Spectrum watched the 2018 FRC teaser tonight in our lab and we have some initial reactions.
Elevation Changes
- Power UP - makes it pretty obvious that robots will have to climb something,
- that may be stairs like the student walks down in the beginning of the clip or it could be ramps that robots have to drive up.
- There are stairs/ramps in the poster and on top of the arcade machine
- Multi-Tiered playing field, multiple ramps
- More obscure level changes
- Ladders?
- Moving Platforms
- Up / down
- Tilting
Coins
- Collecting them as a game piece
- Discs/Frisbees/Disc Golf Discs
- If you turn in coins your human players can put out different game pieces based on the amount of coins.
- Possibly scoring in coin slots
- Tiny coins (like 1in or less)
- Large coins (2 ft or bigger diameter)
- Coin dispensers on the field, so you have to pull something, push a block, hit something, to release more coins (hoppers?)
- 500 = Coin Amount on the field?
(Searches for “500” in google did not return any relevant results)
Power Ups = changes or bonuses mid match
- Bonus points
- Get certain items or score in a certain order and then there are multipliers. Similar to ubertubes in 2011
- Unlock certain parts of the game or objectives after scoring or completing objectives
- Possibly get to choose which power ups to use each match
- Audience selection of power ups?
FIRST Logo on poles (similar to logo motion)- Possibly hanging logos like 2011
- Maybe have to get logo pieces off the poles instead of putting them on
- 4 out of 5 games on the machine were pick and place games
- 2005, 2007, 2011, 2017 (not 2016)
Misc- Human players score the game pieces on the side of the field similar to pilots placing gears this year.
- Size changes?
- The power ups may allow your robots to expand to a taller or larger size.
- Inflatable robots (unlikely but cool)
- Video Game Mechanics
- A lot of things are possible with video mechanics.
- Mystery boxes
- Co-op elements
- Intra alliance co-op elements were it takes multiple robots on an alliance to do something
- Inter alliance co-op similar to 2012/2015 (hopefully not)
- Barrel Jumping/Ladder Climbing
Just for Fun
- Human players dressed as Donkey Kong
- CHUCK TOWN
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Fire Alarm = Lava Game
- Spectrum
Theese are good thoughts well done
ReplyDelete"...pretty obvious that robots will have to climb something" is a pretty rash statement. Nothing about these hints are obvious. That is a mere speculation that could be as wrong as any other idea.
ReplyDeleteThe "FIRST logo on poles" is just one of several illustrations of past FRC games on the side of the arcade game. I think the theme of the arcade game is simply supposed appear to be FRC games, there's no reason to single out the Logomotion graphic for special significance.
Of course this whole post is speculation. We don't actually even know if the name of the game will stay Power Up but we're pretty sure. We'd be very surprised if there wasn't something that changed elevations in this game.
DeleteAs for the "FIRST Logo on poles", the graphic we show wasn't from the side of the arcade cabinet it's from the recruitment poster. Maybe it is just part of the 2011 game but they clearly choose to highlight it separately from the other game graphics in the poster, so that's our reason for singling out because HQ did so as well by including it in the poster and none of the other games. https://firstinspiresst01.blob.core.windows.net/frc/first-frc18-challenge-recruit-poster-11x17-print-e.pdf