PLAAY CONNECT 09.21.23
Time to get connected again, plenty of good stuff going on in the PLAAY Games Community! Let’s take a look…
TONIGHT on YouTube: "The Next Express Game IS..."
I tossed this out there at the end of last week's stream, that we'd be talking about a new sports game idea. It generated a few e-mails, with guesses everywhere from volleyball to "Battle of the Network Stars!" Interesting! So, to pique your interest a bit further, let me say that we're talking about a new EXPRESS game idea! Hmmmmmm! Join us tonight for the Big Reveal!
Hockey Day in Canada!
Actually, I probably should have called this "Sports Game Day in Canada," because we'll be playing MORE than hockey! Yes, we'll get the annual Commissioner's Surprise Hockey Blast Tournament rolling with the new 2022-23 Pro Season cards, but we're ALSO planning a Cold Snap Canadian Pro Football segment, as well as some "Sports Game Antiquities!" Saturday 09.30.23, we're getting together at GameKnight Games in Winnipeg, MB for a day crammed full of sports game fun! GameKnight Games is located at 519 Osborne Street in Winnipeg, all the information about the event is here.
Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY in Cooperstown!
It's TWO...TWO...TWO History Maker Baseball Game events in ONE! Our "Timeless Diamond Tournament" get-together at the Baseball Hall of Fame is booked up, BUT we still have room Friday evening 10.13.23 for our annual Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY! Join us at the Cooperstown Comfort Inn and Suites (4470 NY-28, Milford, NY 13807) as we crown our own big league baseball champion, a couple of weeks BEFORE the real thing! We'll be using the 2023 Pro In-Season cards and HMB Express to pre-PLAAY the entire league championship series AND World Series games in ONE evening! It's totally free, everyone is welcome, you can manage a team or just watch! Join us in the hotel conference room at 7pm!
Wisconsin Meet-Up in January?
Yup, 2024 is creeping up on us and we wanted to get a head start on getting the word out about this early-year event being put together by PLAAY Gamer Travis Jansen. It's a weekend gamer meet-up in Mukwanago, a suburb of Milwaukee in mid-February, date TBD. Our community is pretty well-represented in the Wisconsin/Minnesota/Iowa/Illinois region, so we're thinking this could be a good-sized turnout. We'll tailor the event to the number of people who'll be attending--so if this sounds like fun, reach out and let us know of your interest, we’ll plan accordingly.
Now Available: Let's PLAAY Tennis!
I'm not sure this even qualifies as "news," as we have been more than busy the last week or so shipping copies of the new boxed version of our holiday tennis game. (We are finally caught up!) THANKS to all who participated in the launch, and thanks especially for your patience as we've been printing, packaging and shipping.
As has been posted on the various social media outlets, the 2023 Tennis Association Global Men's card set includes two cards with the name Fernando Jorge. I wish I hadn’t missed seeing that. Regardless, there are plenty of options for dealing with it. My personal preference is, it's two different guys with the same name. Like Sebastian Aho in the NHL, I have no problem with that. I get it though, some people would rather avoid the confusion. So, if you'd prefer, you can remove one of the cards from the set. Or, roll the decider die to see which Fernando Jorge shows up at this week's tournament. In any case, we have amended the verbiage on the website to stipulate that there are 107 players in the set (not 108). My first inclination was to remove the lower-rated one from future printings of the set—but, it’s a good talking point so we’ll just leave them both in there, at least for now.
Coming Soon...
• 2022-23 Pro Season for Hockey Blast: We'll make this available Friday 09.22.23, over 800 players carded based on end-of-season rosters (no duplicate players), presented in team colors, printed or PDF. Plenty of great story lines to revisit, including Boston’s record-breaking winning season.
• NEW Cooperstown Cards for History Maker Baseball: We're super excited about these cards, watch for a dedicated blog post soon. We've combined all of the previous Cooperstown card sets (Legends, Pioneers and Hopefuls), added in the Exiles (previously available as a PDF download) and created an entirely NEW sub-set of Cooperstown Footnotes. These are guys who don't have the career numbers to be considered for the hall of fame, BUT each on was part of something unique, special, record-breaking or ground-breaking. We've also expanded the umpire cards from fourteen to eighteen. Almost 500 cards in all, presented in an all-new distinctively classic card style, in standard baseball trading card size format (2.5" x 3.5"). We'll be using these cards in Cooperstown for our Timeless Diamond Tournament! After that, they’ll be ready for YOUR tabletop, Thursday 10.19.23!
• 2022-23 Pro Season for Highlight Maker Hoops: A big season here in the Mile High City as our long-beleaguered club finally put it all together for a championship season! Over XXX players carded, in full-season format (duplicate players and a trade guide), along with coach and referee cards. Available 10.24.23—same day that the new NBA season tips off!
• 2023-24 Basketball League of America for Highlight Maker Hoops: Could expansion be on the horizon for our fictional pro hoops league? More news coming soon, as well as a target release date in early November.
NOTE: we do our best to follow our self-imposed release dates, but it’s worth noting that sometimes we have to adjust them. Thanks for being flexible!
(Archived) Video Activity…
We had some great streaming moments since the last CONNECT, all curated on the PLAAY Games YouTube Channel…
• Tennis Battle of the Sexes, 50 Years Later: What great timing, the launch of our tennis game coincided with the 50th anniversary of the famed "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King! Televised nationally on ABC (hosted by Don Meredith and Howard Cosell!), it drew an audience of over 50 million viewers and played in front of nearly 40,000 fans at the Houston Astrodome, our stream re-visited that highly buzz-worthy battle, and demonstrated how our game works!
• "New Free Game!" Oh yes, the three magic words: New. Free. Game. Based on the classic (but not well-known) 1970s card game Cuttle, we've re-skinned the game with a fantasy theme that has the rules printed right on the cards, so it’s easier than ever to learn and play! Watch the video, then download the Spell Stones card print file--it's FREE!
• 1995 SCRAM Season Opener: What better way to christen our new vintage SCRAM set than to run 1995's season-opening race on livestream! It's SCRAM icon Wayne Montana's rookie season, and--spoiler alert!--he makes a statement, in his very first race!! The full 1995 Copper State 500 race can be seen HERE!...
Upcoming Video Activity…
No streams 09.28.23 and 10.12.23, we're on the road BOTH those days! But we have plenty of other fun stuff planned on the PLAAY Games YouTube channel...
• 10.05.23 HMB Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY PLAAY-In Games: We'll set the four-team field for our Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY on this one non-stop mega-baseball stream featuring eight "game seven" nail-biters played out in HMB Express! Pick a favorite and cheer them on to Cooperstown!...
• 10.19.23 Cooperstown Cards Launch Party: This will be our official launch of the new Cooperstown card set, we'll go over the cards, highlight some of the new "footnotes," explain our "Timeless Diamond" team arrangement (which you'll be able to adopt for your own Timeless Baseball League!), and more!
• 10.26 All Hallows Eve with AFR Steve! Every year as Halloween settles is, we team up with fellow YouTuber and FOP ("Friend of PLAAY") Steve Tower for a joint sports game stream! We're planning on making this year's get-together an "all-hoops" show, with highlight games featuring the soon-to-be-released 2022-23 Pro Season, the 2023-24 Basketball League of America, AND a super-secret home-brew freebie hoops set that you will love!
It’s FREE...
In honour of our trip to Canada next week (see what I did there?), we present a pair of Canadian-themed freebies!…
• 2023 Canadian Pro Football "Express" In-Season: We didn't want the season to slip by without something fresh for Cold Snap Canadian Pro Football Game, so we put together this "express" set reflecting the current in-progress Canadian pro season! We rated the teams based on statistics through September 15th, each position is rated separately and we've added starter names to help visualize the action. Just for fun, we used a retro-1970s look for the team sheets. There’s even a blank helmet icon which you can fill in with team logos if you’re artistically inclined! Streamlined for express, but there's enough here to conduct full-play Cold Snap as well. Pre-PLAAY the upcoming pro season playoffs on your own game table before they happen in real-life!
• Hundred Year-Old All-Canadian Hockey: Bruce McFarlane came up with this card set, we ran it through the official Hockey Blast card template--it's hockey from 100 years ago, the 1923-24 Pro Season, back when the league had just four teams, all in Canada! Download these cards and experience a different brand of ice action! Twelve players per team, cards in team colors, introductory notes. NOTE that this is an experimental set, some adjustments may need to be made either to the cards or the rules to reflect the nuances of hundred year-old hockey.
Errata, Etc.
A couple of minor fixes are in order for the 2022 Pro Season for Second Season Pro Football. Some early downloads/prints had a gray background for box H on the Los Angeles (A) defense; On New England, Nick Folk’s KO grade should be “D,” and Jake Bailey should be listed as a reserve KO specialist with a grade of “A".” Finally, Jacksonville’s punter Logan Cooke should have a RET grade of “D” and a COF grade of “A".” Apologies for the errata, corrected files can be found here.
PLAAY Games Hot List
Here's a new feature for the monthly e-newsletter, a throwback to my previous career as a top 40 radio DJ, where a regular chart of the week's hottest hits was a radio industry staple. We'll chronicle the top twenty PLAAY Games each month. Where does YOUR favorite game land on the list?...
(For the 30-day period ending 09.21.23, includes printed and PDF versions)
TW (LW) game title
1 (--) Let's PLAAY Tennis
2 (3) Second Season
3 (10) Red White & Blue Racin'
4 (2) History Maker Baseball
5 (4) History Maker Golf
6 (7) Score Cards
7 (5) Soccer Blast
8 (8) Second Season Express
9 (9) Hockey Blast
10 (11) Face to the Mat
11 (20) Fury Football
12 (1) History Maker Baseball Express
13 (12) "We Have A Problem, Mr. President..."
14 (16) Roller Rumble
15 (6) Highlight Maker Hoops
16 (13) Demo Derby Smash-Down
17 (17) Aviatrix '37
18 (--) Fury Hardball
19 (19) Planet Flipper
20 (18) Bowl-O-Rama
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Photo Finish!
We got this photo from Bruce Toussaint, who's enjoying last month's home-brewed '76-77 Pro Season hoops cards from Jule Sigall. Bruce conducted the entire playoff season, 83 games in all, with Golden State emerging as champion, turning back Washington in six games. (The real-life champions, Portland, were upset by Golden State in the second round! The other real-life championship series team, Philadelphia, lost in the semi-finals to Washington). Bruce says, "I used the (HMH) app that was on the Community Facebook page to keep the running score and that added SO much! The Highlight game is almost addictive and is right up there in my upper echelon of games that I play regularly. You really captured the ebb and flow of a basketball game!”
That’s it for this month, hope to connect again in the days and weeks ahead, either in-person or online! We’re VERY glad to have you in our awesome community of gamers!