Happy Hoop-LA Week!
Well, here we are on the eve of PLAAY basketball transitioning from the chalkboard to the game board! It's been a long journey!
Excited to be at this place. I was a guest on Rob Kinsler's YouTube channel a couple weeks ago, he asked me what game am I most proud of. I said THIS one! The goal was to create a basketball game that could be played in 40 minutes or less, and we wound up with that AND an awesome full-play game, too! Both games based on the same ratings and cards--I think that's pretty remarkable. I know APBA and STRAT have master versions of various games which are played with the same cards, but that's different versions of the same game. This is two completely different basketball games.
I'm not sure how interested you are in how this came to be. If the answer is "not very," you can scroll down to the Frequently Asked Questions section below. If you ARE interested, though, read on...
We began work on hoops in 2015. The first versions of a game started emerging side by side with some early horse racing prototypes. We posted this newsletter article in late 2016. After a couple of years of development, we really got serious about hoops in late 2018. Our Hoop-LA event in Chicago was a turning point. You can read about the Hoop-LA Event here.
We play-tested the "blast" version of hoops through most of 2019, including a segment at our summer 2019 convention (which, IMHO, did not go well!). That's when I began to have doubts about the game. It was "OK," but I didn't feel compelled to put out an "OK" basketball game when there are so many great ones out there already. We continued to play-test, I kept hoping that some innovation would happen that would make the game "pop." I posted this article in early 2020, expressing my dis-satisfaction with the 40-minute "blast" game idea.
By the way, the "express" game ideas I referred to in the above article were completely different than Highlight Maker Hoops. They were basically math-based score generators, without a lot of basketball feel.
The Highlights Game idea fell into place in late 2020. I had just watched "The Last Dance" (the Netflix documentary series on the '95-96 Chicago Bulls) and was struck by the way basketball game broadcasts were presented on the show--condensed, concise, only the key moments, presented in chronological order, opening tip-off to final horn. Frustrated with the lack of narrative in the various math-based express games I'd been working on, I remember telling Sam (who had turned me on to the series), "THAT'S the way a basketball board game should go! Just the highlights" I began to think about which game engines might fit that style, and Face to the Mat (wrestling) came to mind.
I got out the wrestling game and, basically, started playing basketball with it. That is, instead of scoring points with a body chop or neck breaker move, I imagined scoring points with a big dunk or an epic assist or huge rebound. Right then, I knew it would work. Everything fell into place pretty quickly after that.
Once the highlights game was on track (thanks largely to Michael Owens prolific play-testing!), it dawned on me that a traditional full-play treatment of hoops--with a standard 75 to 90 minute game time--could be acceptable as a complement to the highlights game. That is, you could play "express" to, say, the fourth quarter (in 10-15 minutes time) and then spend 20 minutes playing the final minutes in full-resolution. So I began re-tooling the fast-action deck so as to de-abstract everything. It wasn't too difficult, and within a few weeks I had what I felt was a smooth-playing, fun full-play working version. It still needed a lot of fine tuning, but I felt very optimistic about the potential. So optimistic that, when the new PLAAY Classic site launched in February, we made History Maker Hoops "official," "coming in 2022." (And now, 2022 is here!)
Most of 2021 was spent play-testing both versions of the game, big thanks to Michael Owens, Ron Arnst, Tom Kerwin, Travis Jansen. Also thanks to everyone who took part in our "express" hoops tournament at PLAAY-Dot-CON 2021.
In presenting Highlight/History Maker Hoops as a one-two punch, my first instinct was to mirror the Second Season model--feature the full play game, but if you want to save time, you can play express. Every time I used this context in explaining it to people, though, I felt like I was apologizing for the necessary length of a full play hoops game, quickly steering people toward the express game. At some point I thought, what the heck, let's do it the other way around. Let's make the express game the feature game and if people would rather have a full-play experience, we can re-direct them to our "History Maker" expansion!
The final verdict, of course, will be in the hands of the community. I'm pretty excited about both games, but ultimately they have to pass the community fun factor. We'll find out soon enough if they do!
As you can imagine, we've been fielding a lot of questions about the basketball game(s). Here's a quick sampling of Q's and A's, hopefully it'll clear up any questions you may have and save you the trouble of e-mailing...
Frequently Asked Questions about the PLAAY Hoops Games
• Why is the highlights game the "main game" instead of the full-play version? Ultimately, it came down to the fact that every sports game we've introduced was different than what had come before. Hockey incorporated the highlights-based action engine, and the LULL mechanic. The NASCAR game used a "king of the hill" methodology instead of cars moving around a track. Baseball used qualities instead of numbers. Golf dispensed with club selection, yardage and math and focused entirely on narrative. It made sense, then, that the lead hoops game should be the one that's different than anything that's come before.
• When will the full play game be available? We are expecting to have History Maker Hoops available before the 2022-23 Pro Season tips off in October. Hopefully, sooner. Possibly summer.
• Will the full-play game be available for pre-order this week? No.
• If I pre-order the Highlights game now, when will I get the game? We're aiming for late March, possibly early April. We're in the process of acquiring new print and finishing equipment that will move most of our printing in-house. At present, we don't have the equipment. If it looks like there will be an extended delay, we will move ahead with processing the pre-order with our existing print and materials network.
• When will the general release of the game be? Again, not 100% sure because of our equipment status, but we are expecting to have Highlight Maker Hoops available in early May.
• Is there any special incentive to pre-order the highlights game, or can I just wait until the general release? You certainly can wait, if you like! The main benefit of pre-ordering, obviously, is that you get the game sooner.
• Do I have to buy the highlights game to be able to play the full-play game? No, the full-play game will be its own game.
• What if I want a box with my full-play game? We are weighing our options here, leaning toward creating a separate game box for the History Maker version of the game.
• Will there be a "how-to" guide? Yes, available at pre-order. It will be in our new booklet format, which all of the how-to guides will be transitioning to this year.
• Will there be college teams? We won't have college teams or college rules for the pre-order. We know that there is strong interest in college basketball, but we don't have the bandwidth right now to appropriately handle both college and pro. All our other sports games are pro-based, so that was the deciding factor for us. We'll be interested to see what the community comes up with in terms of various adaptations of the game for college, using the how-to guide. My sense is that a consensus will quickly develop about how to adapt the game for college, and those rules tweaks may make it into the official rules for the general release.
• Will there be a play mat for either/both games? Yes. We are holding off release of those for now, still making subtle changes to the design. We anticipate the Highlight Maker mat to be available with the game's general release. The History Maker expansion will have its own mat, release date TBD.
• Are there other card sets in the works? Yes, we'll have at least one new vintage set available when the game's general release happens. We anticipate periodic new releases for the game, current, vintage and fictional.
• Will I be able to play teams from different eras against each other? Yes. The highlights game is especially great for that.
• How will the game address three-pointers in cross-era play? For the highlights game, you'll just treat the underlined/non underlined shot qualities the same. For full play, we're working on a standard for old-school cards to be able to take three-point shots.
• Can I keep full stats with the History Maker expansion? Yes, mostly. Like many of our other games, not every stat trackable. In the hockey game, for example, you don't resolve every shot, just the key ones. The baseball game has some outs which go to an unspecified infielder. We've taken the same approach with full-play hoops, balancing the desire for stats with the level of cumbersomeness keeping them adds, dispensing with those factors that, in our opinion, don't merit the extra work. For example, the full-play game FACS don't distinguish between missed two-point shots and missed three-point shots--a miss is a miss. We have a suggested rule for tracking this which, of course, adds time and labor. Also, the game does not chronicle each and every assist, so house rules or finder columns would need to be home-brewed.
Anything else? Just ask--we're happy to help! Thanks!