proceed with his plan for universal domination, starting with Rask's home planet of Choco (Chocolate Star in Japanese). It is up to the main character to stop Gateau in his space fortress. Development and releaseRobotrek was developed by Quintet and published by Enix. Ancient handled the game's audio. Quintet had previously developed the ActRaiser series, Soul Blazer, and Illusion of Gaia, all released by Enix on the SNES. Quintet first collaborated with Ancient on ActRaiser 2. Robotrek was directed by Quintet president Masaya Hashimoto, who supervised the staff during the project. After assisting on the overseas marketing of ActRaiser, Shinji Futami was promoted to producer for several Quintet games including Robotrek. Reiko Takemoto served as both the chief designer and scenario writer for Robotrek, while Shigemi Kita was its main programmer. The game's original concept was devised three years prior to its release and actual development took a year and a half. As the Japanese title Slapstick implies, the game intentionally features a lighthearted, humorous tone and is officially billed as a "comedy RPG." Takemoto stated that the central theme of robots and their inventor stemmed from the desire to make a game where the player nurtured their own creation. The original gameplay model consisted of the player inventing robots with different abilities that would aid the citizens of a town in their daily lives. The townspeople would then rate how well they were helped, earning the player experience. An army of villains was added, expanded, and worked into the finalized storyline. Difficulties during development included Takemoto having to come up with compelling ideas for the game's plot and Kita having to rethink and recode the battle system several times. The characters, backgrounds, and enemies in Robotrek were designed by a team of Quintet artists. One