• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Aksys teaser site - news and updates

Status
Not open for further replies.

Prelude.

Member
You're all ignoring Punchline when Punchline was ZE3 all along.

76565778u9y.jpg
 

takoyaki

Member
0201

this week's news and some additional info is now in the OP, please tell me if I forgot something important or if you think I should delete the "possible connection" part.

You're all ignoring Punchline when Punchline was ZE3 all along.

"Punchline = ZE3 = Jin-Roh = Killzone" confirmed! ;)
 

takoyaki

Member
Says 0201 for me too.
Maybe those words could be clues to the characters in ZE3?

I like the idea, but it could also be about the position of the words (why are some of them moving while others are not?), only the letters are important (another round of anagrams?), etc. So far I tried to keep as much speculation out of the OP as possible, if we find something that backs up the idea, I'll add it to the OP right away.
 

grim-tales

Member
Interesting.
I subscribed too (I think), but I havent ever recieved any emails when the thread is added to? Weird...
Maybe the words are more "representative" of something else, or just vague hints out of context, like 999's word salads.
 
Just saw the Akselziys bit in the OP. Just to further add to that - I've stayed in contact with him over the years and he would always get back to my PM's regarding anything Zero Escape 3 related. By complete coincidence I PM'd him about a week before the teaser site first went up asking him if he knows anything new about Zero Escape 3. He still hasn't replied to me. Definetely odd.
 

takoyaki

Member
^ Thanks for the info. I didn't want to mention him before, but it's been a while and in this case, his (and Aksys') decision to do "nothing" seems to indicate that "something" is up;
He could have ended the ZE3 speculation on day one with a simple denial, dude has some street cred on GAF.
 

grim-tales

Member
Also in the OP, I didnt realise Uchikoshi had actually closed/deleted his FB account. I thought it was weird I wasnt friends with him there suddenly?
 

grim-tales

Member
Must be me then... weird :( It doesnt work for me :(
Anyway, on the gamefaqs board, someone said that:
The countdown is supposed to stop at around the same time Punchline stops airing.
Hmmm...
I wonder if the position of the words mean anything. firefighter is going left to right, with coin going the opposite way. And some other words (eg ice cream, ring) arent moving.
 

takoyaki

Member
My explanation would be that the static words are the new version of the words on the old images A and B. Those original images got discovered too soon and Aksys had to exchange the words (e.g. “ice cream” instead of “dream”, “ring” instead of “salt).

This would also explain why “salt” showed up on the teaser site for a short while before being replaced by “ring”. Someone mistakenly used a version of the image with the old word on it and had to switch it out quickly. The moving words (coin, firefighter) were not stored as image data on those old A/B images and this is why they haven’t appeared on the new images A and B Funyarinpa discovered.

Still doesn’t tell us what the words mean, but I assume there will be 10 static words and ? moving words when the counter ends.
 
After two static words, we got two consecutive moving words. Now they might change two at a time, only be moving words from now on, or change to static words entirely. We cannot know.

There are nine weeks to the end of the counter. That means there will be thirteen words total at this rate (a new word every Wednesday). I think that means it is unlikely that the type of the word (at rest/ moving) will change every three words- that would mean the last interval would be cut in half.
 

takoyaki

Member
Another Uchikoshi tweet (could hint at the word "coin" from the teaser page)

screenshot2015-04-26ahfu49.png


A 12 second video of carp streamers which are traditionally flown around Boys' Day (May 5th).

Here's the thing:

鯉幟 = こいのぼり = koinobori = carp streamer

コイン = こいん = koin = engl. "coin"

there's no "c" in Japanese, if you use Romaji (Japanese written in roman letters) which he is using in the tweet, it will be spelled as "koin" both times

BUT it won't work with Kanji, Hiragana or Katakana (the other 3 ways of writing Japanese)

So it's probably nothing, but after "ice cream => Aisukuriimu => I scream", anything is possible with that guy.
 

grim-tales

Member
Well lets hope the Punchline to this teaser (ha) doesnt end up being a bad joke.
Nah, I dont think it will be a localisation of Punchline but something else. Some posts on Gamefaqs think its Punchline, but I honestly dont see the teaser lasting that long if its localising a game few have heard of or even know of the anime
 
You're all ignoring Punchline when Punchline was ZE3 all along.

76565778u9y.jpg

I just got around to watching that episode. Funny coincidence that the (Punchline and ZE spoilers)
day the meteor is due to hit is the same date in ZE that Radical 6 is released, 31st December
. I'm sure it's just Uchikoshi reusing plotlines and there's nothing deeper in it than that though.
 

grim-tales

Member
Also I just thought, if "Boys Day" is an important clue, I dont think Punchline is the sort of anime/game that is particularly appealling to boys, idk to be honest.
 

takoyaki

Member
People have started to use the more inclusive term "Children's Day" for what used to be called "Boys' Day". Doesn't really fit because there's also a holiday for girls called "Hina Matsuri".

If this is connected on purpose, then I image Uchikoshi strolling through the park, seeing those carp streamers and thinking "Oh hey, that seems loosely connected to that teaser thing, I love me some bad puns and I can use it to keep the nerds speculating for while"

mission accomplished, Mr. Uchikoshi ;)
 

takoyaki

Member
Found this on reddit, it's an interesting idea connecting the ZE series with the Infinity symbol (sorry if old, never saw this before); people who finished VLR will recognize the red symbol.

arylandTerps on reddit:

I think the term "infinity" alludes to Free the Soul. I posted this in another comment, but I noticed that the FzS symbol looks like part of the infinity sign. Obviously I drew in the black parts to help illustrate what I see.

arylandterpsonreddit1gr94.png


source
 
Which reminds me, Punchline also has a mysterious terrorist organisation called the Qmay group. The letter Q was pretty important in 999.
 

takoyaki

Member
My expectations are DEAD in the water now, I thought that was a reference to the RED rrom 999.

They posted that photo before the teaser got started, I didn't even see it before grim-tales' post. So far, Aksys has always made sure we see their hints by using #4infinity. This was about a red Guilty Gear t-shirt and in retrospect, the "Tee-Hee" was kind of on the nose.

I don't think this changes anything one way or the other.
 

grim-tales

Member
Fair enough.
Sorry guys, I thought of that picture as being the start of the teaser for some reason :eek: But it really started when they tweeted "Happy Hump Day" and on their FB page.
I agree with Funya, at first I thought the cloth being red was like the RED in 999.
 

takoyaki

Member
So I finally got around to watch the first 3 episodes of Punchline. Not really my cup of tea, but it's a well-made show that makes fun of certain anime tropes and fanservice while being very "fanservicey" itself. Anyways, I tried to look for similarities with Uchikoshi's earlier work:

- the protagonist has the ability to
go back in time
- takes place around Xmas
- something terrible will happen on 31st December
- terrorist organization(s?) and a mysterious man in a mask that looks a bit like Zero's (one of the organizations is called "Q"may group, which CrimsonFist pointed out before)
- one of the girls has a secret identitiy
- a scene where there's a misunderstanding between characters similar to the elevator scene in 999/the locker room scene in VLR
-
one of the girls is really a robot, brought up by a loving mentor
[Luna spoiler VLR]
- the title of the show itself is a pun: "Punchline" (jp. "panchirain") -> "panty line" (or even "panchira"); and of course there's other puns throughout the show.

I don't see a real connection with the teaser site. The color scheme doesn't fit (the show is very colorful, flashy colors, lots of pink) and I didn't see anything that reminded me of the words or numbers on the site.
 
So Aksys announced another localisation without any buildup or teasers whilst this was still ongoing. That certainly makes me feel optimistic that this is bigger than just some localisation, which would probably rule out the Punchline game.
 

takoyaki

Member
Over the last week, I spent a few minutes here and there going over the people listed in the Japanese credits of VLR to see if anyone posted something similar to "working on you-know-what". I checked Linked-in, Moby Games, FB, Twitter and some company websites. Does anyone know a site similar to linked-in that Japanese devs use? I specifically looked through the people in charge of character design, music, voice acting and script/programing/graphics because I thought that somebody might have let something slip.

So far, I didn't find anything. Possible explanations:

A: They've been very careful
B: Not many people from VLR are involved
C: There's nothing to find (yet)

If someone else wants to give it a try, I'll send you a list of the credits via PM (it's publicly available information, but I don't want someone spamming those guys). Right now, I think I've tried everything I could come up with. Now I'm back to "waiting for something to happen" because I don't think we'll be able to confirm what this is with the information that is out there.


edit: Since a few people asked via PM, here’s one example of where I thought I might have found something.

Assumption going in: “Uchikoshi might want to work with the same people who did music/sound for VLR/999. All his VNs have had memorable music which made up a big part of the athmosphere. Also, music is often finished a lot sooner than the game itself and outsourcing plays a big role, there's a chance somebody mentioned something about what he's working on"

[both listed in 999 and VLR credits]

music: 細江慎治 (Hosoe Shinji)
sound director/sound effects: 江口孝宏 (Eguchi Takahiro)

the company they work for is called Super Sweep (listed as 株式会社スーパースィープ in the VLR credits)
Super Sweep specializes in doing music/sound for other game and anime companies.
The only project they both worked on which fits timing-wise is this:

音楽制作製品データ制作 (“Music-Production-Goods-Data-Creation”)

What is this supposed to be? No idea. Sounds very technical. "data creation for professional music creation tools"?
Could this be code for something else? Maybe, they list info/pics/links for all the other projects they worked on, but not here.
Can I prove anything with this? Nope!
Did I waste the last 10 minutes? Yup!
 

grim-tales

Member
I think options A and C are the most likely, but its interesting then that we've apparently seen no hints from anyone other than Uchikoshi sama (can I use that term?) himself and Aksys.
 

takoyaki

Member
Just saw this Aksys tweet from 5 hours ago. No #4infinity, but it could be about the teaser (or their newly announced game Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth, not a lot of context given)

screenshot0027-04-28a1msdy.png


edit: thanks spinz
 

grim-tales

Member
I thought the same thing too, it just sounds like it could be about the teaser to me.
I also get the feeling that since a new game (Code: Realise) was announced while the teaser is still active, it must be something pretty special.
 
Just saw this Aksys tweet from 5 hours ago. No #4infinity, but it could be about the teaser (or their newly announced game Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth, not a lot of context given)

screenshot0027-04-28a1msdy.png


Wasn't there a meme about Satoru Iwata saying something like "please understand"?

Sounds like whatever it is, it is coming to Nintendo platforms.

I just hope we get a Vita version too, if that is the case.
 

takoyaki

Member
Wasn't there a meme about Satoru Iwata saying something like "please understand"?

Sounds like whatever it is, it is coming to Nintendo platforms.

I just hope we get a Vita version too, if that is the case.

You're right (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/satoru-iwata). But if this is what we think it is, then it will probably be Vita/3DS/iOS/maybe Android.

One last thought about the words:

03-31-2015 Tuesday [ring]

04-09-2015 Thursday [coin]

04-13-2015 Monday [ice cream]

04-22-2015 Wednesday [firefighter]

they haven't added a word on the same day yet. I expect the next word to show up on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. After that, the pattern might repeat once more until the teaser is over. That would leave us with 14 words and I think 10 of them will be static (like the ones on old pictures A/B) and 4 will be moving.
 

spinz

Member
Wasn't there a meme about Satoru Iwata saying something like "please understand"?

Sounds like whatever it is, it is coming to Nintendo platforms.

I just hope we get a Vita version too, if that is the case.

in context with the tweet right before it, thats referring to code: realize.
Full statement reads like this:
"Greetings, all! I trust your Tuesday is going swimmingly? Of course it is. Apparently the PlayStation blog mentioned a game we're doing. I know you have questions. However, you'll have to wait just a TEENSY bit longer for answers. #pleaseunderstand. Oh, for those who haven't #realize(d) what people are talking about on the #otome front maybe this will help: http://bit.ly/1QFakaU."
So id say theyr just saying theyr not ready to talk more about code:realize yet.
 
in context with the tweet right before it, thats referring to code: realize.
Full statement reads like this:
"Greetings, all! I trust your Tuesday is going swimmingly? Of course it is. Apparently the PlayStation blog mentioned a game we're doing. I know you have questions. However, you'll have to wait just a TEENSY bit longer for answers. #pleaseunderstand. Oh, for those who haven't #realize(d) what people are talking about on the #otome front maybe this will help: http://bit.ly/1QFakaU."
So id say theyr just saying theyr not ready to talk more about code:realize yet.

Makes sense. You have valid points.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom