PLAAY CONNECT 05.26.22
Well, the month of May has been a big blur, what with us getting acclimated to our new printing and finishing equipment and a new work flow to accompany it, AND the official release of our basketball game. Whew! Now, it's the onset of summer--and PLAAY-Dot-CON is less than two months away! Here's a quick update of all things PLAAY, at the end of MAY...
LIVE STREAMING TONIGHT: History Makers Who Served
Memorial Day Weekend is again upon us, a time to remember those who paid the ultimate price defending our freedoms on the battlefield. We wrote a newsletter article a few years ago detailing the roles played by big-league ball players who traded their baseball uniforms for military uniforms in various conflicts from WWI to Viet Nam. We also created a "History Makers Who Served" card set, which we've used each of the past four years for an inter-service war-time exhibition game, streamed live on our YouTube Channel. Army won the first game in 2018, but Navy has won three straight since then. We'll have game five of the series tonight, Don Newcombe on the mound for Army, Ed Figueroa for Navy, 6pm MDT, 8pm EDT!
Hoops Is LIVE!
HIGHLIGHT MAKER HOOPS is officially part of the PLAAY stable of sports games! We want to thank everyone for making the game welcome on your game table, and are excited about what lies ahead. We are still waiting on the hoops PLAAY mats, but will make them available as soon as they're in-house. Watch for a "mat-roduction" stream happening in a couple if weeks on the PLAAY Games YouTube channel.
One-on-One Variant(s) for HMH
If you haven't caught our pair of blog posts about one-on-one hoops, check them out! We posted an idea proposed by PLAAY Gamer John Weber, and followed it up with a live stream on 05.23.22. Then another PLAAY Gamer, Cooper Gilbert, suggested a more traditional "first to 21" one-on-one variant, so we made a second post about that!
Other PLAAY News...
Course Collection EIGHTEEN Delayed: We mentioned this might be a possibility, based on the density of our production schedule, but it's now "official." This set has been bumped back a couple months and is now going to be a fall 2022 release, apologies!
Specialty Card Sets: We've been so appreciative of the kind words from gamers about our two new specialty card sets--the 2022 Baseball America 10th Anniversary Deluxe Set and the 75 All-Time Great Hoops cards--produced entirely in house. What's next? We're making some plans! First, Look for the 1961 Continental League cards to be made available SOON. This was a special card set PDF we released at Christmas, which we're going to re-introduce as a fully-produced card set similar to the Baseball America set. We're considering a printed-and-finished color set to flash back to the about-to-be completed 75th Pro Season for basketball, which would be released this fall. We're also mulling over possible upgraded versions of one or more of our previously released All-Time Greats card sets--golf and soccer are the top candidates there. Whatever we decide, we'll keep you posted.
2022 Baseball America Deluxe 10th Anniversary cards: We've had a flurry of e-mails from folks who have picked up the 2022 Baseball America Deluxe Commemorative set asking us to match the team numbers with our special commemorative team monikers, and also to provide the projected winning percentage to plug into the Universal Instant Results Table. Happy to oblige!...
More How-To Guides: We just re-introduced the Hockey and Golf how-to guides in the new booklet format, joining Racin' and Baseball. Next up will be hoops, followed by soccer and football. Would there be interest in a wrestling how-to guide? Given that it's "sports entertainment" and there are no stats available, fans of FACE TO THE MAT have created lots of great home-brewed sets just from their own knowledge of the game!
PLAAY Dot CON 2022: We're rapidly approaching the cut-off date of 06.15.22 for registration for this year's in-person convention in Denver at the end of July. Over 50 sports game fans will be in attendance, including some of the best-known names in the sports game hobby: Al Wilson, S. T. Patrick, Steve Tower, Gary Brown, Mike Fitzgerald and more! Two-plus days of sports game fun in beautiful Denver, Colorado, PLUS an epic swag bag filled with cool PLAAY goodies!
Are You Ready For Some Football?: We've finished the bulk of work on the 2021 Pro Season for Second Season, it's now being proofed by the indomitable Neil Maitland. The 2022 Football America season is scheduled for June production. Both will be released in mid-July, just before our convention. As has become our tradition, the 2021 Pro Season will include a college all-star team, which we'll christen with our annual College All-Star Football Game with SECOND SEASON, this year against the Los Angeles pro champions, in a live stream on the PLAAY Games YouTube channel, Thursday 07.14.22!
Soccer Summer: It's looking like a big summer for soccer, with three all-new card sets in the pipeline. The 2021-22 English Pro Season and 2022 Euro Championship cards should be available in late June or Early July. And, yes, we ARE working on a card set marking the 2022 World Cup which will be held in October this year. Similar to what we offered in 2014 and 2018, the 2022 cards will be a projection set, available in September (or sooner, if possible), so sports game fans can hold their own cup action in advance of the real thing. We've commissioned PLAAY Gamer and soccer fan John Bergeron to create the ratings for this set, and we'll make it available as a deluxe printed specialty set (full color, cut cards, country flag logos, etc.)
1986-87 Pro Hockey Season NOW AVAILABLE: We released this set as. Holiday PDF but with all the excitement of this year's hockey playoffs we decided to make it available as a printed set. Some great '80s hockey names, and Hartford's ONLY divisional title!
Other Stuff: Just a few random notes to share here...
• Paper Parade: As part of our foray into in-house printed, we've had to start at ground zero in choosing paper suppliers. This has led to some scattered inconsistencies in printed card sets, particularly with baseball and golf game cards. NOT talking here about moving different weights in the same set, rather I'm referring to some cards sets using a different weight or finish than what we've used in the past. For example, we've experimented with a couple of different stocks for the TV cards for RWBR. We're quickly dialing in which stocks we prefer, so this will be a short term thing.
• Full-Play Hoops: Not much news here, as play-testing continues. The length of game play (75-120 minutes makes it difficult to quickly build a large set of data, but we are working on it. So far, things look pretty good, but there are a couple areas that we're working on dialing in. Stay tuned, we should have a clearer picture of things after the convention.
• PLAAY NOW News: We've started a separate news page for PLAAY NOW, we have some exciting things happening, including our sixth PLAAY Games Laboratory Lightning Round, coming next month! You can catch all the PLAAY NOW news here...
FREE STUFF
• Many thanks to David Gambrill for creating the 2021 Pro Season for COLD SNAP Canadian Pro Football Game! David's been a key creator for Cold Snap since the game debuted in 2009. You get all nine pro teams and liner notes in this FREE download!
• We've created a set of six HIGHLIGHT MAKER HOOPS "bonus greats" for use with the just-released 75 All-Time Great Hoops Stars cards. If you have the set, you can add these to the mix; if not, you can print, trim, and give this idea a spin! Dikembe Mutumbo, Ben Wallace, Joe Dumars, Tim Hardaway, Shawn Kemp, and Horace Grant.
• Here's the link for the "History Makers Who Served" military veterans cards for HISTORY MAKER BASEBALL. Note that we added six new players last year, bringing the total to 42. Plus you get six military veteran umpires, two military venue ball park cards and a summary of "Baseball in Wartime."
Photo Finish
This month’s photo Finish is from Glen Oberhauser, who writes “Hey guys, awesome job on the Baseball America Deluxe set! The graphic design is top notch and I love the way your new equipment cut the cards. I thought the set deserved a super-deluxe storage box, so I made one using the cardboard from the box sleeve. I attached some photos. Now it's time to play some games...
