[Official 2007 Game Design] Game Elements and Subtasks

[Lil' Lavery]

How about having big street hockey pucks instead of air hockey. Pucks are fun to manipulate, and you could give bonuses for having them stacked at the end of the game or scoring stacked pucks (makes for some cool manipulators).
One thing I loved this year is the wide-open field. I enjoyed the lack of bottlenecks at the middle of the field. I'm not against large field elements, but I like them where they don't impede travel too much (like the ramps this year). I wouldn't mind something like the see-saw in 2001, because a short robot could go around it easily. Speed bumps or something in the middle would be fine too. The thing I didn't like about 2004 is that a strong robot could often trap a robot that wasn't meant to go on the ramp on the other side of the field, eliminating them for most of the match from scoring. You could also stop people under the bar as well. Instead of allowing you to move around and escape the defense, it just gave them other places to bottleneck you.
I <3 Real time scoring. It made the strategy so much more intense because every point you scored, they could score right back on you. So this year, more than any other, it mattered alot WHEN you scored, not just THAT you scored. It also allowed for great late game come-backs and finishes without involving any sort of "king of the hill" points (which I do like though). Real-time also made the game more audience-friendly and sports-like, which tends to be better for publicity and generating excitement. I even remembering hearing a spectator sitting behind me saying during the VCU finals "this is better than the basketball here!" (or something along those lines).