Scioly Assassination 97: Gotta Catch 'Em All

[aim4me26]

Good game, guys. Good luck to the next sassy!

[EpicFailOlympian]

Er, so. Some closing remarks. To be honest, I was extremely agitated by the level of participation and effort we had. I spend a lot of effort making the back story, the rules, the clues, etc. The clues I made weren't hard at all. All you needed to know was some Pokémon/how to Google. The clue hardness level never got any harder than that. It easier and easier. Any harder wasn't fair. As for ID clues, there was TONS. My signatures. Or change #DIG into numbers. One of the 2 new additions to the SEC is... Odyssey and Iliad are... Snakes + Better = ? (Serpent + Superior) Going green? "HIT 'EM WITH YOUR SPLASH ATTACK"...could that be referring to a fail? "STOP READING ONE THERE IS NO ID CLUE oh btw I is better thant all yall and you is fail lol reverse phyisks? hah lol"?

Seriously, you could have accused me right off Ced's list:
zyzzyvva98 (Probably not him, too obvious)
Silver Night (officer)
aim4me26 (Div B)
Kokonilly (Not her- retired)
fozendog (fisherman)
mnstrviola
A Person (B?)
EpicFailOlympian
tuftedtitmouse12 (Um... See the accusation against her in 86.)
foreverphysics (Doesn't know much about Pokemon)
Allinea (Doesn't know much and doesn't play)
sweetcoop (Rarely on)
The Architect

And see who would Littleboy most likely to pick. T'was pretty obvious that I was an older user. Astro and rocks, remember? Events that I won't do anymore because sophomores choose last.

Oh, and clue solutions!
Clue 1: fossils, dinosaurs, Jurassic Park -> paleonaps
Clue 2: Need to Surf to Cinnabar Island, need water Pokémon. Squirtle -> fozendog
Clue 3: Sea and foam, Seafoam Islands, Articuno -> forever
Clue 4: Crabby, Crab Nebula -> liutony66
Clue 5: Skink made this one. The times are minutes and hours. Minutes you go clockwise that number, hours you go counter-clockwise. Spells out F PHY -> forever
Clue 6: Hyrogen is light. It floats. -> thehyrodgenpoptart
Clue 7: Brock Obama, liberal -> caseyotis
Clue 8: Skink also made this one, hence his photobucket. Bulbasaur -> Makeithappen
Clue 9: Pwter, silver. -> silverheart7
Clue 10: Mt. Silver -> SilverNight
Clue 11: Togepi -> The Architect
Clue 12: Gold/Silver/Crystal versions have nights when Hoothoots come out. -> SilverNight

So yea. I made some other clues:

COSECANT SINE
(Ho-Oh -> Mt. Silver)
A: SilverNight

Go to unova region
(New York)
A: caseyotis

I was going to go to region by region, but I was stopped in Johto. So yea.

I want to say this for all future Assassinators and officers:

Assassinators: Make easy clues. The clues you make are so much easier IF you know the answer. It's isn't as easy if you think.

Officers: Please try, if you have been an Assassinator then you'll understand. You put so much work in, but it seems nobody gives a sh-t. This is a game of clue solving. If you don't want to solve clues, then don't become an officer.
Thanks to Skink and Z for helping me get started and clue making. Thanks to Littleboy for choosing me. I hoped everyone enjoyed this.

FIN

[Skink]

Clue 12: Gold/Silver/Crystal versions have nights when Hoothoots come out. -> SilverNight
COSECANT SINE
(Ho-Oh -> Mt. Silver)
A: SilverNight

I don't get it.

I wanted to thank EFO for selecting an, in my opinion, very fun theme. And you’re welcome, not that I did much.
To everyone else, I had some fun with this one, if you couldn’t tell. I advised him against choosing this theme because that allowed Cedavis to make her short list based on recent avatar changes, but that didn’t, in the end, work against him, fortunately.

It may benefit anyone reading this game later to know that many avatars were changed to Pokemon this month. It’s what the officers had to work with when specific Pokemon had to be considered in clues. From what I know…

The Pokemon Avatar Month (Click to Show Hidden Text)

*Assassinator, Giovanni
A Person, Prinplup
Aim4me26, Piplup (Togepi in sig for some of game)
Allinea, Pikachu
Cedavis6, Pikachu
EpicFailOlympian, Serperior
foreverphysics, Articuno
Fozendog, Squirtle
Kokonilly, Ralts
Luo, Abra
Makeithappen, Bulbasaur
mnstrviola, Flygon
Paleofreakazoid, Kabuto
SilverNight, Meloetta
Skink, Togetic (switched to a Team Rocket executive when posting HAIL GIOVANNI at end of game)
Sweetcoop, Crobat
The Architect, Togepi
ThePrudentGuava, Meowth
tuftedtitmouse12, Altaria
zyzzyva98, Braviary

I couldn’t resist ‘playing’ this game, which involved posting Pokemon nonsense and sometimes pitching in on the clue solving. I’m aware it was a bit obnoxious, but, hey, it was fun. Let’s look back at the game and notice a few things…
Early on, aim4me noticed that the Sassy used the accented E. As of the first post, EFO gave himself away because, if you did a search, you’d find that he is the most likely target. Doing that search now gives you a bunch of hits from this game making it harder to figure out as time went on. I told him to edit it, and, again, he didn’t listen. Oh well.

I wrote the board game clue. I actually ripped this picture straight from a game I played back in November. It was annoying, so I was dying to share it. I gave it to EFO along with a clue about game clear times. That part didn’t make it, unfortunately. Also, I had to redo the times a few times to get them right, and then EFO redid my redo because it was apparently too hard.
Oh, how do you do it?

Clue Solution (Click to Show Hidden Text)

There are four pieces.  Minutes go clockwise, then hours go counterclockwise around the board.  Try it.  You should get FPHY, which targets foreverphysics.  I didn’t want to target her originally, but the people I wanted to kill didn’t fit the letters.  And I also wanted to go YHPF, but EFO deemed that too hard, too.  Oh well.

Notice, it’s in quotes, I guess to suggest I wrote it. Also, I asked what it has to do with Pokemon afterwards. The answer is nothing.

The other quoted clue (which happens to be from a skinkoly Photobucket, notice) was the anime stills one. I was dying to target Makeithappen, so I did. Text clues are boring, so I went with anime pictures. This clue could be solved in a variety of different ways depending on how much Pokemon knowledge you happened to have, from expert to none.

Clue Solution (Click to Show Hidden Text)

If you happen to have seen the episode or know about it, then you know that Bulbasaur fought Tangela, which may be how Makeithappen solved the clue.  The next Pokemon-ish way to do it is to look at the last still.  It has vines, a Vine Whip attack, attacking Tangela.  Those Vine Whips came from Bulbasaur.

But we’re not all Pokemon nuts!  How do we do it?  If you check the filenames again, the pics range from EP26237 to EP26245.  That’s nine pictures that should be there, but there are only eight.  EP26244 is missing.  From here, the easiest thing to do is Google ‘EP26244’ to get the first hit being Bulbasaur in the missing pic in the sequence.  If you aren’t that crafty, you could either A)rudimentarily hunt down the episode or B)realize that the filenames say the pics come from episode 26, which you could research and get the missing frame from eventually.  It’s not difficult, but it’s also not what we usually see.

What else? I went into invisible mode for the game just in case. And I thought getting some Braille and Unown-script in here would be appropriate before the end. My Unown-script posted earlier today hinted at the small text.
I won’t comment on ID clues because the only one I solved myself was the accented E thing in the beginning.

What did we learn from this game? One thing to note is that it’s a busy time of year for everyone, and this hurt activity a bit. Now, I’m going to suggest to the next Assassinator to lose the five officer rule. With the way the games are played now, this is not an appropriate way. Everyone will have more motivation to contribute if they have a chance of earning accusations and winning themselves, too. Nobody is committed enough to be one of only a few officers.

Now, I’m done playing for real. I just couldn’t pass on this game, especially given the fact that I knew who the Assassinator was. If any future Assassinator wants any clue help, I have ideas. And now, for anyone who has played Black, White, Black 2, or White 2…

PLASMAAAAAAAAA!

Roll credits.

[Littleboy]

You guys don't know me well enough to figure out people who I would pick? You should know by now I am most likely to pick someone experienced..
EFO, you let Skink and Z help you make clues but not me?!

I kept talking about failures. I hoped that that would lead you to EFO.
Another ID clue I gave was when I compared how Zyzzyva gave ID clues in every post (the title) but this sassy (EFO) only gave ID clues in all of his posts (in his sig). I hoped you would have gotten the connection and looked at the signature closer.
Finally, in the misspellings in that one post I gave spelled out OFE (EFO backwards).

I was about to give another one. One that would be fun for me to watch you solve. Yes, it is a cipher. No, it is not solvable based on any websites.

My original pick for sassy was Masquerade, however Skink did not allow it (for obvious reasons which I fully expected).

Congratulations EFO, Cedavis, and SilverNight.
Good luck to the next assassinator. I will find you. I will accuse you. I will win...just maybe not as fast as I did against Skink...

[Skink]

My original pick for sassy was Masquerade, however Skink did not allow it (for obvious reasons which I fully expected).

I'll admit, it would have made for an...interesting game...but at the complete expense of the players.

[A Person]

Seriously, you could have accused me right off Ced's list:
A Person (B?)
EpicFailOlympian

FIN

Really? I'm on a list, even though I've never played a Sassy game.

By the way, I hope the next Sassy game is Christmas themed. Original, isn't it.(Sarcasm)

[Littleboy]

No, last year harryk made a Christmas themed game on Christmas eve. It has been done before.

[zyzzyva980]

I didn't actually write any clues- I'm far too busy to go that far. I just talked a little bit with EFO as to what I thought the best way to manage a game was. I actually found the discussion quite interesting- both Skink and I have wildly different viewpoints on how to run a game. Neither one is "right" or "wrong," and both can be successful. But I still believe that if you go back to the original games, it can still work. There's a really simple formula for what makes a good game, and future assasstornadoes pay attention to this:

A fun game is a good game. What makes a fun game? The interaction between the assasstornado and the players. The stories they tell. The presentation of clues. Remembering that it's only a game, not life and death. Not literally, anyway.

Also, never underestimate the power of game pace. Keep players interested, the game runs faster, everyone has a good time.

There are a number of things that DON'T make fun games, however:
Overcomplicated rules- If people are confused they won't want to play. That's why I really like the idea of sticking to the original rules, because with a good (fun) assasstornado, those rules absolutely work. And,
Overcomplicated clues- This is a problem literally every assasstornado has their first time out. The clues make sense in your head, because you KNOW the answer, and it's easy to work backwards. The other players don't have that luxury. Simple clues are solved faster, and keep the game running.

Finally, don't lambast the officers if they aren't seeing what is obvious to you (partially because you wrote the clue or know who the assasstornado is). Nothing sucks the fun out of a game faster than a wall of posts calling the players idiots because you don't think they're as smart as you. And really, this game is meant for fun. Don't ever forget that it's just a game.

[Skink]

I want everyone to know there is a gray area with regards to clue writing. It's not always Black and White. The following simple clue formula is not also the formula for a good clue:

Word word word word word word word word word word word circles word word word word word word...

Protect Cedavis, right? That's lame. It's as easy to solve as it is to write, but is that really *fun*? I dunno, it isn't in my book. And I caution everyone against making the assumption that a clue that folks don't solve is bad. Consider the last clue, the one with the Braille message our new Champion decoded. I didn't get it, and the answer was right in front of me. That was an easy clue. Was it bad? No, I just wasn't looking the right way. Part of problem solving is time at times. Sometimes, that insight only comes later, and time isn't exactly a luxury with these games. So, some failure is to be expected. My $0.02...

[Cedavis6]

Word word word word word word word word word word word circles word word word word word word...

LOL. Circles!

ANYWAYS, I have to say that I agree with Z. I miss the days before we were screamed at for not trying... (Sure, some of it was deserved at times, at least for me, anyways.) But I have a tight, TIGHT schedule. Between theatre, Tech Club, SO and homework, I can't always go on my Nook or computer with time to spare to try to solve a clue. But, when I do, I do. Sometimes I can't make heads or tails of a clue. And I've given up on them. I have to admit, that's not the best thing to do, but it doesn't mean that either I or the clue is bad. The clue just doesn't suit my personal strenghths. (Yeah, I probably spelled that wrong.) I think we should just respect eachother's strengths, and games'll be more fun!