[Official 2008 Game Design] Game Elements and Subtasks

[Billfred]

I'd like to see an endgame which offers an edge (but not an outright License To Pwn) to teams that apply a little bit of technological finesse. I implemented one in the game design I put in the other thread: six vision targets, one over each player station, with an X on the floor a few feet from the wall. Towards the end of the match, five of those lights cut off. Teams then try to have their alliance's robot closest to the middle of the X for bonus points. Obviously, this could be done through brute-force (drive and hope you hit it), but a good implementation of the CMUcam would allow teams to simply mash a button and let the robot do the plowing for them.

Or, if the low-tech endgame persists, let's at least have a challenge. Anybody can hang from a ten-foot bar, but George Wallace mentioned a devious idea after UCF this year: a three-foot bar. Getting off the ground is suddenly a bit trickier, especially if the game still requried tall robots elsewhere.

Finally, I had an idea involving a bridge similar to the one in Diabolical Dynamics. Imagine if endgame points were scored for having opposing robots on the bridge; the robot that's higher gets a bigger bonus. However, neither team gets a bonus if the bridge is touching the carpet. It's a lot harder than the 2001 bridge--it didn't see two robots fighting against each other--but a sufficient reward might make it worth trying.