NineForce – NineTube

NineForce – Ninetube

Tim here, presenting an idea he’s had since our team formed. Based quite strongly on the notions of exertion and hard fun. The rules are deliberately crafted for emergent behaviours to form, creating a variety of strategies that a player can take on.

Beginning of the game

(Two Player Mode)

• Two players link up their stations across the net or a LAN network at an Arcade.
• The two station’s foam tubes are pulled back/pushed out by the station’s pressure sensitive hydraulic pumps to being midway out and then locked for the countdown.
• Each of the Hydraulic Pumps are tuned to the opposing players pressure sensors and after the countdown, each tube will pull back with the same force that its pushed, what ends up happening is that when both players are pressing in synch against tuned tubes, a battle of strength ensues.
• I was thinking of two modes, one where each players tubes are tuned to their opposing station’s mirror tubes and one where the tube synchs are allocated randomly. The latter mode would keep developed strategies from Mode 1 under constant revision

(Alternate Ten Player Mode… to be elaborated on further should this idea be used)

• Ten Players link up
• This time though each of the tubes is tuned using a random algorithm to an individual tube , giving each player nine different opponents. This mixes things up and will definitely have players minds ticking over as they try to prioritise tubes to be pushing and defending against.

Scoring

• Each players score is kept private but displayed to them and them alone, so it is the responsibility of the player to keep track of the score of their opponent. When you read the Winning and Ending conditions you will see how this brings elements of risk and luck to the ten player game
• A player gets 30 points every time  they lodge their opponents tube in the backing board behind them, the board registering the lodge.
• During the first 5 seconds it is lodged, every second it remains adds the count of seconds to the score(eg: 3 seconds adds 3+2+1 to the score, 4 second adds 4+3+2+1 etc)
• After this period the score increments by 5 a second until the opponent dislodges it

Ending The Game

• The game is Ended once a player has lodged all nine of their tubes at least once into an opponents backing board.
• The Winner of the game is the player with the highest score.

Why I think this fits the criteria very well

• Its a game that requires exertion, you will be in a way wrestling with your opponents, although with the complexity these simple rules create, it is a game that is fun as well.
• As well as being physically exhausting, Nineforce demands concentration as the players must make constant decisions eg: “I need to dislodge tube 3 but if I do I will lose all my progress with tube 4″, ” tube 5 is there waiting for me  to end the game, now how many points do I think they have?”. These intellectual demands distract the player from the amount of energy they are exerting.
• Creating a mock up of this would not be too hard as we could use a large sheet to conceal one of us pressing back against pool tubes in a frame easily made from goods under $100

Weaknesses

• a lack of a handicap system that can be genuinely measured without potential for cheats to exert a minimal force during handicap qualification, a handicap system is not neccesarily needed but it would allow for the natural differences in strength to be dealt with

An idea for a game!

Today on the train a random idea occurred. The general concept is racing around a course, shooting targets with paintball guns (or like..nerf guns if cost is an issue :S) as quickly as possible. That’s the basics.

To go into more depth. There are two teams, each with the same layout of the course,  the same amount of targets and the same goal; hitting all the targets as quickly as possible. The twist is that since the two courses are symmetrical so are the status of the targets.

For example if Team A goes in first hitting the first target they see before Team B does, that target will go down making it unavailable to hit for Team B thus earning Team A a point. This gives the players a sense of interaction between each team as essentially the targets are shared and can only be hit by one team. The goal is to hit more targets than the other team all the while racing to the end of the course. Seeing the targets getting ‘hit’ by the other team will drive people to run faster, thus exerting themselves and driving them to be the victor.

This is a visual look at the game:

(Mind the bad diagram, I’m using a mates computer at the moment and I don’t have my good graphics tablet) This displays a person from each team at the same point in the course. But Team B has hit the target before Team A has. The makes Team A unable to score a point by hitting that target. So it becomes a big race to see who can hit more targets, the fastest.

Tell me what you all think.

-Will

Stuff and things

Hey guys,

So tomorrow we have to bring forth a concept for our game, I’m thinking we should brainstorm some things tonight + tomorrow and whichever idea sounds the best at the time we can pitch to the class. However I don’t think we have to stick to that game concept throughout the whole semester… if we think of a better idea of course we can do that instead!

I really like the idea of some kind of scavenger hunting game (Stephs idea) or some kind of general hunting game that is spread over a big area. But how can we incorporate technology into this, and what would make people REALLY want to play it. I guess it would have to be the objective that would really drive a scavenger hunt kind of game.  **Sorry Steph I just read your comment in the first post, you already figured out a way to incorporate technology- my bad! I like that idea of making a website and sticking clues up there and things, maybe we could make it an exertion game by setting up a certain item or something at a location and it would only be there for a certain time thus, a time limit= exertion..? Maybe?**

Personally I’ve been really struggling with ideas… The things I think of either require way to much programming or would cost way to much >.> Haha.

I dunno, some crazy idea I had was making a massive scale rpg with clues and things spread across the city or something, and it would sort of be like a Zelda game in the sense you could only progress once you finish off a riddle or puzzle… and the puzzles and things could have sounds for when you pick the write one or the wrong one.

Anyways, has anyone else got any ideas?

Cynthia

Go team!

Ok well this is The Rainbow Rambos blog.

So let’s get started on brainstorming ideas for this game guys 😀 I’ll probably post stuff whenever I have a chance and feel the need to (I don’t have an internet connection at home at the moment… 😦 ) so yeah.

-Will

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