Why do we care about the game hints?

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

Yes, in 2004 we all knew ...

1n 2005 the hint revealled ...

In 2006 ...

And last year someone inadvertently managed to post the game name, LogoMotion, in a typo of the Little Eva song Locomotion.

[Karibou]

We managed to make some decent connections in 2009. We got moon (lunar) from the Opah (moon fish), and linked part of the riddle to the Zamboni factory in California.

I like speculation, and therefore I like game hints.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Karibou

We managed to make some decent connections in 2009. We got moon (lunar) from the Opah (moon fish), and linked part of the riddle to the Zamboni factory in California.

I like speculation, and therefore I like game hints.

What genius did that?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...9&postcount=12

[brunettegmp]

Yeah the game hints are only used to build anticipation...and we all know how stupid we are for thinking that we could guess the game (except for some rare occasions ^^^). But I agree...I wish I wasn't so caught up in the hints....but it's addicting!!!

Because the game hints care about you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGx4kuteVIA

'Cause Game hints...Love you! Robots...Love you! The 2012 game...I REALLY LOVE YOU! In the FRC blue!

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by thefro526

This is second hand information, but:

In 2002, apparently teams were given a BOM for one of the mobile goals, but no instructions as to how to build it as a hint. Teams who competed in 2001 were familiar to some extent with FRC style mobile goals. Some teams were able to build a relatively accurate mobile goal and began prototyping grabbing mechanisms around the parts.

The day before kickoff in 2002, Joe Johnson released a series of bets about the game, based on the hints and past games.

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Dr. Joe's Tote Board

1. 2 vs. 2 format : odds 1:1
   Accepted by Evan "The Kidd" Doyle
2. One Goal : odds 1:1
   Accepted by Stephen Rawls
3. Final Position(s) of Goal(s) Figures in Score : odds 2:1
   Accepted by Ken Lueng
4. Torroids (e.g. inner tubes, inflatable floatie toys, hoola hoops, etc) are a game piece : odds 2:1
   Accepted by Evan "The Kidd" Doyle
5. If balls, no smaller than 9 inch diameter : odds 2:1
6. Flat Floor (nothing larger than 1 inch to climb) : odds 3:1
   Accepted by Justin Hirt
7. Robots Off Floor (e.g. hanging on goal) Figure in Scoring : odds 4:1
   Accepted by Jordan A.
8. Goal has all three of the following attributes : odds 5:1
   1) a double decker plywood structure on casters with the flanges and nipples separating the decks
   2) 1" PVC conduits making up an outer fence of vertical pales
   3) 3" PVC conduit making up a veritical column in center of the goal
   Accepted by Dima

Of those, he was 50% correct (1, 3, 6, and 8 were correct). Number 8 was obviously the hardest, and he nailed the goal.



It seems unlikely that anyone used Joe's predictions to do prototyping in the day between when the predictions were released and kickoff. However, it is possible that other people figured out the same things, and kept them secret better then Joe did.

[inkspell4]

Last year we had both a FRC and VEX team at our school.
Mind that this was our teams rookie year.
So i was very excited to begin the build season. I took time to read every hint that i could get my hands on. I was then able to put togatther that there may be game pieces shaped like the logos elements and that me might have to stack them upright on towers. Mind you i got the stacking upward part wrong but i was close to what the game really was.

Keep the Speculation Going

[dlavery]

Having looked at this from the other side, here are a few fun things to think about.

The people on the Game Design Committee have almost as much fun thinking up the hint(s) each year as they do creating the game. Like everything else about FRC games, a good balance between multiple constraints must be reached. The hint can't be so obvious that it instantly reveals too much about the game. But it also cannot be so obscure that it truly can never be connected to the game.

Virtually every year someone successfully deciphers the hint, draws the correct conclusion, and posts it here on CD. So every year, the answer is given to the whole community. The problem is determining which post is right, and which of the several hundred wrong interpretations to ignore.

Once the game hint is revealed, the GDC does look in on these discussion threads to see how teams are interpreting the hint. Yes, there is more than just one evil cackling laugh that sneaks out as they read some of the posts. But in general, I remember discussions that go something like this:

"OK, it is high noon. Dead on at 12:00, so it is time to post the hint. Here goes..."

"It is 12:01 and . . . holy crap! There are already 3880 posts in the discussion thread about the hint!"

"These people take this stuff way too seriously! Don't they EVER sleep?"

"If they are going to put this much effort into decoding the hint, maybe next year we should think about it a little bit more? I feel sort of guilty about just using the fortune we got in the cookie at Chen Yang Li last night."

"Hey, nobody else could come up with something better. Besides, what is wrong with "you may be hungry soon, order takeout now" as a hint?"

"Well, to begin with, it still has some of Kate's kung pao chicken on it..."

"Quiet! I am trying to read the discussions!"

"Oh wow! They are getting really close! How are they able to figure this out in just the first four minutes?!??!?! I thought it would be a lot harder to break down the hint."

"I still think it is because of Kate's kung pao sauce."

"Shut up!"

"Besides, it is not like they will ever be able to make a connection between the fortune cookie phrase and the real ga..."

"You mean, like they just did?"

"No way!!! Ok, there is absolutely no logical way they could have figured that out. To do that, you would have had to know that the fortune cookie we found was printed in Avondale, New Mexico, by an Armenian refugee with psoriasis named Adbal that just missed his third payment on his truck loan. That would have to get connected to the last line of the second stanza of “Desperado” – but the Johnny Cash cover version with the alternative phrasing, not the original. But even that is only useful if you know that the English invented soccer by kicking the heads of dead Danish invaders and as a result, the Queen owns all the swans in England. And you really expect me to believe that they figured out how to put all of that together, and then knew that they had to divide the result by Perry Mason’s office phone number, to get the number of garstuckles that would be used in each match this year."

"Welcome to the age of the interwebthingys."

"Crap. What do we do now? "

"Let’s issue a second hint that . . . "

"No way we are doing a second hint! The first one already told them too much!"

"Look, it doesn’t matter! It is all taking care of itself! Yeah, so they figured out that we are using garstuckles this year. But that was 980 posts ago, and no one has gone back and realized that they were right."

"Huh? How in the world did they miss that??? They were right on target! How did they get diverted?"

"Andy Baker posted about the new Hoverboards from AndyMark, and they were off to the races."

"Hmmm. I wonder if you can eat kung pao chicken while riding a Hoverboard?"

"Shut up!"




-dave


.

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by dlavery

"Hmmm. I wonder if you can eat kung pao chicken while riding a Hoverboard?"

-dave

Well, that ends the water game speculation. Everyone knows hoverboards don't work on water.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Having looked at this from the other side, here are a few fun things to think about.

The people on the Game Design Committee have almost as much fun thinking up the hint(s) each year as they do creating the game. Like everything else about FRC games, a good balance between multiple constraints must be reached. The hint can't be so obvious that it instantly reveals too much about the game. But it also cannot be so obscure that it truly can never be connected to the game.

Virtually every year someone successfully deciphers the hint, draws the correct conclusion, and posts it here on CD. So every year, the answer is given to the whole community. The problem is determining which post is right, and which of the several hundred wrong interpretations to ignore.

Once the game hint is revealed, the GDC does look in on these discussion threads to see how teams are interpreting the hint. Yes, there is more than just one evil cackling laugh that sneaks out as they read some of the posts. But in general, I remember discussions that go something like this:

"OK, it is high noon. Dead on at 12:00, so it is time to post the hint. Here goes..."

"It is 12:01 and . . . holy crap! There are already 3880 posts in the discussion thread about the hint!"

"These people take this stuff way too seriously! Don't they EVER sleep?"

"If they are going to put this much effort into decoding the hint, maybe next year we should think about it a little bit more? I feel sort of guilty about just using the fortune we got in the cookie at Chen Yang Li last night."

"Hey, nobody else could come up with something better. Besides, what is wrong with "you may be hungry soon, order takeout now" as a hint?"

"Well, to begin with, it still has some of Kate's kung pao chicken on it..."

"Quiet! I am trying to read the discussions!"

"Oh wow! They are getting really close! How are they able to figure this out in just the first four minutes?!??!?! I thought it would be a lot harder to break down the hint."

"I still think it is because of Kate's kung pao sauce."

"Shut up!"

"Besides, it is not like they will ever be able to make a connection between the fortune cookie phrase and the real ga..."

"You mean, like they just did?"

"No way!!! Ok, there is absolutely no logical way they could have figured that out. To do that, you would have had to know that the fortune cookie we found was printed in Avondale, New Mexico, by an Armenian refugee with psoriasis named Adbal that just missed his third payment on his truck loan. That would have to get connected to the last line of the second stanza of “Desperado” – but the Johnny Cash cover version with the alternative phrasing, not the original. But even that is only useful if you know that the English invented soccer by kicking the heads of dead Danish invaders and as a result, the Queen owns all the swans in England. And you really expect me to believe that they figured out how to put all of that together, and then knew that they had to divide the result by Perry Mason’s office phone number, to get the number of garstuckles that would be used in each match this year."

"Welcome to the age of the interwebthingys."

"Crap. What do we do now? "

"Let’s issue a second hint that . . . "

"No way we are doing a second hint! The first one already told them too much!"

"Look, it doesn’t matter! It is all taking care of itself! Yeah, so they figured out that we are using garstuckles this year. But that was 980 posts ago, and no one has gone back and realized that they were right."

"Huh? How in the world did they miss that??? They were right on target! How did they get diverted?"

"Andy Baker posted about the new Hoverboards from AndyMark, and they were off to the races."

"Hmmm. I wonder if you can eat kung pao chicken while riding a Hoverboard?"

"Shut up!"




-dave


.

This post has to have a hint in it somewhere

[gyroscopeRaptor]

Dave isn't on the GDC anymore.

This won't stop people from deciphering the message for any possible hints.

[buildmaster5000]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Having looked at this from the other side, here are a few fun things to think about.

The people on the Game Design Committee have almost as much fun thinking up the hint(s) each year as they do creating the game. Like everything else about FRC games, a good balance between multiple constraints must be reached. The hint can't be so obvious that it instantly reveals too much about the game. But it also cannot be so obscure that it truly can never be connected to the game.

Virtually every year someone successfully deciphers the hint, draws the correct conclusion, and posts it here on CD. So every year, the answer is given to the whole community. The problem is determining which post is right, and which of the several hundred wrong interpretations to ignore.

Once the game hint is revealed, the GDC does look in on these discussion threads to see how teams are interpreting the hint. Yes, there is more than just one evil cackling laugh that sneaks out as they read some of the posts. But in general, I remember discussions that go something like this:

<snip>

Wait a minute....Since Dave is no longer on the GDC, why haven't we kidnapped him to extract information about what does go on in those closed door GDC meetings..... TELL US MORE DAVE!!! TELL US MORE!!!

On a serous note, if Dave is now willing to share what goes on in the GDC meetings, will he be so kind as to tell us if he is:
1. Doing the animation this year
2. If not, who owns the rights to the various robots in the animation (I want to see the plowbot gag continue as much as the next guy)

[Wayne TenBrink]

Game hints are kind of like the old "Duck and Cover" civil defense drills during the cold war. Neither one affects your ultimate fate, and both keep you busy until the big moment arrives.

[mdiradoorian]

@Ninja_Bait

That is true and I have been saying that this years game will not been a water, GDC in my opinion won't create one.

[RedLeader342]

where can i find the hints btw..