[dhitchco]

Some additional random thoughts on game design (from a mentor to a rookie team...so there's not much "history" here).

1) Three teams per alliance is great. Not much in the real world gets done by one person, much less two (except in marriage..). Three is a good number.

2) Two alliance is good. Clear definition of "winner" and "loser", even though this whole event is NOT about winning & losing. Three alliances gets too convoluted for choosing partners in the finals.

3) Driver's view of filed needs to be more "flattened" like the 16:9 format of movie screens. So, move the drivers to the "longer edge" of the field.

4) Game needs to represent "real life" tasks on THREE dimensions. So doing tasks "up high" (like topping the tetra goals) as well as "down low" (like some tunnels or soemthing) is good for 3-dimensions as is driving tasks such as ramps, stairs, etc.

5) There are plenty of "obstacles" in the game such as running into another robot, or hitting a fallen tetra or game piece, or fixed field pieces. No need to create more land mines, etc.

6) There needs to be much more POSITIVE FEEDBACK to the drivers on events such as "in the zone" by way of a light, etc like a hockey goal. There was a lot of ambiguity this year about foot faults, robots in the loading zone, etc

7) The alliance lights (red/green) are a moot point in that they're impossible to see. Make the robots wear a standard "bib apron" but it is good to novices to see two "team colors"...Plus it keeps the whole subject about color preference alive.

7) Now, for something unique, I'd like to see the drivers in the MIDDLE of the field. They would need to see/drive around themselves. Could be accomplished by switching off drivers that face each other, or make the driver stations pivot, etc. WOW.