This is a good combination of skill and strategy. Having to throw balls at targets that are out of site sounds like a lot of fun. It may be very difficult though, even with many shots. Battleship can sometimes feel tedious even when your shots always go directly to your commanded position. The required number of hits may have to be very low.

Most players will recognize the purpose of this immediately.

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Wow, this sounds cool! I would definitely like to play this. Obviously, the build is ambitious for a couple of reasons, but I think those can be resolved.

I think there may be some problems with having loose gameplay pieces in the space. The balls will get lost over time, requiring staff intervention to replenish them. This is actually my biggest sticking point with this game, not the giant moving gameboard lid :) I'm not sure how to solve it, actually.

I understand your reasons for only dispensing one ball at a time, but consider doing away with this restriction. If only one player is allowed to throw each time, that quickly becomes boring for the rest of the players. I would explore some sort of compromise between one-at-a-time and all-at-a-time. Maybe you could release the next ball as soon as the last is removed from the hit marker tray (potentially with a limit, so players don't hoard them). That opens up the brute-force strategy to the players, so if they don't want to take the time to aim, they can bombard the other side as fast as possible.

You'll have to playtest this to see how many "hits" is reasonable to expect from a group during the play duration. I think multiple ships will be challenging within the time constraints...but playtesting will be the final judge.

I'm curious about how you're planning on displaying the battlefield (battlesea?) to the players. My first thought is to project the grid on the back of a plexi-protected, painted scrim. I think the idea of having the screen fold down so the players can walk across it is not that feasible - it has a big wow factor, but it's expensive and doesn't actually add to the gameplay. In this case I think it's ok to have the exit door be nondescript, and on the same side of the room as the players.

I really like this concept. I hope your group moves forward with it.

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I like the battleship idea for a game. i think it is very familiar and something that almost all will recognize and relate to. I also like the idea of throwing the cannons, I think this adds a nice physical aspect to the challenge and also involves some luck and skill. I am a little unclear on how or where the players will throw the balls and how the will aim to hit ships, or if it is just random. I think this could be a little clearer. I also think you should think carefully how the game will reset. I like the concept and think that it could be very fun and interactive but wonder if there is any way to make it more of a team activity or if only one person can play. i like this idea and think it has a lot of potential.

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This is an awesome idea and I think visitors would really enjoy the real life battleship experience. It's something that a lot of people can relate to and the ball throwing component makes it a real challenge.

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innovativeness: I really like the idea of giant battleship, it's physically and mentally engaging. However, it's not clear that the guests will pick up on the fact they need to throw balls over, an additional visual and or audio cue would help a lot. I would imagine as a visitor I might try to climb or move the ships manually.

potential : big ! also suitable for all ages.

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A grid of pressure switches on a tilted floor might work, but the boxes as drawn would trap balls until a manual reset was performed. Instead of boxes, shouldn't this be a flat top surface with pressure sensitive tiles inset flush to the top?

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I like the idea behind this. I think you can simplify it in two ways:

1. Remove the cell walls and let the sensor board be just a flat surface with pressure sensors across it. My fear is that a ball that hits one of those edges will bounce unpredictably and go places you don't want it to

2. This requires a whole bunch of IO points - 32, as you've drawn it (more if you count the ones that handle dispensing the ball). I think you can bring that number down by using something like a tapeswitch to detect collisions on each row and column. Then you can actually pinpoint which cell was hit in code: if row A and column 4 were triggered at the same time, well that must be cell A4.

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I think from this sketch it is more clear how the hits will be marked and measured. I think that this is a good idea, but would think about how big the boxes need to be in order to be easily able to hit so that people win 25% of the time. i think using pressure sensors is very feasible and would be an easy thing to implement and use to determine if the right box has been hit. It was a little unclear how the balls will roll back to the players and may have been helpful to illustrate this. I also wonder what would happen if a ball bounces and hit many targets or bounces out of all the boxes. I think that this method is very feasible and helps make the game difficult and challenging yet still fun.

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This is a good idea which should be relatively simple to implement. My only concern is what if the ball bounces from one sensor to another? Is there a way to ensure that only the first hit trips the sensor and everything else turns off for a couple seconds? Or do the balls themselves dampen bounces?

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I get the pressure sensor idea, it might work better with laser detectors because if users don't throw them hard // balls are too light will it still trigger ?

Also, I'm still a bit confused as to how balls get back to the beginning, are the walls raised ?

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A ball distributor is a good way to distinguish bounces from multiple simultaneous throws. Allowing only one ball at a time makes this a non-issue. The gate mechanism may need two doors though. One to let a ball into the into the distributor chamber, one to let it out to guests. If both doors are never open together, you can be sure only one ball went through.

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Seems reasonable. I like the use of the ramp to direct the balls back to the players (no electronics is good!)

Minor point: You have a note saying that the ball is dispensed by the mechanism in slide 1, but that sketch shows the grid at the back of the screen.

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I think that it is very clear how the balls will be dispensed and when. I like that you have thought about how to make the balls align to a single stream but wonder how to ensure that none get stuck somehow. I also wonder how you will prevent the balls thrown from going into the stream if you don't want them to. I think that this is very feasible and well thought out and clearly shows how you plan to implement this method. I think it is very clear to the user how it works and easy for them to pick up the next ball.

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Another simple and effective idea to implement the overall design. It should be relatively simple to link the release mechanism to the floor sensors so that a ball comes out each time another one hits. The mechanism will probably need to be fairly robust so the more rambunctious visitors cant grab extra balls. Over a good idea.

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Straightforward I can imagine that it will work.

One thing to take into account is to make sure the plexiglass will hold weight. Also, what's stopping users from reaching under ?

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This is a large, scary moving part that has a ton of mechanical complexity and safety concerns. I would not attempt this with unsupervised players in the room. It would look cool, but is not really feasible.

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Like I said, there's a big wow factor here - but I'm not sure how you're going to do this safely. That's a lot of weight to move around with players in the room. Feel free to prove me wrong, though!

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i like that everything closes allowing the guests to exit. I like that you have thought about the fact that the back board needs to be covered as well to protect it as well as not give away its secret. I think that it is not super clear how the game board will fold over and how the target are will be covered. Thinking through these mechanism is going to be a big part of the room and making it look and function well. I think you also have to think about what it will be made of and making sure it is robust so that everyone walking on it won't break anything. It is more clear now when the balls refill but not really how the two boards are connected. I think this has a lot of potential and is very feasible but just needs to be thought out a little.

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The folding game concept is harder for me to visualize in implementation, mostly because it would have to be extremely robust because people will jump on it as soon as it folds if it's facing away from them. Also, if it's closing towards visitors I think there may be safety concerns- nobody wants to get squished. It might be easier to simply have a side door unlock once you sink the ship.

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How does it close ? It it hinged ?

Where does the sliding door come from ? Is it previously hidden ?

Also, it looks like there's some space between the two boards, maybe having the sliding door move all the way so it look like one continuous floor.

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The drawings are great, but the concept presented may be difficult to achieve. Good communication of the look and feel, but some of the drawings and descriptions don't line up (like the boxes with pressure plates that allow balls to roll across them).

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Very, very nice. Your sketches are among the clearest I've seen. I like the degree to which you zoomed in on each of your sketches. There's enough context to see where we are in the room, and enough detail to explain your ideas. The third sketch is somewhat lacking in specifics, but I'm looking forward to seeing how you adapt this idea moving forward. Well done!

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I think that your sketching technique is very good. You are able to clearly show what you are trying to and the shading helps make things clear in 3D. I liked the annotation as they made things more clear and explained questions that I had. I think that you could have done a little better shading the balls to make them more 3d but I know this is hard and we did not cover it extensively. I like that you show the necessary detail needed even if you did not draw everything in some cases. I lie your website and think it is simple to use and interact with and like that you added each picture of the storyboard as its own thing with text below.

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Sketches were excellent. Visuals were very clear with no explanation required.

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Website is straightforward and easy to navigate, the sketches are clear and convey your idea effectively.

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