Open Letter to the GDC

[Mike Martus]

My favorite game was 2000. Fun to play, lots of action, center goals easy to understand.

I think you have made some good accurate points.

[Michael Sperber]

Originally Posted by Mike Martus

My favorite game was 2000. Fun to play, lots of action, center goals easy to understand..

Not to mention the mad rush to the chin-up bar!

[Bob Steele]

I have to agree with a previous poster in that the survey is flawed in that most present participants weren't exposed to the older games.

You find that many students have a close association with their first game... no matter what it was.

I don't think that robots playing soccer or basketball is a good way to go.

I think that a relatively simple game with lots of action and plenty of scoring is what is the best game to observe.

Do you really want to see robots playing tennis?

Scoring should be visible and easy to follow.
Overdrive was a good example.
Spectators did not like that game because it was like NASCAR... they liked it because of the excitment of the HUGE blue and red balls traveling around the track and lifting and tossing the ball over a goal rack. If you asked many pure spectators....most did not even know that teams got points by going around the track.

Clear scoring... lifting objects... throwing them....placing them in an obvious pattern...
Large scoring pieces also make it more exciting.

An exciting climax of the game is important too..
with possibly game changing consequences.

Traditional sports have followings because they have been around for awhile...

Imagine creating a game where you hit a little ball with a stick and go walk after it until it finally falls into a little hole...

That doesn't sound too interesting... but look at how many people love to play it and watch it. They have a connection to it.

I think spectators like to see big, fast, exciting things happening....

Lifting a robot... throwing objects.... moving quickly and precisely .... lifting an object...
accumulating objects and putting them a goal..
these are the types of things that spectators like.

They really don't care or even know that the robots operate autonomously... and most of our best work in automatic control isn't even noticed...

I think the GDC has done a pretty good job most years with making something that was interesting to watch...

They have such a huge job....it is a testament to their abilities that they give us such neat games to play.... considering everything they are trying to get done...

I don't want to see robots playing basketball
or soccer or volleyball...

I want something different that is easy to understand if I am a spectator

[davidthefat]

Personally, I would agree with you (OP). I was not fully exposed to FRC until last year, which coincidentally was "soccer". Now I first heard of FRC from a friend whose brother was part of team 696. He explained that the robot played "basketball". Now that got me interested. Personally, if I was unaware of FRC until this year, I would not have even bothered to join.

[PayneTrain]

Aim High, Frenzy, and Lunacy are the best games that have ever been made. Frenzy had previous positives to games with some new challenges thrown in. Aim High was a barrel full of crazy scoring. Aim High and Frenzy married and created Lunacy, which was the slick offspring of the two.

Take something great like Aim High, put in a little crazy and necessary variations, and you have a great game like Lunacy.

Take Rack n' Roll, put it on a wall, and pop up towers and you have Rack n' Droll...err Logo Motion.

Kidding aside, I'm anticipating how GDC will approach the 2012 game.

[DonRotolo]

Ah, the eternal struggle of the GDC. They put an awful lot of thought into games (and rules), but if you really consider it, they have a very difficult job. Have some sympathy.

That being said, I like the OP and agree with it in spirit.

The next step is to write our your ideas for games and (somehow) get them to Bill Miller. He'll make sure they are considered. The more detailed and specific, the better, but remember that games also need to be realistic in terms of cost, logistics, field reset, scoring, and so on.

Who knows, maybe your game ideas will form the basis of next year's game!

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I think the GDC has a touch challenge in mixing explainability, scoring and challenge.

As someone who did crowd control, breakway was not as easy to explain as lunacy. "robot soccer plus try to hang the robot at the end" is easy enough to explain. Then the scores came out. Penalties affected the scores so much that it confused people. With lunacy, there were penalties, but they weren't such a significant part of the score. Bringing the score down from 5 to 0 is harder to explain.

I think other games are easy to explain. Like next year could be "collect groups of oversized cards to get 21". It's a concept people have heard before - from gambling. And Lunacy wasn't hard to explain - "try to get the balls into a trailer while the other robots try to stop you." Not a sport, but an easy concept.

Basically, I think explainability is more important than a sports analogy. The environment itself provides the link to sports - cheering in the stands and the like.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

One of my all time favorite games was 2000 when only 392 teams were part of the competition playing at only 10 regional events.

[Tristan Lall]

Looks like I'm in good company (with Al and Mike)—the 2000 game is probably my favourite as well. (And Chief Delphi's 2000 robot has always been a favourite of mine—one of the best all-around robots ever.)

I agree with at least part of the original poster's premise: 2009's Lunacy is way down on the list. But I think that's because it was a frantic mess played with neutered robots, and not because it didn't resemble a sport.