Lunacy = Greatest Game Ever

Lol, i love that people are that upset about my silly comment about overdrive

maybe its because i perfer games that resemble real sports more. I think they are interesting to watch and more accessable to the general public. I feel the best games have high robot to robot interaction, lots of moving game pieces, and clear offense and defensive strategys

i didnt like overdive because there was little to no robot to robot interaction, a single dimension game, and no real defesnsive stratgy since there was to great of a chance of getting a driving backwards violation or contact outside of the bumper zone
i just remember the only match i enjoyed that didnā€™t envolve my own robot or a friends robot was the national finals

on the other hand, i greatly enjoyed watching every match in Aimhigh, matches with interesting robots in Rack and Roll(including starting a ā€œThis is Awesomeā€ chant during the match that i believe was the highest scoring match ever in the game) and i LOVED watching games in lunacy

oh and by love that people are upset i mean find it sort of commical and not litterally ā€œYES IM CAUSING CHAOS!ā€

I disagree on this point, but being part of the military, my opinion here may be invalid. No matter what the challenge, high explosives always achieve their intent. Always.

Anyway, all satirical opinions aside, this game really did force teams to push the envelopeā€¦ As long as their newly created envelope fits inside the rigid and ridiculously strict bumper rules.

Every year, at the kickoff I profess to dislike the new game and every year at the end of the season I declare my admiration for that yearā€™s game; this year was no exception. I canā€™t wait to see what comes next!

I thought lunacy was a great game for this year. with the new control system, I thought is was really important to have a game that a decent driving bot could be effective.

Human players were the main scorers for most teams (yes there are tons of examples where this is not true, but sifting through the data HP players accounted for more than 50% of the scoring) which made it more about the team experience.

This year the big programming and chassis stuff was very much controls related. Traction control systems of different levels of complexity yielded distinct advantages.
Creavitity of the fan drive system helped those that had the weight and did their homework. While not necessary to win, the properly implemented system were beneficial.

As far as watching it from the stands, Lunacy had the same problem as Soccer, Hockey, or Demolition Derbies. If you donā€™t understand what is going on it is hard to recognize a great tactic from wreckless hitting.

That being said the rules are much more simple than say Football or ā€œZone Zealā€ where you needed to read a manual before you had any clue what was going on.

Some like people like hockey/soccer, some like football, others like baseball/cricket.

Thank you game design commitee for another wonderful game. In general I like all of the games (but there are usually a few rules that I donā€™t like).

Craig, I got a good chuckle out of this.

As far as Lunacy being the best game ever, youā€™ll never prove it. Everyone has their favorite game so saying any game was the best ever is just asking for a debate.

Even though I liked Lunacy, Would I say itā€™s the best ever? No. It was my favorite to drive in, by far, after having Driven at various levels in every game since Triple Play. This year was the First year in my memory where a good robot wasnā€™t a win, but a good driver almost always was.

Anyway, at the end of the day, this is about Inspiration and Recognition. I know for sure as I know anything in this world that I was inspired and so were most of you, so I think Lunacy Served itā€™s purpose.

There were matches that involved real clean defensive strategy that won matches that I recall. I realize that this match did not happen during the regular season, but it proves the point.

That certainly does not describe Lunacy. There has yet to be a worse game for accessibility to the public in the 9 years I have been doing FIRST.

I didnā€™t like Lunacy for the many reasons. Before I post my reasons, I would like to make something clear: I am not trying to place blame anywhere.

  1. The field flooring was way too expensive for teams, especially in this economy.
  2. The availability and cost of the balls. How do you design a robot to hold 40 balls when you could only afford to buy about 10?
  3. It was boring to watch - at least for me. I could hardly follow what was going on. I prefer a game where a team knows what their score is by looking on the field. Yes, the real-time scoring was there but it was not reliable.
  4. Punishing teams for building good robots with the serpentine draft and taking away super cells.
  5. Standard wheels for everyone.
  6. There were only about 4 types of designs for a robot - BORING!
  7. If a team was dead during a match, it killed the alliance. Dead driver stations and other control system issues decided many regionals.
  8. Some robot rules were way over-designed and over-complicated such as the bumpers.

The outcome/good:

  1. The game let teams who were nobody last year emerge as champions at regionals. But it was not because they were able to build a good robot - it was because of luck, standard robot designs, and a game that leveled the playing field for everyone.
  2. The new look of the playing field was different and kind of exciting. The concept of the game is really cool and a change from the carpet was welcome. Just not for a game like Lunacy.

Overall, I cannot say that I liked Lunacy at all. In my book, it goes down as being one of the worst games ever. Sometimes I feel that the rules butcher the fun of the competing. Iā€™m looking forward to a more exciting 2010 season.

Thanks! But I seem to recall a cute little two-wheeled purple machine that helped knock us out in the quarter finals was pretty cool, too. Just another example of multiple solutions to a similar problem.

One thing I consider when looking at ā€œbest game everā€ descriptions is what use a competitive robot can be put to in the post-season. In other words, are the machinesā€¦ on their ownā€¦ as cool as they are when they are playing the game?

In that respect, I think Aim High gave our team itā€™s best legacy in terms of an entertaining demo robot. Combine that with the fact that the game, itself, was exceptionally cool and relatively easy to watch, understand, and score in real time, and that would count as my ā€œbest game everā€.

I have yet to experience a ā€œbadā€ game, however, and have enjoyed them all. This year the playing field was certainly an interesting change-up. I was expecting maybe some type of pea-gravel pit, or perhaps a barrier for robots to go under (or over), but the low-friction idea was fun and will keep teams from getting too specific on their off-season drivetrain R&D for a few years to come.

And while Iā€™ll certainly give the GDC credit for coming up with these game ideas, really, the reason they are fun is because of the ingenueity and attitude that the teams bring with them to the competition. The GDC deserves credit for putting together a good game, but we are the ones that turn it into a great game.

Jason

Agreed.

Every parent I talked to this year said they had no clue what was going on. Having 6 mobile goals and 120+ game pieces flying around everywhere is a lot more confusing than 4 balls, 4 lines and 2 bars.

Same here. It was the only game since 2000 that my grandparents actually had to ask my brother and I, ā€œWhatā€™s the point of this?ā€

Thatā€™s why 2000 was such a great game. Iā€™ll explain the 2000 game in 4 lines:

  • Thereā€™s one Red Goal and one Blue Goal (for the Red Alliance and Blue Alliance). The goals are in the center of the field and donā€™t move.

  • Score balls in the goals - yellow balls are worth 1 point, black are 5 points.

  • A robot hanging on the bar is worth 10 points and a robot parked on the ramp is worth 5 points.

Oops, that was only three lines.

Hereā€™s a picture to make the above description crystal clear:

I totally agree with Coryā€¦
While it was sort of fun to playā€¦

The general public had a very difficult time following the game.
Much of the time it was difficult to see who was scoring and on whomā€¦

The movement of the Empty Cell to the loading station was almost impossible to see for the spectator unless they were watching one robot very closelyā€¦and the supercell entry was also difficult to watch.

We took our entire school to the regional and the comments I received were much more of the ā€œwhat was going on?ā€ type of comment.

They had difficulty figuring out which robots were on which teamsā€¦(even though the trailers had red and blue colored bumpersā€¦) It was difficult to see the bumpers at times in meleesā€¦

Because the robots started from all over the field it was also difficult to figure out which robots were on which alliancesā€¦

Very difficult for spectators to appreciate the nuances of the game when teams were pinned for long periods of timeā€¦ etc etcā€¦

Even though I was not overly fond of Overdriveā€¦ it was easy to cheer for the Red Alliance when the big RED ball went over the barā€¦

I disagree. Iā€™ve been talking to my classmates about FIRST for a few months, and during build season Iā€™d mention stuff about Overdrive and Rack and Roll, and it would take people awhile to get it. Overdrive wasnā€™t so bad, but Rack and Rollā€™s grid system wasnā€™t spectator friendly.

When I showed people Lunacy it was a lot simpler. I could basically say ā€œwell, itā€™s like basketball with hoops called ā€œtrailersā€ behind each robot. 6 humans try to shoot balls in the trailers, and robots can either get balls from humans or pick up missed shots to score on opponents. Thereā€™s a special ball that can be brought to the corner to activate a green ball worth more pointsā€. Then theyā€™d get it.

My parents when watching Lunacy matches knew what was going on without having to ask any questions other than ā€œwhatā€™s the green ball doā€.

Itā€™s easy to understand basically whatā€™s going on in Lunacy, but it is very hard to actually follow the action itself. If you donā€™t pick one robot and follow it around the whole match you are just going to get lost.

I have the same feeling and Iā€™m sooooo waiting for 2010. This game was a drag and I hate fridge bots. There were some impressively designed bots, but overall I was not impressed.

But I will say this game was necessary/needed when introducing so many new things to FIRST aka the Controller.

And a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJFbvHRyco

Itā€™s not that difficult to explain the basic premise of Lunacy. The problem is itā€™s nearly impossible for the casual spectator to follow and extremely boring.

I find it boring watching all the matches with a 4 robot cluster stuck in one corner for 1:30. I canā€™t imagine how boring that must seem to people who have no idea what FIRST is and have never seen a robotics competition before.

Id like to change my vote to 2000 for best game ever :smiley:

As a driver, I loved it. It was very complicated and made strategy so much more fun then Rack Nā€™ Roll (just my opinion). On the other hand, the G14 overkill rule was very annoying. It discouraged teams to play to the best of their ability. In fact, I thought it was a little socialist in nature. ā€œLetā€™s keep everyone equal and not hurt peopleā€™s feelings.ā€ <ā€” thatā€™s not life and after all, we are there to compete. (note, gracious proffessionalism is great, but in my opinion G14 was a little too far).