[Scott Kozutsky]

My 2 cents about the game, as an alumni who was not deeply invested in the competition this year (mostly a spectator):

Themed game diminished the "sport" feel that, IMO, FIRST should be going for. I agree it felt like a cheap app.

There was LOTS going on at once and it made it hard to figure out what was actually happening. There was certainly a difficulty curve in watching and understanding matches beyond knowing the rules. Lots of actions scored points (of different values, under different conditions), arbitrary jump in score after breach, unclear scoreboard and fouls made for a hectic game to watch.

Fouls this year were a mess. There were lots of fouls, little consistency and a large grey area. It was borderline impossible to figure out what had been called by watching the match, which is frustrating for spectators, teams and (I assume) refs answering questions. IMO they were also weighed too heavily and swayed too many close matches.

Robots losing comm happened too often.

All robots could effectively participate.

Excellent variation in robot design.

(from what I could tell) It was a great engineering challenge.

Exciting to watch.