[Culvan Van Li]

Back to the hint at hand...

I was really hoping the game this year would be some variation of stacking milk crates. I'm beginning to doubt that will be it.

There is one thing I haven't seen mentioned, the pipe wall thickness looks really thin. I don't think this is a structural component at all.

It clearly goes between two other parts (with the spring loaded connectors) on the ends. I suspect those other parts will come all the way up to the middle larger pipe and that there won't be a lip. The fact that they recessed the screws holding the lexan leads me to believe that they intended for something to ride through this without catching on screwheads. It seems likely that this is a track for a round object to roll on, but the object would have to be light. Because this isn't structural, I'd be guessing that this part is for putting balls on the field or taking them off. If it is for taking them off then the extra 4 holes are probably for mounting a score counting mechanism. If it's for putting them into the field then it's probably going to have a mechanism to regulate timing or rate of ball input.

I doubt the GDC would give out a significant portion of the gamefield in a single clue. The 2007 clue was a spider foot. It was important, but it wasn't enough to make any solid guesses about the game. This clue seems to have a lot more information, so I'm guessing it's used less (than the spider feet) in the actual game.

Andy