Game Design Challenge: The Return Of R.O.B.

[TCurtis]

Hello everyone! Now that our Microsoft Surface challenge has come and gone, we've announced the latest Game Design Challenge.

This time, we ask you to design a game that uses R.O.B. -- the oft-forgotten NES peripheral from 1985. It's an unusual challenge, and we can't wait to see what you come up with.

Feel free to post in this thread if you have any questions.

Full details: http://www.gamecareerguide.com/featu...he_return_.php

[halleylight]

Excuse me Mr. Curtis,

Can you elaborate more about this topic ? From the description, I'm still having problems visualizing how we people use R.O.B to play games.

Thank you very much !

[TCurtis]

Sure thing! This video here is a good example of what R.O.B. can do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqK5qZ31CN8

In the video, you might notice that R.O.B. starts to move when its eyes detect a certain kind of flash on the screen (much like the NES Zapper works when you play Duck Hunt). In this case, R.O.B. picks up and spins a gyro (the top-like object) and places it on a pad, which then presses a button on the 2nd-player's NES pad. In essence, it's like having an automated partner that reacts to what you do in the game.

In a hypothetical game design, you might issue commands to R.O.B., and it could then press the A or B button on the other controller to affect the game you're playing on the T.V.

And as you can see in the video, R.O.B. takes a while to move and pick up objects, so you'll have to factor that into your design as well.

Hopefully this clears things up! Let me know if I can help any further.

Edit: I've gone ahead and added this information to the main challenge page for reference.

[halleylight]

Thank you for the clip !

However, I still find it difficult to figure out the meaning of what the robot was doing in the clip due to the lack of feedbacks from the gameplay. Anyway, thank you very much for helping us with the task !

[TCurtis]

Ah, that's understandable. In fact, another good resource to check out is this video from James Rolfe as the Angry Video Game Nerd. It shows R.O.B., Gyromite, and Stack-Up, so this should help you visualize how it all comes together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvCCgPDcnvQ&t=1m45s

At around the 1:45 mark, Rolfe starts to give a great demonstration of what R.O.B. can do. Sure, he pokes fun at the robot along the way, but he's still quite informative.

Be sure to let me know if you'd like any more clarification or advice.

[TCurtis]

Hey everyone!

The results for our "Return of R.O.B." challenge are in! Congratulations to all of our top entries, and thank you to everyone who entered. This was certainly one of our hardest challenges in a while, but all the submissions were really fantastic. (I'm particularly partial to R.O.B. Noire -- that graphic is hilarious.)

Here are the full results: http://www.gamecareerguide.com/featu...me_design_.php

[Ben Droste]

I like what R.O.B. Noire does to give R.O.B. a personality and build a sense of comradeship with the player. His ability to help the player in such a way that his snail's pace is not a hindrance to the gameplay also helps him live up to his name as Robotic Operating "Buddy".

[halleylight]

In the future, is it possible for us to have someone review the winning entries to point out their pros and cons ? I think by doing so, not only the participants but everyone can learn what's good and what's bad by following concept reviews, thus helping them improve their next concepts better. So, what do you think ?

[TCurtis]

Originally Posted by halleylight

In the future, is it possible for us to have someone review the winning entries to point out their pros and cons ? I think by doing so, not only the participants but everyone can learn what's good and what's bad by following concept reviews, thus helping them improve their next concepts better. So, what do you think ?

That's definitely a cool idea, and we'll see if that's something we could do in the future. Check your PMs if you want to chat about this some more.