Kinako's pre-announcement: event/characters

[Blues]

So it seems Kinako' latest blog post has a few new items for us to think about.

The first announcement is an event with a name that's currently revealed only as "The __i___ _a___ _a__o_" ^{(which sounds quite convoluted D : )}. What's interesting is that in addition to accepting written and drawn entries, the Devs will allow teams to enter as well. From the description however it seems to me less of a response to previous events and more the nature of this event but I suppose it's something that remains to be seen, eh?


The other announcement Kinako promised is the introduction of a 'slew of new characters'. Wonder exactly how 'new' she means- would they really be ones we've never heard of before? Or is this likely to be a formal introduction to the rest of the Bright Bats? Again, we'll just have to see.

So, what do you think, guys? Potentially interesting? Or frustratingly vague? : o

[General Specific]

Probably a formal introduction to many of Barrett's companions and acquaintances, most likely—and I wouldn't be surprise if this was the fabled special weapons-related Event that I've been waiting for, and for quite a while. It's good that they're going to formally-recognize team efforts this time around, and not all the credit keeps getting pinned on the submitter. I'll be more-than-ready to help out with this Event now that school is done and done for me.

[Raijin]

"The Bright Pants Patrol."
"The Slimey Hands Matron."
"The Flimsy Wacky Jakkos."
Start planning guys. We've got this event in the bag.

[Pitch]

Frustratingly vague. Definitely frustratingly vague.

Nothing comes to mind for these words. Even dropping the patterns in a crossword dictionary and narrowing the results down with a regular expression (assuming this is like hangman) yields waaay too many possibilities to come up with anything meaningful. (594 words for #1, 1142 for #2 and 148 for #3) I tried to automatically combine all the possible words in all possible ways into one big list, but the resulting file was way too large. :37: If canon terms and phrases are included, it might be more obvious, though nothing comes to mind.

It does sound like those new characters might actually be new characters though. So that's neat... I guess.

[Dashe]

Oh, Kinako. Toss in a vote for 'Frustratingly vague.'

That said, I'm glad teams can finally get some recognition, since, you know, game design's hardly ever a solo effort. I just wonder how many to a team's allowed this time. She only seemed to insinuate that you'd get an artist slot and a writer slot.

[Chiz]

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am looking forward to a Crispy Bacon Factor, just like MML2 with the Calbanian Pig. :13:

...but that's just me. :41:

[Raijin]

I don't get why anyone would be frustrated over a puzzle that's not meant to be solved. This is basically the same thing as Barret's silhouette. There was no way we were going to glean anything significant from that -- his name, role, personality, hair colour...nothing except a vague outline of hairstyle and jacket shape. That and this silly letter puzzle are simply teasers, the illusion of useful hints given out to gain our attention while they continue to play their cards close to their chest. There's no need to be frustrated. Impatient, maybe, because pre-announcements tend to generate impatience quite easily.

No reason we can't have fun with the letter game while it lasts though.

"The Chicks Dance Lagoon."

Aw yeah, party time.

"The Teisel Manly Factor."

It's a contest to design characters that attempt to match Teisel's level of awesomeness. Sounds challenging.

"The Oniony Salad Carton."

It's uh...getting close to dinnertime.

"The Skinny Santa Raptor."

Now that's oldschool Santa Raptor. Y'know he wasn't always a fat dinosaur.

"The United Happy Marios."

A new class of NPC based on their contract with Nintendo.

"The Sticky Mango Cannon."

Well, you wanted a Special Weapon contest.

I could do this all day.

Edit: Just checked the other Devroom to see what their equivalent of the puzzle is.
"○○○○○○○　の　○○○○○　募集"

The last word is "recruitment", the character in the middle basically means "of", and the circles are the blanks that represent mystery kana. It seems even more vague than the version we got.

[Dashe]

I'm more frustrated that, despite being practically teased to death all our teenage/adult lives by this company about this game, they're still dropping hints so vague nobody could possibly figure them out before the reveal. The Japanese Devroom didn't even get any letters in their version, just a bunch of weird circles!

But yeah, no use complaining. We might as well make a game out of it to have some fun while we're waiting for the weekend to come along. If anybody actually does manage to guess even two out of three there ought to be some kind of prize for pro sleuthing.

That is, assuming Greg didn't make a typo. He already misstated that Aero 'died' her hair, and his predecessor wasn't that much more on top of grammar either, if fAB's copypasta from CU's been any indication.

"The Grill's Gangs Mascot," an event where the big, blond guy from the Bright Bats has a pet, and entrants must design it.

"The Crisis Magic Ballot," where we pick the Deus Ex Machina that threatens Barrett and friends by vote.

"The Sticky Fancy Sailor," where teams get to design a prim, overdressed sailor made of chewed gum. Yay!

[ravenf6]

An interesting development. Let's hope they at least make the purpose clear so that way we can get down to business.

[Pitch]

The whole puzzle may not really be solvable, but I also noticed that “mascot” fits for the third word a while ago, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's got something to do with it. (That or the word “cameos,” but I haven't been able to come up with anything for that.) Considering it's possible the first word is “Bright,” I'd be inclined to guess the second word would be “Bats,” even if it's too short a word. I would almost bet on a “typo” in the Capcom Unity post, or that the fifth “letter” is an apostrophe. (That kind of cheating is typical in unsolvable puzzles, isn't it? ) In fact, I will bet on that. “B r i g h t B a t s ’ M a s c o t.” I'm putting 10,000z on it right now.

Of course, there's a whole slew of possibilities for that third word. But assuming this is like a game of hangman, and the only instances of A, I and O are the ones shown, you can narrow it down quite a bit. This is a list of the possible words, taken from a cross-word dictionary if A, I and O only appear as shown:

ballon, ballot, bancos, bandog, banjos, barhop, barlow, barrow, baryon, bassos, batboy, bathos, cachou, callow, cameos, campos, candor, cannon, cannot, cansos, canton, cantor, cantos, canyon, captor, carbon, carboy, cardon, cargos, carhop, carrom, carrot, carton, cartop, castor, dacron, daemon, dalton, damson, dattos, factor, faggot , falcon, fallow, fandom, fantod, fantom, farrow, fathom, gallon, gallop, gambol, gammon, garcon, garron, gascon, hadron, hagdon, hallos, hallot, hallow, hansom, harbor, harlot, harrow, hatbox, haymow, jargon, ladron, lapdog, laptop, lardon, largos, lassos, machos, macron, macros, madtom, maggot, mahzor, mallow, maltol, mambos, mammon, mangos, marmot, marron, marrow, mascon, mascot, matron, matzoh, matzos, matzot, maypop, nachos, narcos, narrow, natron, pallor, pantos, pardon, pargos, parlor, parrot, parson, parton, paseos, pastor, pathos, patrol, patron, pawnor, ragtop, ramrod, ramson, rancor, random, ransom, raptor, ratton, safrol, sallow, salmon, salvor, salvos, sambos, sannop, santol, sargos, sartor, sawlog, tallol, tallow, tampon, tangos, tannoy, tarpon, tautog, vagrom, wackos, wadmol, waggon, wallop, wallow, wanton, yarrow, yaupon

(I <3 Regular Expressions)

About a hundred and forty-eight words. Not a lot to work with there, when you start taking out words that don't seem very likely. ... but I suppose you're right. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being like the whole Barrett situation, where it would have (almost) literally been impossible to guess what they had planned.

[Dashe]

Okay, got it. Pitch Black, 10,000 Zenny, "Bright Bats' Mascot." *Marks down in ledger* Anyone else got a guess they want to to pit against it? Seriously, though, if you get this 100% I will be very tempted to change your custom title to "Super Sleuth" for like a week.

[Benjamin]

Aaaaand once again I'm back to disliking Kinako -_- She was doing so well too, what with reporting actual relevant news instead of snack info.

I don't have any guesses for the blankity-blank-blank. Although if anyone wants a writer for a team for whatever it is, I can definitely handle that - it's the career I have in mind after all. I'm no help to drawing though.

And if my...*cough* non-inclusion in the Devroom's day to day affairs would cause any issues, you could always just consider it a single entry (although it would be rather funny if a winning team included someone banned from the Devroom).

[Loken]

I think it's closer to 'Bright Brat's Nachos' but I was never a good detective in the first place.
'Fight Black salmon'
'Sight Mauled Marlow' A reference to Heart of Darkness by Joesph Conrad, but I doubt that's it.

'Silky Frame Tampon'
I'm going to give up, You're probably right Dashe

[TronBonne]

Not impressed with the vague hint, but maybe Pitch figured it out, eh? Bright Bats' Mascot. I wonder what that would be, it would have to be something distinct enough to compete with the servbots and Data, assuming it's some sort of tiny creature and not a human mascot. But I guess I'm jumping waaay ahead, we don't really know what those words are yet...

I'm all up for new characters! I wonder how many "a whole slew" will be though, and how much information we will be given for each one. If there are any female characters revealed, I'm hoping they have decent outfits (aka non-revealing clothing).

[Dashe]

Ditto on any new girl characters being modestly dressed. I'm always up for more girl characters who aren't stereotypically girly, too.

On a vaguely related note, this is it! "Slinky Panty Tampon," the Design-Your-Own-Embarrassing-and-Barely-Appropriate-Roll-or-Tron-Scene Event! :39: *Puts 10k in the pot on it*