Unit 06 Application, Exploration and Realisation in Art and Design - Final Major Project

Research for Final Major Project idea

My final major project idea is a 3D game that will be created in Unity 3D. The idea itself is going to be a tournament where you fight 5 robots in a random order, with you controlling a robot of your choice from a list that will be your opponents in the tournament. 

My main inspiration for my idea is from a childhood TV series called 'Robot Wars'. The show had many different tournaments as the show went series by series. Many different ideas have been included in the show. There was a football-based tournament where the first out of two robots to score a goal wins. Another tournament that was included in the show was 'Pinball' where a single robot had to hit many different obstacles and gain as many points as possible in a minute. There was also a 'Sumo' based tournament where a robot had to push another robot out of the ring, where the winner would successfully push the other robot off the ring as quickly as possible. But the main tournament that was used in all the series of the show was the 'Championship', where all the competing robots are split into different heats (Heat A- Heat P, Heat A- Heat L) where the winner of each heat would move into the semi finals, where then four robots from the semi finals would move into the final. Two more robots would move to the final and the losing two robots in the final would battle for 3rd place.

'Pinball' (left), 'Sumo' (middle) and 'Football' (right)

There was also a Championship for robots around the world, but the robots competing in the 'World Championship' (as it was called) were mainly from Britain, however, as the series went on, more foreign robots started to compete in the British championship. 

Different robots around the world, 'Gravity' (left) and 'Tough as Nails' (middle) are both from Holland, while 'Crushtacean' is from South Africa.

There were also special events from series 5 onwards, the list being the 'Annihilator' where six robots would fight each other at once with robots being knocked out one by one until there is one robot remaining, the 'Tag Team' where two robots partner with each other against another pair of robots  and the 'All Stars' where the best 16 robots from the past series compete against each other. Some of the special events created had restrictions, like the 'Flipper Frenzy' where robots that have flippers could only compete.

I watched the show since I was 4 years old and was amazed with the many different designs and creations that were developed as the show went on. The main feature of the robot(s) that amazed me were the many different shapes of the body of the robot. Some of the most peculiar/interesting structures are of the robots shown below. 

Various different shaped robots that have caught my eye. 'Pussycat' (left) can run anyway up, 'Razer' (middle) has some punctured holes in it's crusher to reduce weight and 'Gemini' (right) is a 'Clusterbot', in that there are two 50kg robots connected together by magnets, then split when the battle starts.

The genre for my game will be Action as a game similar to the one I'm designing has the same game genre. That game was called 'Robot Wars: Arenas Of Destruction'. That game was one of the main inspirations that lead me to my final major project idea.

The game itself is just going to be a simple tournament between two robots, one that you choose and the opponents being from the list of robots that you could have picked. There are a total of 6 robots from the list, so in total there will be 5 robots that you will fight against. Each of the robots have their own strengths and weaknesses, with 3 stars being the highest and 1 star being the lowest. Each of the robots will have their own weapon and look. The place where the battle(s) will take place are similar of that to the original arena used in 'Robot Wars' from series 4-7.