[apalrd]

Good things about a game:

-Easy to understand scoring objectives and at least relative weighting (e.g. higher goals are better) for the audience. This is the highest objective.

-Lowest level task is approachable by a weak teams
-Highest level task is a challenge for the best teams

-There are not too many ways to score. In fact, as few as possible different ways to score is better. Varying the height or size of targets but leaving the scoring otherwise the same, is considered one way to score.

-Autonomous has to be worth doing.

-Endgame has to be worth doing. It should have the capability to swing most matches if executed well or failed, but not so much that winning or loosing it is totally devastating for the loser (2011 fails, it's worth too much). The bridges of 2012 are well-balanced. 2010 is actually fairly close to balanced, only because the average team could score so little.

-The winning move must always be to win, as an alliance There are some cases where the seeding system changes so the winning move might be to not win. That makes little sense to the audience (who are very important). In 2012, the cooperatition bridge was very very bad for this in quals. In 2010, there were some cases where it was desirable to score for the opposing alliance in a '6v0' match play, or even to score for them after (or even before in one case) guaranteeing a win for yourself to game the seeding system, which heavily weighted close wins over total blowouts (the winner received their score + 2x losers score + 5pts, the loser received only the winners score). The winning move in Elims is always to win, anything that really changes the game between Quals and Elims will make the game confusing for spectators and will reduce the quality of the seeding ranks.


And, for completely personal preference, I prefer games where the GDC does not limit the number of objects one team can carry. I do like games where its hard to carry multiples, and I like 2005. I also like 2005 and 2007 because I haven't personally written code for a double-jointed arm with linked motions outside of simulation (the 2011 elevator-arm is linked-state but the joints are not dependent on each other), and it would be fun. The 'Get Tetra From Belly' move sounds like fun too.