07.16.26 PLAAY CONNECT
(photo credit to Zacharias Korsalka, pexels.com)
The big news this month is the return of our Fury Sports games, but there’s a lot of other action happening as well! Thanks for checking in, let’s get right to it…
The Fury Returns!
We're excited to have Fury Hardball and Fury Football back on the game table! Each has a fresh, contemporary look and ALL NEW players! We streamed a special "launch day" Football/Hardball double-header to show you the new components in action...game ON!
"Swing Board" is retired, Pitch Deck takes over!
Of special note, the pitch deck is the new engine for ALL versions of Fury Hardball: head-to-head, solitaire and auto-play. We’ve retired the Swing Board—it’s no longer included with the game. You CAN still use the Swing Board, it’ll work just fine, same as before. In fact, up until a few weeks before the game’s re-launch we were intending to include the Swing Board as an optional “alternate” way to play the game. However, in-person play-testing over the past few years has made it clear that using the pitch deck makes Fury Hardball faster, more colorful and just more FUN! So, ultimately, we decided to go all-in with it. Still, if you have an older version of the game, know that the pitch deck is NOT a required purchase. ALL components of the previous version of the game will work with the new card sets, and vice-versa.
If you'd like to continue using your original game with the swing board and simply add the Pitch Deck to what you already have, the Pitch Deck is available separately. We’ll include a copy of the 2026 Fury Hardball rules booklet with your purchase of the pitch deck, which will explain fully how to play the game solo and auto-play using the pitch deck.
Expanded Furious Fun!
As I mentioned earlier, all of the new card sets for the Fury sports are NEW and are available as printed or PDF downloads...
• New 2026 Big League Fury: We've re-cast the current big league landscape into a Fury presentation! Each team gets nine position players and three pitchers.
• New Fury Hardball North American Expansion: Our parallel Fury Big League Universe, with 30 teams. Add them to the six teams that come with the game to form a 36 team Fury Hardball Super League! Or choose your favorites and create a more compact league.
• New National Fury Football League: All 24 franchises from the original league are back--The New Orleans Big Fun, The Nashville Twang, Minnesota Chill and everybody else!--stocked with new players and a new card design. Add them to the six teams that come with the game to form a 30 team Fury Football Super League!
• COMING SOON 2026 Pro Football Fury: Similar to last year's set, this will be a look-ahead to the about-to-begin 2026 Pro Football Season, packaged in Fury Fashion! Real pro players perform like we THINK they will. This is NOT a "sim," but it sure is FUN, in the same way that Madden, Tecmo Bowl and BLITZ are!
Fury Sports at the WBC!
In a couple weeks we'll be off to the 2026 World Boardgaming Championships at the Seven Springs Resort in Pennsylvania, with the goal of introducing PLAAY Games to the crowd gathered there.
• Official WBC-sanctioned FH tournament 7pm Friday night! Choose your team, and test your mettle against other fans.
• Fury Football Exhibition play all weekend! I'm planning to have this game set up at our exhibitor table with an ongoing elimination tournament using all 30 teams.
• Other PLAAY Games Demos: I won't be able to bring a copy of every PLAAY Game but we will have a representative selection on hand, as well as a help-yourself bowl filled with business card games!
Stuff Back In Stock
In addition to the Fury Sports being back in stock, we have a couple other items ALSO back in stock, or about to be...
• College Hoops PLAAY Down: Not just "The Tournament," it's the entire PLAAY college universe, 192 teams! Read more here...
• Soccer Blast PLAAY Mats: We have a delivery date of June 20 for these to arrive, so if you're on the wait list, watch your in-box!
Vintage All-Star Baseball Tonight! 1980s, 1990s and 2000s
Join us at the PLAAY HQ game table as we christen a VERY cool new FREE card set (available below)! PLAAY Gamer Bob Campbell has created a collection of decade-themed all-star teams, AL vs. NL, from the 1950s to the 2020s. Each league's biggest stars of the decade are ready to go after each other in an All-Star Series for the Ages!
In our stream, we've opted for a best-of-three series with History Maker Baseball Express featuring the teams from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Of course, that's just ONE way to play it--download the set from the FREE STUFF section below and conduct your OWN All-Star Series for the Ages!
Tonight's stream is a recorded video, set to premiere at 6pm MT (8pm ET). We'll have the chat feature active, so join us for the fun and be ready to chime in!
Video Content You May Have Missed...
We've been dabbling with pre-recorded video streams in recent weeks, which are grouped under a different category ("videos') than our live streams ("live"). Hence, you may have missed some of the content we've created! Recent pre-recorded streams include...
• Fury Sports East/West Coast Hardball/Football Double-Header
• World Cup Host Nation Triple Friendly
• San Antonio-New York Game TWO Pro Hoops Pre-PLAAY
Here's the link for the list of archived pre-recorded streams, check them out!…
https://www.youtube.com/@PLAAYGamesYT/videos
FREE Stuff!
• Bob Campbell's Decade All-Stars for History Maker Baseball: As detailed above, you get roughly 60 of each decade's biggest baseball stars, 30 for each league. This is Bob's unique, personal take on baseball history. Each player was rated based on a three-year arc rather than by career or a single "best" season. Pitchers were not rated for batting--if you don't want to use the designated hitter rule, you'll have to improvise. You could either use "no qualities" as printed, or ad the standard assortment of pitcher batting qualities (SAD SACK, UTILITY, SCRAPPER, EAGER, WHIFFER). Also note that there are some unorthodox delta and sigma ratings--this set has Bob's stamp on it, we love it! I know you will, too!
• David Gambrill's 2025 Canadian Pro Season for Cold Snap Canadian Pro Football: David has been diligently and faithfully preserving our Canadian football presence with his annual re-creation of the pro season teams for Cold Snap! David apologizes for the absence this year of the fringe player list and liner notes. (But he has gone three-deep on the team sheets so fringe players are not really needed!) All ten pro teams--thanks again, David, great work!
Next Week: It's 1966 Baseball Like Never Before
We've been talking about this since spring and with the "Dog Days of Summer" straight ahead, it's time to get this set on the game table! It's our first-ever release of a vintage season featuring BOTH of our fictional baseball leagues, Continental and Century. The leagues ran concurrently from 1961 to 1973 before merging in '74, and this new/old card set captures all eight teams from both leagues in a card design that's evocative of the actual 1966 Topps baseball card release.
Join us NEXT Thursday 07.23.26 for this special sneak preview on the PLAAY Games YouTube channel--6pm MT, 8pm ET.
Coming Soon...
As always, we have several sports game card sets in the pipeline...
• 2025-26 English Pro Season for Soccer Blast: These cards are finished, we're in the final proofing stage right now and expect to have them out within the next couple of weeks.
• 2026 Football America for Second Season: Running behind on this one, but it IS happening. We should have this available for football fans by the start of the real-life pro football season this fall.
• 1985 Pro Football Season for Second Season: Still on track for a fall release.
• Fishing Lakes Expansion: Behind schedule on this one as well, sorry! Don't have an ETA, but we have done some of the preliminary work for this--stay tuned!
Local PLAAY Gamer Meet-Up 07.24.26
I mentioned this at halftime of our College All-Star Game and wanted to spread the word here as well. We're having an informal PLAAY Gamer "open house" style meet-up here at PLAAY HQ on Friday the 24th, 3p to 9p. It's free but you must RSVP (via e-mail).
Photo Finish
Well, here’s Millie! Celebrating the 4th of July in the back yard. I promise, next month I’ll have something “game related,” haha!
Thanks for checking in this month, we're so appreciative of our amazing community! If there's anything we can do for you, just let us know. Hope to see you soon online or in-person!
