filed by Agent O
Welcome back from hiatus, fellow Agents. The new Short Circuit is here, complete with new division names (we are in Molten Sea) and a completely new roster that is actually mechanically pretty good except for Clark Heavens, who is the worst active pitcher the Spies have ever seen. According to preliminary lore, this particular set is being called the Chronologists’ Reconnaissance Taskforce, .crt for short.
The largest gameplay change this Circuit is that this season will last two weeks, instead of one – though there will still be an election this weekend, which is now the middle of the season.
Scheduling
To facilitate the season spreading out over two weeks, teams now only play some days, rather than all of them. There could be less than 12 games scheduled per hour – sometimes, but not always, a lot less. This writer has seen days that are scheduled to have as few as two games in them. In total each team still plays 99 games, but they will be spread out across 166 “days”. To quote the devlog:
- Monday, Dec 6 through Friday, Dec 10 — Games 1 through 63
- Sunday, Dec 12 — Election 1
- Monday, Dec 13 through Wednesday, Dec 15 — Games 64 through 99
- Thursday, Dec 16 through Friday, Dec 17 — Postseason
- Sunday, Dec 19 — Election 2
Doing A Solid
All the weather from the previous Circuit is still here, and Peanuts and Snow have been added.
During Peanut weather, giant peanuts have been observed crashing onto the field. These might be the same type of giant peanuts as the ones that shelled Wyatt Quitter. Yes, that Wyatt Quitter. They seem not to have done anything. Yet.
In Snow, snowflakes may land on any player and very slightly boost their stats – or, on occasion, a flurry of snowflakes may freeze player(s) solid for the rest of the game. This includes pitchers. Getting them unfrozen in time for the next game might involve an intern with a hair dryer. You didn’t hear that from me, by the way.
Mild Cards are the runners-up in each conference.
The betting system has not changed, and so Operation: Combinatorics is continuing. If the last row isn’t 4 games long, use the end of the previous row so you’re still betting on the last four games. If the Spies are not playing, bet on the first team visible. And if there are less than five games, I guess you’re on your own.
The Shelled .1
There is a new tutorial explaining the game… held by a certain Peanut, complete with red uppercase proclamations of “I AM A SNACK” and “FOLLOW ME TO LEARN DISCIPLINE”.
(If you don’t see the tutorial – it will only be shown to some people by default – go to your profile (click the empty chair in the pink circle) and under the Settings tab, there should be a button to “restart” said tutorial.)
…Wait, is this the Peanut we know and loathe? It is much smaller, powerless to stop you from exiting out of the tutorial, and the Blaseball Beat newsletter states that
A Shelled One has been summoned […] The young god vows Discipline
Considering that this Shelled One is not the one we knew, the fans came up with nicknames: people are variously calling it The Shelled Two, The Shelled .1, or Baby Nut. Personally, I’m calling it the Nutling.
Looper
Here’s something else interesting: the part of the tutorial that states “THEY PLAY IN REAL TIME” has “games” running, but uses a cached fragment of a few historicalish games rather than showing the games that might or might not be currently running.
The first game is the Grand Unslam complete with using the old name of the Los Angeles Tacos, the second game uses the rosters from the read-only Gamma 0 circuit and is thus probably from then, and the third game appears to be entirely new. Yummy reactions and the Ohio Worms never existed at the same time.
When the Grand Unslam happens, the game display says “TEMPORAL ANOMALY DETECTED” and loops back to the beginning. A clever way to justify the looping.
Aren’t You Tired Of Being Nice?
The election has simple Amplifications (pick one stat boost across the team, same as last time), and mostly simple Distortions (blessings)… but with one notable exception:
TASTE THE INFINITE
Remake your Team in the Shelled One’s Image.
What’s more, every time you vote for this, your “Peanut Favor” (a new stat fans apparently have now) increases by 1.
I get the feeling that, despite (or perhaps because of) the ominousness, this Distortion is going to be incredibly heavily contested.