Unusual, potential game pieces

[nuclearnerd]

I love speculating about future games, and surprisingly I haven't found an old thread talking about game pieces in particular. So I thought we'd talk about what would make a good game piece so that we might be able to identify the beginnings of a future game.

IMO, a good game piece:

• is durable
• is cheap and abundant
• is relatively light
• won't cause injury
• is fun to toss around, and looks good on camera
• hasn't been used before (though we can let this slide if the game uses an old piece in a way that requires new designs)
• is reasonably consistent between manufacturing batches (edit, as suggested)

Thinking about what fits those criteria, and hasn't yet been used I've come up with a few candidates:

• football or nerf footballs (oblig.)
• badminton birdies
• cheese wheels (or perhaps a rubber tire)
• batons or javelins (perhaps from pvc pipe)
• Ringette rings
• Bean Bags
• Bowling Pins (hollow)
• Ball on Ropes (dog toy)
• Flutterboards
• Great big or heavy pieces that can't be lifted, only pushed (perhaps tethered to the field)
• the beach ball I had as a kid that had a weight to one side so it flew crazily (can't find anything similar online though)

What do you think? Have I missed any good candidates? Are there other criteria for what makes a good gamepiece? Do any of these spark some ideas for game rules?

[Koko Ed]

I'm still holding out for FIRST using these for game pieces.

[Noudvanbrunscho]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I'm still holding out for FIRST using these for game pieces.

Oh that would be cool. i would love an 'wierd shape/hard to grab' gamepiece. Only 135 more days .

[Richard Wallace]

Several years ago someone posted a picture of Dave Lavery holding a ~10 inch long piece of 3" sched 40 PVC pipe, capped at both ends. The thing resembled a giant drug capsule, suitable for medicating a blue whale or some similarly massive fictional creature.

I imagined it half full of pea gravel, to make its center of gravity shift while it is being handled so that manipulation by a robot is more challenging.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Traffic cones.

[chrisfl]

American footballs

[tindleroot]

Another "good game piece" criterium: NOT inflated.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

IMO, a good game piece:

• is durable
• is cheap and abundant
• is relatively light
• won't cause injury
• is fun to toss around, and looks good on camera
• hasn't been used before (though we can let this slide if the game uses an old piece in a way that requires new designs)

While I completely agree that those points can help identify a good game piece, I can't help by come up with recent exceptions to all of them. Orbit balls, for example, were not durable or abundant. A number of game pieces, if ejected from the field, weren't particularly safe - frisbee to the head, or a huge ball from Over Drive knocking people over. Totes aren't particularly light weight, or cheap in the quantities needed for an off-season event. It's incredibly difficult to find a really good game piece. Most pieces are deficient in some area.

I would add to the list that game pieces need to be accessible to teams of all skill levels. Having a game piece that some teams (especially rookies!) Can't effectively interact with is pretty bad, in my opinion!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

While I completely agree that those points can help identify a good game piece, I can't help by come up with recent exceptions to all of them. Orbit balls, for example, were not durable or abundant. A number of game pieces, if ejected from the field, weren't particularly safe - frisbee to the head, or a huge ball from Over Drive knocking people over. Totes aren't particularly light weight, or cheap in the quantities needed for an off-season event. It's incredibly difficult to find a really good game piece. Most pieces are deficient in some area.

I would add to the list that game pieces need to be accessible to teams of all skill levels. Having a game piece that some teams (especially rookies!) Can't effectively interact with is pretty bad, in my opinion!

Most of the bad things about frisbees and trackballs could have been mitigated with either rule or field changes.

Orbit balls? I pretend that year never happened.

And when did we use totes in the modern era? No game has used totes.[1]


But I think the OP had a good list of what would be optimal. Obviously choosing a suboptimal game piece happens at times.


[1] Like Mini bots and Jar Jar Binks these things never happened in my mind. A significant amount of therapy was required for this, I can suggest a guy.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

• Bean Bags

See Floppies from the 1999 game

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

See Floppies from the 1999 game

Oh cool, I hadn't seen Double Trouble before. Interestingly the Floppies really fail the "looks good on camera" test - they're pretty lifeless.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

[*]cheese wheels (or perhaps a rubber tire)

I think some teams would have an inherent advantage with cheese wheels (looking at you, Wisconsin and 1086)

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

• is fun to toss around, and looks good on camera

Are there other criteria for what makes a good gamepiece?

Needs to also look good from the stands, so visible from 100 feet away.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Spectrum has a mock game we are working on putting the rules together for that involves used car tires and rugby balls.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I would add to the list that game pieces need to be accessible to teams of all skill levels. Having a game piece that some teams (especially rookies!) Can't effectively interact with is pretty bad, in my opinion!

I believe the game rules can either aggravate or alleviate the shortcoming that you are describing. 2015's divided field with no robot to robot interaction beyond the can wars between alliances serves as an example of a rule set that operated to reduce the effectiveness of robots with limited game piece manipulation abilities. Having a role for limited ability robots should be a key consideration for the GDC every year imo. Unlike 2015, many games from the past have at a minimum allowed some defensive role and a lesser scoring role for these robots (examples include: defensive inbound pass-blocking and shot-blocking; offensive bridge balancing in 2012; offensive low goal and passive low climb/hang in 2013; offensive assist in 2014.

By the same token, I would not want to see another game in which the role of the limited ability robot is restricted to serving as an anchor point for a piece of string. The performance floor for a limited ability robot should be reasonable, attainable and meaningful to the outcome of their matches.