Best GizmoBall Game/Usability Award Entry

Team 03 (Team Voltron)

Gameplay and user interface were given the utmost importance while designing our implementation of GizmoBall.
After all, what's good about a game that's no fun to play or use?

Our UI excels at offering users a simple, straightforward, yet powerful interface to the game. All expected
functionality (Saving Boards, Loading Boards, etc) exists in a straightforward, and intuitive manner,
including the functionality expected of reasonable applications like giving users a chance to save
their boards before quitting or loading new ones. All of our extended functionality (loading themes,
playing music, etc) is integrated into the system in a way that is clear to the user and offers full
usefulness of new design features.  While our UI provides much flexibility, it is still not very complicated:
the only widgets are two short menus, a palette of gizmos and balls, and a few buttons for modifying
the selected gizmo.

The extent of our gameplay can be seen in the game board "The Labyrinth". This board takes a whole new view 
on the capabilities of the GizmoBall engine in order to implement the children's game of Labyrinth as closely
as possible. Gravity is removed, to simulate the ball being on a level surface instead of in the air.
Each of the directional keys on the keyboard is mapped to two lines of gizmos which emit
gravitational shockwaves, and when activated, the waves fire in sync from each shocker on both lines.
While traveling, the shockwaves form up to make a wave front: the front from one side pulls the
ball towards it, and the front from the other side pushes the ball away from it. 
These effects simulate the Game Board being tilted and the ball following the new angle of
the board. 

This game board uses most of the game's gizmos, and many for reasons they were never intended for.
The flipper gizmo is used as a gate, to seperate the ball from going down the difficult path,
or the easy path. Absorber gizmos are used as holes that the ball sinks into and can't escape from, 
causing the player to need to reset the level and start from scratch. The extender gizmo is used as a
moving obstacle, making the user work around it.

Most incredibly, not a single line of Java needed to be changed in order to allow us to create this
level! This game board is just one of many possible ways to use our GizmoBall engine, that don't
even require the implementation of unique gizmos to carry out its tasks. With such extensibility,
the possibilities are nearly endless.