What has been your favorite FIRST game?
Which game did you think was…
>Most fun to watch
>Most fun to play/operate
>Had the best autonomous mode
>Sufficiently challenging (not unfair to rookie teams)
>Had the best challenge (pushing boxes, shooting balls)
>Generated a wide variety of diverse designs
I don’t want to know what game your team did best at, I’m just curious to know which game was everyones favorite.
I’ve seen four years of FIRST games (Stack Attack, Raising the Bar, Triple Play, Aim High), all of which were good, but some were definitely better than others. My personal favorites have been Stack Attack and Aim High, both of which were exiting to watch and offered large open playing fields, allowing robots to zoom about unobstructed.
Also, what made that game great? Why did you like it.
In order, my favorite three from the past 5 years of involvement…
1.) AIM HIGH
By far the most amazing game, it had it all, and didn’t involve PVC goals on casters! It was different! Periods! Shooting above the player stations!
2.) Stack Attack
Boxes are fun, plus we won two regionals.
3.) Triple Play
No balls, three robots, cool ideas. Really neat.
I can say that I did not care for Raising the Bar, it was a rehash of previous years, and frankly, seeing more balls and PVC goals made me roll my eyes.
For me it was the most exciting to watch. Robots climbing up ramps and trying to hang, capping 2x balls on goals, HP’s throwing balls in those goals. It was a chance for the HP’s to make some really big plays.
I didn’t really enjoy Stack Attack because I felt like it ended up being king of the hill wins all.
Triple Play I enjoyed, not as much going on though.
I really did like Aim High this year. At first I didn’t think so, but once you got a hang of the game, it was quite exciting and “different”.
But Raising the Bar was still my absolute favorite!
2000, for sure. I only saw one off-season event that year, but that game was amazing. It had fairly simple scoring, it was pretty well balanced, exciting to watch, and had a great “finishing move” with the original hanging bar. All together, it made for a great game to watch, and a great game to play.
As a side note, according to a demographic profile of ChiefDelphi forum members in the past year (4/05-4/06), the average rookie year is 2002. This may skew things towards the later years.
My favorite was 1999, but that was probably due to the way our robot was tooled to play the game. Seeing 4 robots on the “puck”, all with baskets 10 feet in the air was pretty cool.
With the development of FIRST robot technology, game strategy, and drivetrain improvements, that game would be amazing to see again.
Come to think of it… any game from 1995-2000 would be neat to see played with today’s robots.
I know. koko Ed suggested that I include all the games so as to let people talk about what the old games were like. Personaly I’m quite interested; someone has already voted for Torriod Terror, which I know absolutly nothing about.
I’m somewhat intrigued by the 1993 game, Rug Rage. Simple game, easy to understand, and it’s the most water that FIRST has ever had on the field.
And I’m sure I’ll be bludgeoned by many people (or more than I have already) for saying it, but I’d love a crack at Diabolical Dynamics (2001). The notion of having to work together with your alliance partners, instead of just three robots doing their thing, just feels like fun to me.
Aim High was a hoot as well, but I have to give my nod to FIRST Frenzy. Three ways to gain points (balls, 2X ball, bar), lots of action, fun to watch, and you could tell who’s winning. It remains my favorite.
It was… interesting. Many things have changed since them, not just the game. Get this:
This was back when teams did not know who their alliance partners were for the upcoming qualification matches. For instance, you knew that you were in match 61 or 62, but not exactly which one. So, this meant that you had to scout and pre-plan with 7 other teams for that match, not just 3.
The field quers would bring 8 teams into a corral, and then they would look at their secret match sheet and pull 4 of you ahead for the upcoming match. At that point, you had about 4-5 minutes to plan the entire match.
This was back when 2 coaches were allowed for each team.
Needless to say, this 4-5 minute strategy planning session did not always go as teams wanted it to. On the field, only 1 team could physically balance the bridge… but all 4 teams might have wished to show that they could do it.
There was much debate. Stronger personalities (and louder people) were heard, and salesmanship had to be put forth in order for your team to get the chance for the balance job. Many of these strategy planning sessions got to be arguements, since the pressure was on.
So… at the end of the year, people complained “too many coaches were on the drive teams!”… and “no more adult coaches!” Also, other people complained “why can’t you just tell us who our alliance partners are on Friday morning?” In 2002, both changes happened, as only 1 coach was permitted in the box, and we all knew our qualification lineups on Friday morning. Since then, these strategy meetings have gone much smoother. The most important improvement was not the omission of the 2nd coach, but rather the information about which teams you are partnered with.
Yea I agree, at least in qualification matches strategy sessions would usually evolve to a “I know you can do it but we can do it better!!” type of dilema.
As for my favorite game, I would have to go with 2004, so many ways to score, so many sweet robot designs (the variety was incredible), and it was also my “peak” (senior year of high school) in FIRST.
On a more sentimental note 2002 because that was my last year going to nat’s at epcot and I’ll remember that for a long time.
Though I wasn’t really involved in FIRST then, both 1999 and 2000 looked like awesome games. I’d love to see them (or something similar) repeated now!
As for games I’ve been around for, 2002 has my vote for everything. It was a great game, difficult but not impossible, had a lot to do, and was very viewer-friendly!
Aim High… robots got to shoot balls for goodness sake!
But beyond that it allowed for the sometimes under appreciated area of game play: defense!
Aim High takes the best autonomous in my opinion, not only was there two different ways to score some big points and the 10 point bonus but defensive autonomous modes added a whole other level of strategy (sure there were defensive auto modes before but not many or as valuable).
As for viewer friendly Aim High was fairly easy to catch on to and under stand.
I think the GDC was dead on with this years game, and the manual which had the fewest rule changes I’ve seen in my 4 years in FIRST.
I voted Aim High but Triple Play is still a close second. I liked it because it was so simple and accessible for teams to play, I was at all three Michigan regionals last year and can’t remember seeing a single robot with out an arm (or stacking device). The game was easy to follow though keeping track of score was sometimes confusing. I loved the autonomous mode’s goal but capping the Vision Tetra was quite rare.
I did like FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar. Loved the robots hanging ten feet up part. Yes there were a lot of different ways to play but that may have provided times when there was too much going on to follow clearly.
I like the theory behind Stack Attack, competitive box stacking that seemed fun. But sadly at GLR and WMR not much of that happened . It seemed to me that this was the ultimate “box on wheels” game (not to insult anyones design) but most of the game time seemed to be focused on pushing boxes out of the scoring zones.
It’s all about 1999, by far the most dynamic game in FIRST history. You had this 6" high (iirc) octagon on caster wheels, with a couple of metal poles sicking up, known as the “puck” that could be dragged around the field. Alliances were awarded multipliers if the puck was on a certain side of the field. But to make things even cooler, you were awarded multipliers if your robot was on the puck. Wait, it gets better. The definition of being on the puck was to be touching it, and be 2" off the ground. So some teams would grab the pole, and lift themselves off the ground.
I’ve only talked about multipliers, how did teams score points? Well the scoring objects were these disc shaped pillows known as “floppies”. You had one point for every floppy of your colour not touching the ground, and 3 points for each floppy of your colour that was at least 8’ off the ground at the end of the match,
So picture this, you have robots pulling the puck. You have robots climbing the puck. You have tug of wars for the puck. Teams pushing teams off the puck. To make it even cooler, at the end of the match, you have all these baskets of floppies being raised over 8’ in the air, while teams are being pushed! It was a phenomenal game. The best ever.
It was different! Periods! Shooting above the player stations!
. It seemed to me that this was the ultimate “box on wheels” game (not to insult anyones design) but most of the game time seemed to be focused on pushing boxes out of the scoring zones.