PLAAY Connect 04.27.23
It's been a SUPER busy month since our last CONNECT, time to take a breather and give you a recap...
Winding Down Binge Week Golf
THANK you for the amazing response to our new golf stuff, WOW! I had a hunch that the "Do It Yourself" Course Collection TWENTY idea would get a warm welcome from the fictional sports folks, but I'm excited that even the "I'm not really into fictional" sports gamers appreciate this set! Dr. Keith Wibbles offered these calculations: "Using the standard par 72, I took four par 3's out of twelve possible, yielding 495 non-repetitive outcomes. So, obviously, for the par 5's another 495 different outcomes. Then taking a random twelve par 4's out of a possible 48 yielded...are you ready for this...69,668,534,468 non-repetitive outcomes!" That’s how many different courses you can build with this set. Whoa.
As you probably know, we’ve run out of golf mats, with a re-order in progress. We’ll give you a “rain check” on the discounted Binge Week Bundle price ($99) if you sign up on the wait list. It will be about three weeks for us to get a fresh shipment from our mat-maker. Apologies for the delay!
We'll begin to wind down Binge Week tonight (it will officially wrap up at 5pm Friday 04.28.23) with our "DIY Golfer Card" YouTube Stream. One of the golf wrinkles we've been experimenting with is the "do it yourself" golfer card for HMG. We introduced the idea at last year's convention, and revisited it at our Dice Tower tournament in Las Vegas this past March. Our thought is that it nudges HMG a little closer to the board game and role play world, by adding the agency of crafting your own skill set and then trying to find ways to best utilize it. In the DIY module, you choose any two full qualities, and any two semi-qualities, and then tee off! Which qualities should you choose? Well, that depends on a couple of factors--which we'll discuss tonight! 6pm MDT, 8pm EDT.
PLAAY Dot CON: Getting closer…closer…
Summer's coming, and so is the fifth annual PLAAY Gamer get-together, PLAAY Dot CON! We'll have an e-mail update for convention-goers going out in a couple of weeks. If you've already signed up, watch your in-box! If you haven't signed up yet--there's still time! NOTE: every year we have a good group of first-time convention-goers, and this year we have more of them than ever! If you've not attended PLAAY-Dot-CON before, don't let that stop you from coming this summer--we're going to have an awesome mix of convention newbies and vets, who'll make sure you feel welcome and included!
PLAAY Games at the Baseball Hall of Fame!
Heartfelt thanks to PLAAY Gamer Randy Coryer who has been spearheading the organization of this year's Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY event, which will in Cooperstown NY, home of the baseball hall of fame! Randy has arranged game-playing time and space INSIDE the Hall of Fame, and has also arranged discount accommodations for out-of-town PLAAY gamers at a local nationally-branded hotel! Here's the plan that's emerging...
• We'll meet at the "official" hotel HQ Friday evening (10.13.23) and conduct the World Series pre-PLAAY with the 2023 Pro In-Season cards for HMB (which will be released in August). Similar to our Hartford, CT event last fall, we'll play both the ALCS and NLCS, with the "express" version of HMB with the winners meeting in our own championship series. (We have the hotel conference meeting space reserved for both Friday and Saturday nights.)
• Saturday, we'll tour the Hall of Fame in the morning, and then gather in the meeting room for our own Cooperstown "Field of Dreams" tournament with HMB in the afternoon. The exact format hasn't been set, but we'll use the re-released Cooperstown Cards, which will span 120 years of baseball history.
• Saturday night, after the Cooperstown event and dinner, we’ll have the hotel meeting space available for even MORE game-playing!
Seating is somewhat limited for the HOF game-play event, we'll have room for about 24 at the game space inside the hall. We currently have fifteen confirmed and several "maybe" attendees. If you'd like to get on either of those lists, let me know (via e-mail link). I'll be sending out an update with details in the next week or two.
Wait--Where ARE the Cooperstown Cards?
We’ve been asked that a lot lately! We put the Cooperstown Cards on hiatus after last year's holiday sale because our new printing equipment can't accommodate the original print file's margins. We'll re-format the cards this summer, combining the three subsets (Pioneers, Legends and Hopefuls) into one larger set, full-color pre-cut cards. More details about this set will be coming after our convention in July.
PLAAY Games on the Dice Tower
PLAAY games was recently featured on The Dice Tower video review series, with snapshot reviews of History Maker Baseball and Score Cards! Both scored 8 out of 10, and being on the Dice Tower channel put a lot of new eyeballs on our website. It's been a long-held goal of ours to expand beyond our faithful sports sim game group (whom we dearly love!) and spread the word about our games into the mainstream board game hobby. It's gratifying to see some growth here!
How can you help us in this? One way: just by continuing to be the awesome community that you already are. Warm, friendly, inclusive, "no dumb questions," kind and considerate. Another way is by posting a BGG review of your positive experience with one or more of our games. VERY helpful.
• In case you missed it, here's the Dice Tower's review of SCORE CARDS...
• and here's the review for HISTORY MAKER BASEBALL...
Talkin' Sports with Chris Dinkins!
We chopped it up with Chris and his pal Yada Bear on their Tuesday (04.25.23) show, talking both real-life and tabletop sports. Extended riffs on the new baseball rules, Aaron Rodgers move to the Jets and the concept of "express" sports game play. You can catch the archived chit-chat here…
Tiger, Jack and Course Collection TWENTY on AFR!
Steve Tower’s AFTER FURTHER REVIEW channel featured our new “course-builder toolbox” on this past Monday’s show (04.24.23), as well as our new golf game mat and the newly-upgraded “All-Time Great Golfer” cards. If you missed it live, you can catch it here!…
Coming Attractions!…
• SCORE CARDS: Our card game collaboration with veteran game designer (and PLAAY gamer) Mike Fitzgerald is almost ready to hit game tables! SCORE CARDS will launch 05.26.23. The game has gotten amazing pre-release reviews from Board Game Geek, Dice Tower and it recently was a hit at the annual "Gathering of Friends" nationally-acclaimed game event. It's easy to learn and play, but, as Tom Vasel said in his Dice Tower review, "there's a lot of game in here!"
We'll officially launch SCORE CARDS with a special kick-off stream 05.25.23 on the PLAAY Games YouTube channel! Don't miss it!
• RED WHITE & BLUE RACIN’ celebrates "75 Years of Racin': It's the 75th Anniversary of pro stock car racing (we can't legally say N**C*R, sorry!), and we've teamed up with our stock car racing historian Jerry Minks to create an amazing tribute to honor this milestone! The top 75 drivers of all-time are included in this enhanced card set that features an all-new driver card design (hint: they're bigger, and, well, DIFFERENT than the standard cards!) as well as special game boards on which to arrange these new cards!
We'll give you a sneak peek of everything in our special "Big Reveal: 75 Years of Racin'" stream, 05.11.23! "Boogity-Boogity!"
• Vintage Baseball America for HISTORY MAKER BASEBALL: Every year we see increased engagement in our various fictional sports franchises, from Baseball and Football America to SCRAM, to the Wrestling America Federation to our new universe of fictional college athletics. The next stage in developing our fictional universe is to go back...back...back into time! This isn't entirely new: HMB's 1940s Century League is one of our most endearing and enduring card sets and a couple years ago, we introduced a 1960 SCRAM season for RWBR, which was (and continues to be) really well-received. We also announced plans to do a new retro SCRAM season, honoring Wayne Montana's rookie season--that's happening later this summer.
Then there's baseball. Without spelling out the specifics (mainly because we're still working on them, heh heh) we're planning to connect the fictional baseball dots with a master plan that bridges the gap between the Century League of the 1940s to the current Baseball America organization. This plan would integrate our pseudo-fictional Continental League into the mix--we laid the groundwork for that with our 10th Anniversary (2022) Baseball America card set, which co-opted a handful of the Continental League team names.
Ultimately, we'd be able to flesh out a history of PLAAY baseball, from the 1940s to today, complete with our own franchise timeline and perhaps even a hall of fame!
All this to say, you can expect the next step in that direction sometime this summer. If you're interested, be sure to tune in to our 05.04.23 YouTube stream, where we'll map out the timeline to our fictional baseball universe AND conduct a viewer poll asking which vintage fictional season you'd like to see FIRST!
It’s FREE!
• Revised Augusta course for HISTORY MAKER GOLF: Thanks to Gideon Eames for his help in prompting, proofing and primping this updated version of the venerable Augusta Course. As time has passed, we've added some sophistication to the course card-making process with the expanded use of "boutique" ratings. Augusta was the first course we ever created for the game, and as the centerpiece of American golf, it felt like we should freshen it up a little. Enjoy!
• DIY Golfer Cards for HISTORY MAKER GOLF: We'll use this card template for tonight's DIY stream, you can download and follow along!
Before We Go…
A quick SECOND SEASON Football question from Rob Scott: "An outside run result yields a result reading 'tackled one yard short of first down.' BUT, the rusher has a boutique rating that says 'add [die roll] yards to each OU gain.' Does the boutique element get added in this case? Or is the intent that the player comes up short of the first down marker, even with any potential additional yards from the boutique rating?"
GOOD ONE! In that scenario, you get to add the die anyway, assuming it was a gain. It's possible that you could get that result on, say, third and one, in which case it would be no gain, and then you wouldn't get to add the die roll yards.
PHOTO FINISH!
That's PLAAY Gamer Mark Zigler playing his trumpet "back in the day." He sent this photo as a response to MY sending HIM this video link of me playing trombone with our local all-veteran big band. Backstory: I joined the military our of high school, signing up for the Army band program. Attended the Armed Forces School of Music, Norfolk, VA and then spent the rest of my three-year enlistment with the 36th US Army Band, Fort Huachuca, AZ. I hadn't played in over 40 years, but when this band formed--a big band comprised of former military bandsmen like myself, a VERY small fraternity!--here in Denver, no less!--I got my horn out of mothballs and started the LONG process of getting my chops back! Still not there yet, but it's been SO much fun!
Anyway, here’s what’s on Mark’s game table these days…
History Maker Baseball: Third season of a 10-team league using Baseball America. Began with 2013. 2015 season started Christmas day, only 40 games into a 220-game season. Draft league, and very fun. I'm looking forward to Rick Lawes' WBC set, and playing that out in full. That's always been a very fun tournament.
Hockey Blast: 8-team league using Original 6 + Sharks and Blue Jackets. Each team plays 14 games (home and home against the others), 56 games total. Began with 2010, A Little more than 1/2 way thru 2016.
Soccer Blast: Commissioners Tournaments for MLS, and am now playing the 2014 world cup. Will pick up EPL commissioner's tourneys, play out MLS (saw where there will be no 2022 set), and more World Cups along the way. Again, slow burn...
Highlight Maker Hoops: Started a 10-team BLAM league, each will play the other twice. Before that, finishing up Madness tourneys with the 74 ABA and NBA sets.
I'm really getting into the Express games, mainly because of the time savings...
HMB Express - I played out the 2021 playoffs - The Braves won and will be playing out 2022 shortly. I also want to set up a yearly seeded tourney using Express for MLB. Again, I love HMB and will use it for the 10-team league. But the express has reopened the MLB card sets for me to use, again, simply because of time.
Second Season and Cold Snap Express: Replayed specific games, Super Bowls, Playoff games, Grey Cups, etc. Time permitting, I want to play CFL from 2010 forward using express, and NFL tournaments using express.
That’s the word for this month’s CONNECT! As always, thanks for reading, hope to see you online for one of our upcoming live streams on the PLAAY Games YouTube Channel!