[Shockwave527]

Ok, get ready for some baseless game conjecture. I've wanted to post this somewhere but didn't know where, and as it has SOME bases in what people think the hint means, I decided to put it here. If there is a game conjecture thread, someone may direct me to it and I will move it there.

I've been looking at past games and trying to figure out, based off trends (but not off the game hint, since that wasn't really understood until today), what it might be. While there's a 99% chance I'm wrong, I would like to put down my thoughts.

There seem to be a lot of games involving balls as the main playing piece, and since last year's was a frisbee, although this is no guarantee, I'm thinking we'll have a ball game this year. Yet this year, while looking toward being ball based, also seems likely to be a slightly more obscure game (less obvious than the past years of basketball and frisbee), so I don't think we'll have a definite sport. The ball may be weird in some way, which got me thinking: beach balls. Another reason I came to this conclusion is that last year's game primarily had shooters as the way to move game pieces, and while it's certainly possible to have that again this year, I feel that won't be the primary means of moving a game piece. Instead, I theorize that the game may involve some kind of "kicker", where robots are thrown beach balls by a human player and must keep them in the air without holding on to them, and score them into some form of baskets for points. This could also lend to the idea of assists, where potentially a ball could be worth more if it has been handled by more than one robot. There could be red and blue balls for each alliance, and white balls which can be scored either in autonomous or maybe by either team for more points.

I am fairly sure beach balls has not been done before, nor has some form of volleyball (which is not that obscure a sport, I guess, but the beach balls change it up), so that's a possibility. Also, lighter playing pieces with some floatieness could add an interesting dynamic to the game. Beach balls also are not that expensive to buy or make, so that wouldn't be problematic. However I think they stated the game this year may be somewhat easier than last year's game, as newer teams last year were discouraged by the difficulty. I don't know if this gameplay would be easire or harder, but there would probably be some way robots could gain points by pushing balls into a goal as well, something that even the simplest robot could do.

With the glow-in-the-dark tape measure, someone had suggested caves of some sort. As a way to score extra points, there could be tunnels a robot could go under while they send the ball over to score extra points. The one problem I see with my theory (aside from the fact that everything is simply conjecture at this point) is that I'm pretty sure I've heard the game will be easier to score, whereas this would require careful watching and marking down to see if balls are passed, sent over caves, held, or dropped. Despite this, and especially after hearing assists, I think the idea is plausible, if not the most likely idea out there.

One last thought, and this is past theory and more just my stupid idea. First often likes names with puns, and I thought of a perfect one for this idea: "Keep It Up."

2 other points I wanted to make:

1: With assists also, maybe if all 3 members of the alliance hit the ball there would be a huge multiplier or point bonus. I'm betting while FIRST loves to make teams really work together, this game will focus a lot more on that with the idea of "assist". Teams must work together and help one another, rather than rely on one good bot, to truly succeed.

2: Most of my theories are probably just confirmation bias, as I thought of these last week and may simply be molding the "assist" clue to fit my idea.