PLAAY CONNECT 08.29.24
Looks like we’re gonna JUST barely sneak under the wire for this month’s CONNECT! It’s been a busy month, and looks like it’s only going to get busier! READ ON…
HMB In-Season Starts TONIGHT!
We're excited to join the baseball season in-progress with HMB! We had talked about doing either an in-season cards set like previous years, or possibly a trading card quick-rate approach--we'll actually be offering BOTH! Watch our PLAAY Space YouTube stream tonight for all the details!
Recap: Gridiron Games at the Football Hall of Fame
Whoa, THAT was a FUN weekend! Non-stop cards-and-dice tabletop football at the hallowed Pro Football Hall of Fame! We even got to meet hall-of-famer Fred Biletnikoff! Read our recap of the event here...
NEW CARDS: WFL 1974 and 2024 REMIX, 1981 Baseball now available!
In addition to the HMB In-Season cards that are available tonight, we have a nice burst of new card sets that've posted in the last 30 days! The 1981 Pro Baseball Season card set for History Maker Baseball lets you play out alternatives to the strike-affected '81 baseball season. The 2023 Pro Football Season for Second Season football puts last year's pro season on your game table, while the 1974 World Football League gives you the chance to experience "That '70s League" (at a special commemorative price!). And the 2024 World Football League Fury Remix re-casts the WFL in a 50th Anniversary Fury Football context!
Coming Soon, 2024 Football America
We've been working hard putting together the new season of our alternative pro football league, Football America, now in its fifteenth consecutive season! The league continues to evolve, with several long-tenured players (like QB Matt Harrell, C Eric McCartney, DB Nnamdi Tauaalo and more) hanging up the cleats, significant free-agent movement, and a new class of rookie hopefuls taking the field. This year's set will again include a four-team developmental "X-League," which you can play as a separate entity or use as an extended "fringe player" pool! Available 09.19.24.
Coming Soon, Wrestling America Federation 2025 Stars Cards
New wrestlers, new gimmicks, new feuds--all that and MORE with the new Wrestling America Federation 2025 Stars cards! We'll kick off the new season of the fed with a special YouTube stream (10.24.24)--stay tuned!
Fictional Golf Re-Brand: PNG becomes PWG
Also coming this fall, the 2025 update for our fictional golf franchise, which we are re-branding as Pro World Golf. If you're a follower of this series, you'll know that it has a distinctly global flavor, with golfers from all over the world participating in weekly events. It makes sense, then, to reflect this in the name! Projected release date: 10.24.24.
Draft Duel/Myth Mash Launch Party
Our inaugural "Studio Sp1cy" games are headed this way, and should arrive sometime in late September or early October. Draft Duel is a fantasy football-themed card game that can be played in numerous modes, solo experience to full-blown "draft-your-own-fantasy team" format! Myth Mash is like a collectible trading card game, without having to collect anything! Projected release date for both Draft Duel and Myth Mash: 10.18.24. We'll have an online launch party, as well as an in-person celebration—details in next month’s PLAAY CONNECT!
PLAAY-Dot-CON 2025
We've started the process of organizing our 2025 convention at the Hilton Garden Inn Highlands Ranch (CO), we're zero-ing in on a weekend in June to be determined by the host hotel's availability and pricing structure. Once we secure this, "save the date!" Watch this space for details!
FREE!
Point, click, PLAAY!…
• 2014 Pro In-Season, History Maker Baseball: Hard to believe that we’ve been doing an in-season version of the big league baseball season for over a decade now! The 2014 in-season was the first card set we offered in PDF format. We held our annual “Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY” that year in the Boston area (09.27.14), with about a dozen PLAAY gamers in attendance. It was a Washington-Detroit series, won by Detroit in six games.
• DIY In-Season “Trading Cards” for History Maker Baseball: Similar in nature to our “Do It Yourself” golf and tennis cards, you can use this print-and-play template to make your own in-season cards! (We’ll show you how in tonight’s YouTube stream.) The standard HMB DIY template creates cards the same size as our “express” in-season card set, so you can add any player to any roster by circling the appropriate qualities. The “Big Card” DIY template is the same layout, but bigger—standard baseball card size, 2.5” x 3.5” in size.
Upcoming Video Activity
We have an abbreviated PLAAY Space stream schedule, Sam will be taking a couple weeks vacation. When he returns, we have some fun stuff planned!…
• 09.19.24, Football America 2024 Season Preview: We’ll do a end-of-pre-season tour of each FA team’s roster, starting at the (projected) bottom of the pack and working our way up to the top! Then we’ll release the set and the season begins!
• 09.26.24, Commissioner’s Surprise Hockey Blast Launch: We’ll do our annual bracket-setting by (literally) drawing match-ups out of a hat! You’re invited to claim/play one of the opening round games yourself! Then we’ll inaugurate the new 2023-24 Pro Season set by playing the first game of the tournament.
• 10.03.24, Content TBA: We have a couple of possible topics in mind, depending on our production schedule—stay tuned!
• 10.10.24, Draft Duel Returns: After many months of design work and production, this will be the eve of the release of the factory-manufactured edition of last year’s Holiday game!
Live On-Location Events This Fall?
I'm putting this at the end of the CONNECT because there are fewer settled details than I'd prefer, but we ARE working on them! We're aiming to have a live event to pre-PLAAY the baseball playoffs with the new HMB In-Season set, and also an event to host the Commissioner's Surprise Hockey Blast Tournament, which inaugurates the new pro season card set for Hockey Blast with a free-wheeling "October Madness" tournament format. There's also some discussion about an east coast sports game gathering, which could happen this fall.
Once the details are firmed up, we'll get the info out!
Photo Finish
Al Wilson took this amazing photo, what an incredible experience to play tabletop football at the Hall of Fame!
That’s our e-newsletter for August, thanks for making it such a great month to be a board gamer! We love ya! Hope to see you on the YouTube channel…