-ZAN

rather than color words, ive been trying to assign single emotion words to each of the five different puyo types. RBY is pretty easy:

red: anger
blue: sorrow
yellow: joy

quickly googles inside out 2

purple: ennui

that just leaves the green puyo which is kinda the "neutral" expression. glancing at a list of emotion words, a couple of broad classes of emotions that could apply are: trusting (as in belief of safety and tranquility), or surprise/anticipation (indicating hopefuleness). idk if any of those make a snappy one-worder

on an aside, there's a clear miss on the primal emotion of fear. maybe that'd be a good fit for the nuisance puyo since if you get hit by them you're about to fucking die

This chost has actually been sitting in my drafts for close to a year. It originally conveyed the challenges I felt were continuing to hamper Puyo's continued growth in the west. I never finished editing the original draft because I felt that the thesis was too reactionary.

Essentially, it's easy to point out the issues plaguing the series, and the topic is already well-trodden elsewhere [1], [2]. And Sega does listen to this feedback and incorporate it little by little in subsequent games. The problem with this whack-a-mole approach is that it doesn't solve the fundamental problems with Puyo. Metaphorically, it's like trying to scoop out the water in a sinking ship without plugging the holes causing the leaks in the first place.

I don't want to cover the issues with the gameplay and online here, mostly because I don't have good solutions for them at the moment. Instead I want to focus specifically on the presentation of Puyo Puyo: how it's differentiated from its peers, how it's packaged, and how it's marketed.

What I feel has been plaguing Puyo's attempts at expanding in the west is an inability on Sega's part to grasp what its core pillars of strength are among the western audience.

It's up!!!!
https://puyonexus.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Puyo_Puyo!!_20th_Anniversary/Upcoming_Pair_Randomizer

This is the same algorithm used in PPEsports/Champions btw. It's going to be a bit longer before I get a writeup and code samples published, but it's done. Just in time for the shuffling algorithm to be seemingly invalidated by PPT2!