[FRC Blog] The 2016 Season, by the Numbers

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

I disagree.
Most of the people I showed the game to thought the medieval theme was too childish. The times where we got the best response during demos of our robot we just explained it as a Dodgeball robot.

I had quite a different experience. I explained the game as a tower-defense game to most people and they seemed quite excited by it. This especially appealed to high schoolers who have experience playing tower-defense games but might not have been interested in robotics. At the end of the day, appealing to high schoolers is kinda the point. The theme made the game easier to explain and more interesting to watch for outsiders. I also liked the medieval fanfare because it added a bit of flavor and excitement to the events (also felt pretty sweet carrying a division standard onto the field ). I'm not sure how long they'll be able to come up with unique, well-integrated themes (perhaps a 4-year theme cycle?) I also think that one of the reasons that FIRST Stronghold is one of the most beloved FRC games in recent history is that it had such a strong driving vision behind it. You might say that that Stronghold would have been better with the exact same game, without the theme, but I highly doubt the current game design would have been reached without the theme.