How about 2 on 2 on 2? It would haver the teamwork of the '99/'00 games, but the competition of the older games.

No Head-to-head-to-head
 

I think that any time you have a game in which there are more than 2 entities (teams or individuals) competing at the same time, informal alliances will result making the game not fair to the better teams. It is only natural that everyone want to bring down the best team thereby moving your own team up in the standings.

It occurred regularly in the 1 on 1 on 1 games in which one of the robots would defend against the good robot while the 3rd robot would try win and get 2nd place for the defensive robot.

If you have only two entities in the match, you have to be very calculating in your tradeoff between offense and defense and "ganging up" on a robot is typically not a good strategy. For instance, in basketball, it is common to double-team a player. But as the saying goes: if someone is being double-teamed, someone else is wide open. In the 2-on-2 game, if one alliance tried to double team a robot, that leaves a lone robot free to score points at will.

Basketball?!?
 

Basketball?!?! Did someone say basketball?

I'm with ya, Chris...

Let's play some HOOPS!!!!

I can see the TechnoKoko-dunk-o-matic now... hmmm...

Andy B.

Well, that's sort of what we did in '00, '98, '96, '94, and the 2 vs. 2 format that we used at this year's Battlecry. I think no matter what you do, it's going to turn out similar to basketball.

Re: Basketball?!?
 

Not to completely knock that, but...
 

There already is a robot-soccer competition. The originality of FIRST really pushes us to think a bit more about what our robots will do and how they will do it. If we just had "play soccer", although I'm sure it would happen in some instances, there wouldnt be as much a variation on concepts for robots. I could write a looooong list of points, but it's late and I'm tired. So please go ahead and whoop my post with a list of points why soccer would be good. :D

More game ideas....
 

If the "announcement" to go back to a competitive game is true- THANK GOD!

I doubt if the staging of the field will change dramatically since FIRST has invested $$ in the arena and it has worked well for the past few years.

Obstacles on the floor might be interesting- 4x4s or strung cables.

My favorite game would be to put a pallet of cinder blocks in the center of the floor. The goal is to build a platform in your end zone. The higher the platform the higher the doubler score. If the robot can get on top of the final structure you get a big bonus. Of course with two pairs of robots working against each other there would be competition for blocks and attacks on the platform while it is being built. It would make for a really exciting game.
Cinder blocks are available everywhere-cheap! Nothing too complex here but a real challenge.

Re: Re: Basketball?!?
 

Rug Rage (1993) was a soccer-like game.

I like the tower-building idea. That would be a game that would be very interesting to design for, play, and watch. It could throw in a whole bundle of added dynamics that affect strategy. Think about it: you could work together and build with your partner, have one bot build while the other scores, just demolish the other team together, or any combo of the three.

Scoring could meet the requisite evilness factor, by all means. You could have height multipliers, points for getting a robot to the top, points for number of bricks, and so on.

It probably won't happen, since there is too much danger involved (robots falling), and falling blocks and bots could do a lot of damage, but it certainly would make for an interesting game. Dean: Are you listening?

It was called "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots".

Along with my Stretch Armstrong, Evil Knevil Stunt Bike, and my Steve Austin Boinic Man Action Figure, that was one of the coolest toys I had as a kid.

Usually, my brothers and I would start socking each other instead of the robots.

Realisically...

You have a good idea there, Carolyn. All robots could be made to have a "button" or trigger that would disable them if touched. It could even make them run at 50% speed for 10 seconds or so... that would be cool.

Or... the playing field could have such a "button". Let's say it's 2v2... If one alliance touches a certain place or trigger on the field, then the other alliance gets hindered somehow, like slowing down or even stopping for 5-10 seconds.

Also... while I'm rambling, we have not played basketball yet. The game I'm thinking of would be 3 on 3, and we would only have to roll out carpet to play it in a high school gym. We would use real basketballs with real 10' high rims. The game would need to be something like "first team to 10 points wins" or something like that. Oh, well... I can dream.

Andy B.

Whoa. I had all of those toys growing up.

My brother and I always laugh about the Bionic Man, how when you push the button on his back to lift the engine it's supposed to make the "bionic sound", but really just sounds stuping like a cricket or something. The "bionic vision" was great too.

My Evil Kneivel bike didn't last long. The ramp that came with the set wasn't big enough for me.

So, did anyone else have the Incredible Domino Rally? That was cool.

Anyway, sorry for being so off-topic. I'll never do it again.

No prob...
 

Off topic, oh well... there's not much else to talk about these days. We can debate about Nationals until we are blue in the face, but FIRST has to work out the solution, no us. So, whether we are talking about how to fix Nationals or what are the coolest toys of the 1970s, it doesn't really matter.

I didn't have the Incredible Domino Rally... just the regular dominos... wow, you were really cool.
Did you have the "Sock-er Boppers" (or something like that)? These were the blow-up plastic things that would go over your hands... they would be worth about 1 day of fun until they would pop from a sharp bop to the head.

Andy B.

I used to have a huge Domino Rally box... I have no idea where it went though. Maybe I can find it when I get home from work and set up a course around the house :) My other favorite toys were model rockets, hot wheels, KNex (sp?), and of course legos.

Now my favorite toys are robots :D

Patrick