Best FIRST Game EVER?

[BenHildy]

Originally Posted by BumblingBuilder

I have a feeling this thread was inspired by our discussion heading home from North Star....

Partly, yes. However I'm also just generally curious. That's why the discussion on the bus happened in the first place

[SteveGPage]

My $0.02:

FTC - 2010 - Hot Shot. Only game I ever coached a team. It helped that we (Under the Son) were the World Champs that year, too!

FRC:
1. Aim High - loved the offense and defense periods, as well as the end game.
2. Ultimate Ascent - fast moving, great challenge, loved climbing the tower.
3. Stronghold (after the season, I'll have a better chance to reflect on this and not be just comparing this year to last year!)

[chrisfl]

2014 Aerial Assist was probably the best game. It was a lot of strategy on the drivers side as literally anything could happen. We also had families saying they would invite their friends over to watch our events as if it was a football game. I really liked the 2012 game, Rebound Rumble, but I feel it came before its time. There were a lot of low scoring matches as it was hard to score and I'd love to see the game now with more advanced vision software and technology.

[BenHildy]

Originally Posted by SteveGPage

My $0.02:

FTC - 2010 - Hot Shot. Only game I ever coached a team. It helped that we (Under the Son) were the World Champs that year, too!

FRC:
1. Aim High - loved the offense and defense periods, as well as the end game.
2. Ultimate Ascent - fast moving, great challenge, loved climbing the tower.
3. Stronghold (after the season, I'll have a better chance to reflect on this and not be just comparing this year to last year!)

I agree with Aim High being pretty high up there. With it being only the second year with a three-team alliance, the whole idea of the robots switching between periods of offense and defense created some truly interesting robot designs. Also the challenge of shooting into a minuscule hole challenged the programming teams more than ever before. Finally, the added difficulty of driving up a fairly steep ramp at the end was fun!

[bduddy]

I tried making a list once, then decided it was too hard. So, here instead, is my tier list of the 16 games I have any knowledge of. (The first game I saw in person is 2004, but I feel like I know enough about the three before that to judge them). Games are not ranked within a tier.

Tier 1
2014 - Aerial Assist
2006 - Aim High

Tier 2
2016 - Stronghold
2013 - Ultimate Ascent
2012 - Rebound Rumble
2005 - Triple Play
2004 - FIRST Frenzy

Tier 3
2010 - Breakaway
2008 - FIRST Overdrive
2007 - Rack n Roll
2002 - Zone Zeal

Tier 4
2015 - Recycle Rush
2011 - Logomotion
2009 - Lunacy

Tier 5
2003 - Stack Attack
2001 - Diabolical Dynamics

My opinion only, of course. Aim High is really the one where I leaned more on public opinion, because I saw very little of that game.

I'd really like to learn enough about the first 9 games to rate them, but there isn't that much video out there or anything...

[Conor Ryan]

I would really like to see a reboot of a challenge similar to FIRST Frenzy. 3v3 instead of 2v2. The game still stands as a very difficult challenge.

My Favorite Games:
04 - FIRST Frenzy - So many ways to play the game in an effective manner. Human player was able to influence the outcome.
Cons: Some parts were ahead of its time, field had a lot of things going on.

13 - Aerial Assist - The game piece we always wanted.
Cons: The injuries

14 - Ultimate Accent - THE STRATEGY OMG. I still don't think people understand how to play this game.
Cons: No End Game. Arguably the single most difficult engineering challenge with climbing and shooting.

06 - Aim High - Fun way to score.
Cons: My Robot sounded like a rusty shopping cart. Scoring options were limited, not much variety in strategy.

[thatprogrammer]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

I would really like to see a reboot of a challenge similar to FIRST Frenzy. 3v3 instead of 2v2. The game still stands as a very difficult challenge.

My Favorite Games:
04 - FIRST Frenzy - So many ways to play the game in an effective manner. Human player was able to influence the outcome.
Cons: Some parts were ahead of its time, field had a lot of things going on.

13 - Aerial Assist - The game piece we always wanted.
Cons: The injuries

14 - Ultimate Accent - THE STRATEGY OMG. I still don't think people understand how to play this game.
Cons: No End Game. Arguably the single most difficult engineering challenge with climbing and shooting.

06 - Aim High - Fun way to score.
Cons: My Robot sounded like a rusty shopping cart. Scoring options were limited, not much variety in strategy.

I think you have 13 and 14 confused

[RonAyyyyyyyy]

I think Ultimate Ascent was by far the best game just because of the strategic variety. There were so many ways to contribute meaningfully to an alliance and because of that, so many different types of robots (floor load sweepers, full court shooters, pure cyclers, 50 point end games).

But my personal favorite is Aerial Assist, I personally liked the strategy behind that game a lot more.

[macman828]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

2000 (Coopertition FIRST) was easily the best game in my mind. It could be played on TV and do well. It had everything that makes a great game for me:

1) Great race at the start of the match to tip the balance, but the advantage can be overcome.

2) The scoring is at the center of the field, so you can see all of the action.

3) You can always tell who's winning just by looking at the field - no need for real-time scoring.

4) Many ways to play the game led to many different robot designs.

5) Great end game

6) Great strategies

To me, 2000 is the only game that could make it in front of a non-FIRST audience.

I agree. As a students it was close enough to 1998 Ladder Logic game that we knew where to start. We had a blast. Team 170 back then.

[who716]

Well I think recycle rush and lunacy would be my top two picks hahahahaa just kidding....


Aerial assist for sure is my number one nothing beats a game where it comes down to defense to win and a smart strategy

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by Lobão

2004 First Frenzy
Always say that.
Different ways to score, 2 sizes of balls, movable parts, great field with big obstacles but plenty of space to move and the human player could make difference too.

FRC 2007 Rack n´Roll
Strategy game (board game with robots) with great autonomous challenge and interaction between robots (one climbing the other at the end)

Agree with you here. Especially FIRST Frenzy. The first Autonomous.
Both of these games had a visual component that the audience could use to gauge the performance of the alliances.

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

2000 (Coopertition FIRST) was easily the best game in my mind. It could be played on TV and do well. It had everything that makes a great game for me:

1) Great race at the start of the match to tip the balance, but the advantage can be overcome.
2) The scoring is at the center of the field, so you can see all of the action.
3) You can always tell who's winning just by looking at the field - no need for real-time scoring.
4) Many ways to play the game led to many different robot designs.
5) Great end game
6) Great strategies

To me, 2000 is the only game that could make it in front of a non-FIRST audience.

The first game with a hang. All of the game pieces stayed on the field.
There was a legitimate endgame of hanging or trying to get on the ramp.

Originally Posted by Wert3141

I thought 2012 (Rebound Rumble) was an amazingly well designed game. It was very easy for newcomers to follow and watch, the real time scoring was spot on, it had just the right amount of defense, and the end game was insane to watch.

Very true.

While I love Stronghold, the endgame is not quite as exciting as Rebound Rumble or Rack"n"Roll. Unless the Robots scale the Tower.

Similar to Aerial Assist, or Ultimate Ascent, the game pieces are recycled or disappear, requiring the audience to watch the scoring screen to assess the progress of the match. Requires a good Game Announcer to build suspense.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by who716

Well I think recycle rush and lunacy would be my top two picks hahahahaa just kidding....

Lunacy had great game theory.
While you were scoring, you could be scored upon.
It also had the best introduction.
Lunacy Introduction
The static electricity issues with the Regolith were amusing.
Dean himself was observed on the field with a water bottle sprayer at a competition.

[Nathan Streeter]

Of the seasons I've been significantly involved in (2006-2016):

My personal opinion is if a lot of the "older" games, that most everyone loved at the time (Aim High, for instance), were repeated many would like the game less. The standards are higher for games now, and our more distant memories tend to be tinted positively or negatively...

Tier 1 - Games that seem fantastic top-to-bottom
2016 - Stronghold
2013 - Ultimate Ascent
2010 - Breakaway

Tier 2 - Games that had a lot going for them, but with a non-trivial flaw or two
2015 - Recycle Rush
2012 - Rebound Rumble
2011 - Logomotion
2008 - Overdrive
2006 - Aim High

Tier 3 - Generally good games, with at least one element that significantly tarnished the game
2014 - Aerial Assist
2007 - Rack 'n Roll

Tier 4 - I'd really rather not compete in this game again
2009 - Lunacy

[JackN]

In this context I think Best and Favorite have very different meanings.

To me the two BEST games that FIRST has released since I have been involved (2005-Present) are Aerial Assist and Aim High. These two games are the closest I think FIRST has ever come to nailing the idea of competition robotics. In my opinion FIRST should be striving to create games that are easily accessible to the average person and could be broadcast on TV.

Aim High works because it is so conceptually simple. Three robots try to shoot balls into a goal, most balls wins. I think the other variations on this idea (2012/2016) have tried to introduce more elements that generally detract from what makes this game so fun, the ball shooting. Of the ball shooting games this had the easiest goal and I think it works because teams of all skill level could contribute pretty easily. My only complaint was the shooting speed limits because I think that did limit some of the more interesting possibilities for the game.

Aerial Assist is the closest we have ever come to a full contact game where teams have to play offense and defense. It is fairly simple conceptually and could work for the general public, though assists are kind of a weird concept in practice. Having said all of that, I honestly think that this game played out pretty miserably in practice and I have never figured out why anyone likes it. The game always struck me as very shallow strategically, with every alliance eventually doing the same thing by championship.

My personal favorite game is Ultimate Ascent for a variety of reasons. You could replay that game two or three years in a row with zero changes, and the best robot design would change every single year which I think is mind boggling. The diversity of alliance composition and strategy exhibited at the highest levels was so interesting to me and unique in almost any game designed by FIRST. All four Einstein alliances attempted to play the game in a completely different way, which is something that never happens in any game. I think this game's flaw is that there were so many different and unique things happening that it is pretty hard to impossible to tell who was winning at most times, so it would probably be a bad game for the general public. Even still, I would love to play this game again and it is my favorite game ever designed.

[Taylor]

Why is FIRST Stronghold not on the poll?