By: James Licata & Samuel Unferth
Picture by Samuel Unferth
This game was originally going to be much different with more elements, but the issue was the time we had to create it and the size of the playfield. In the original design we planned to have ships carved out of foam and cardboard, but we found that if we did put the ship there the ball would have a hard time making its way through the central playfield. The other option was that we could put it on the edge, but we felt that there was no reason to do that since the ball would not really end up there in normal play. Because of this we simplified the game significantly.
Another thing that we had to determine was the ability to move the ball form one machine to the other, which we determined that we could use ramps and pathways. This was a consideration as we wanted to make sure that we could make it slightly more interesting than just one path. To do this we considered having a one-way ramp on either side. To do this we had a ramp and railing so that only one person could pass it over.
The building of this game was a major process especially for Sam as he ended up cutting his thumb open with an exacto knife and burning his skin with a hot glue gun. With the experience that we got from building our first machines we were able to make our machines much better this time around. One example of this is the spinners and bumpers. On Sam’s machine he had issues with the spinner getting caught and the bumpers acting more like ramps but with the testing we made it much better. Another thing that we learned was to use spray adhesive first to lay down a background versus having to fit it around the other elements.
Picture by Samuel Unferth
People generally liked our theme of Battleship, though people did note that the playfield thematically was kind of bland, which admittedly it was. People liked the idea of using pins as life points on the battleships themselves, but wished we did more to bring the spirit of battleship into our design.
The playability was the most well received part which is good because that’s where our focus was primarily. They liked that unlike some of the other machines on display, ours felt like a direct head to head competition with decent length rounds, and the ability to pass the ball back and forth easily enough without it being effortless. A lot of people also liked the plunger launching the ball to the other playfield if the player is skilled enough to do so, giving them a distinct advantage right at the start.
If we had more time and sanity frankly, we would have liked to implement a grid on the playfield where the players would have to ships each and be able to place them freely at the start of the game in order to make it more difficult for the ball to drain, without it obscuring their own shots too much. Every time a ball drained, the other player got to pick which ship got hit, and when it got hit enough times, it’d be removed from the playfield. Once all ships are removed, that player would lose. It’d be an incredible application of our theme, but unfortunately it seemed too difficult to make from a logistical standpoint.
All assets were created by us. The theme of the game was based on Battleship by Hasbro.