[FRC Blog] 2014 Game Hint

[Hobo]

A little late to the party, but I figured it was about time for another reorganization (been going through this thread and getting a little lost along the way):

What I believe was the latest summary was from post 279 on page 19 by Thunder910; here's an abridged recap of that:

(1) Using the numbers as zip codes, they point to cities with a connection to baseball
(2) Using the numbers as zip codes, they point to cities that have passed the Olympic torch
(3) Andy Baker uses a baseball bat in a video for Robot in Three Days
(4) In the KoP apology letter, they use the baseball analogy "Our apologies for the two strikes this weekend, we promise our next swing will be a home run."
(5) Hex, statistics, ASCII and Morse have not come up with anything consistently intelligible
(6) The first two numbers' simplified, irrational forms are the hex codes of green and blue, respectively
(7) Karomata created a theory revolving around Phil Fish
(8) When plugged into Google Earth (or Maps?), there are three images that show a shopping center sign including Security First, a map including First Baptist Church, and a sign saying "Weight Limit Reduced 25% Effective Jan. 1st to May 1st."
(9) The game piece pattern for this year would indicate a ball-based game
(10) The game type pattern, which was already broken by Ultimate, should have continued to give a non-abstract game, but technically makes us overdue for one

Now it's time to number the (more concrete) game theories!
(1) Baseball
(2) Hockey
(3) Something more abstract

Football and a Logomotion like game have also been mentioned, but they have had less traction than the other theories so far. Granted, that doesn't discount them at all.

From reading a lot of these posts and my own (very brief) experiences, I believe that FIRST games, now especially, will not only seek to provide a good, fun challenge but also make FIRST and STEM more accessible to more people.
To be frank, racing games, stacking games, puzzle-like games and even just varied scoring methods and multipliers makes games harder for non-FIRST people to sit down and watch FIRST events (so does a non-working automatic scoring system, but that's a bit less controllable).
Rebound Rumble was a hit because of how straightforward the primary scoring was, and Ultimate Ascent followed that trend. That is why, I believe, part (10) about the game type trend broke; it's because they realized that creating non-abstract games with visually logical scoring can fulfill their goals better.

In addition to the game type, I think that it is probably more logical to follow the non-game hint hints, such as the video and letter references, than to be suspicious of them. Since they are unified, and previous non-game hint hints such as a KoP specification change (2013) indicating smaller robots were pretty straightforward as well, it would make sense.

Opinions in general: part (9) indicates we're due for a ball game, fulfilled by the baseball game supported by (1), (3) and (4); (1) and (8) also support each other due to their connection with maps, and (8) does contain several references to FIRST. Security First = Safety First, but the church is still mysterious. (8) also indicates much lighter robots, at a 90lb. cap.

General notes: / can stand for division, a space in Morse, or an or symbol. Commas separate lists, pauses in speech, coordinate systems, and the beginning and end of sets. Mapping them out as three Cartesian points is guaranteed to create a triangle; mapping them as a 8 3D points (/ as an or) is guaranteed to create a rectangular prism (as long as the options are different). Apparently, mapping it in Wolfram Alpha gives a sphere.

Keep in mind that, as a poster whose post I've lost said before me, the GDC must have backwards designed this hint, providing a barrier to (8); how would they have gotten those numbers to pinpoint those locations?

And finally, remember that this is a source of mostly entertainment and not competition. Even if we pulled out the right game, the only real benefit is being able to laugh about it afterwards, so let's have fun with this!

P.S. I didn't discuss the photo of Dean, Woodie and Don, sorry! I sort of went with the whole "There Are No Game Hints In This Photo" warning. To be frank, there's too much symbolism to pull from photos that don't have overt messages (they're taking a photo, there's a green screen, they have chairs etc.) to get much concrete stuff anyways.