Welcome to PLAAY-Dot-CON 2022!
This week we celebrate sports board game goodness with PLAAY gamers from all over the USA and Canada! Here’s the itinerary—useful information for convention-goers headed to Denver and potential incentive for everybody else to join us NEXT year!…
Thursday, July 28
PRE-CON Picnic (5-9p, Redstone Park, Highlands Ranch)
An informal gathering/icebreaker, free food and always a fun time! Ethan Musulin will be bringing equipment for "Fury Bowl II," an encore of the live Fury Football game we played last year! We'll start grilling' the hot dogs at 5pm, we have the shelter until 9pm. After that, back to the hotel to either get some sleep, or stay up all night in the lobby playing sports board games!
Friday, July 29
FLEA MARKET (930-11a, Welcome Hall)
Anyone can buy, sell or trade goods in this 90-minute “swap meet” session. There will be new and gently-used items as well as well-worn, defunct, dinged and dented. You can monitor your items, or leave them on the flea market tables unattended with prices and contact information. You might want to leave some room in your luggage, you never know what you might find!
PLAAY-Around Game Demo Session (930-11a, Orange and Blue Tables)
Here’s your chance to learn about and play-test PLAAY games that you don’t already own, hosted by people who already own and play the game! Feel free to move about the room, ask questions, roll dice, have fun! Here are your PLAAY-Around Hosts for 2022 and where you can find them...
Second Season: Cooper Gilbert, Orange tables 1 and 2.
Cold Snap: Sean Culnan, Orange tables 3 and 4.
Soccer Blast: Chris Day, Orange tables 5 and 6.
Highlight Maker Hoops: Tom Kerwin, Orange tables 7 and 8.
History Maker Baseball: Travis Jansen, Blue tables 1 and 2.
History Maker Golf: Al Wilson, Blue tables 3 and 4.
Hockey Blast: Mark Russell, Blue tables 5 and 6.
Red White & Blue Racin’: Pete Adams, Blue tables 7 and 8.
Bowl-O-Rama: Bob Hansen, Green table 1
Face to the Mat: Steve Tower, Green table 2
Dodgeball World Tour: Keith Avallone, Green tables 4 and 5
PLAAY NOW: Dave Jackson and James Cast, Green tables 3 and 6
History Maker Baseball EXPRESS Tutorial (11-noon, Conference Area)
We’ll teach you how to play our soon-to-be-released “express” baseball game, in advance of the annual Time Machine Tournament! Please bring your copy of the game (in your swag bag) to this presentation. We’ll go over the game rules for about 30 minutes, and then you’ll have a chance to play some exhibition games (or go to lunch early!).
History Maker EXPRESS Baseball Time Machine Tournament (2-530p, Orange and Blue Tables)
This is the eighth Time Machine Tournament, Lenny LaFrance is our only two-time winner (2015, ‘46 Red Sox and 2019, 1919 White Sox). Other TMT winners include Danny McCubbin (2014, ‘85 Royals), David Neely (2015, ‘65 Dodgers), Cooper Gilbert (2018, ‘95 Indians) and Andy McEvoy (2019, 2016 Cubs). Brian Preece (‘69 Expos) won our “Greatest Losers” TMT variant in 2017. This year, we’ll have the same format but use “express” to compress the tournament so as to play more games in less time!
Once again, the tournament is “BYOT”( bring your own team), from any standard PLAAY games season or fall classics set. Any Baseball America, Century League or Continental League team is OK to use. Home-brewed cards, Cooperstown cards and All-Time teams are not allowed. If you didn’t bring a team but would like to play, we can provide you with a team for the tournament.
You’ll be assigned to a specific table for the opening round, with an eye towards helping you get to know new people! The TMT is a unique format--not single elimination, not double elimination. You’ll pair off for game one, choosing one of your table-mates. In game two, the game one winners will play each other, as will the losers. Thus, each table will generate one 2-0 team and two 1-1 teams. Each of the 2-0 teams will advance in the tournament, and we’ll draw randomly from the 1-1 teams to fill out our sixteen team final bracket. After that, it’s “win to stay in.” We’ll create match-ups on the fly as the tournament field dwindles.
We’ll keep rules to a minimum, but each team must choose/adhere to a four-man starting rotation and a five-man rotation of relievers. All four/five must play before they can be used a second time. (Only the semi-final and championship game teams will get to repeat starter/relievers.) Standard “FRESH-ness by era” rules apply. GILDED and DYNAMIC qualities apply per normal rules. Injuries will not carry over to the next game. Players with no usage stars may not play in this tournament. Scoresheets will be provided, but stats are not crucial. We’d like to chronicle the scores for a blog post on the tourney outcome.
FREE Pizza! (530-7p, Hotel Lobby)
Rather than dismissing for dinner, we’re inviting all convention guests to join us in the hotel lobby for free pizza! This will allow us a faster transition to the evening’s activities.
PANEL Discussion: Sports Board Game State of the Union (7-8p, Conference Area)
Moderated by Keith Avallone, special guests Gary Brown, ST Patrick, Steve Tower and Al Wilson will share candid thoughts on the sports board game hobby: where it is, and where it’s headed. We conducted a similar discussion at our first convention in 2018, and it will be interesting to get our experts’ take on what’s transpired since then. We’ll save time for questions from the audience, so if you have something you’d like to ask be prepared to chime in!
Game Designer Showcase (8-10p, ORANGE and BLUE tables)
It's not just PLAAY at PLAAY dot CON! This was a really popular segment in both the 2019 and 2021 conventions, so we’re not only bringing it back for 2022, we’re expanding it to include more games, more designers! Feel free to move about the room--we’ve encouraged the designers to be flexible in their presentations so as to allow people to be able to visit multiple showcases. Here’s the line-up...
• ST Patrick, ORANGE Tables 1 and 2, “The Squared Circle” wrestling game.
• Gary Brown, ORANGE Tables 3 and 4, “Stone Cold Hockey.”
• Mike Fitzgerald, ORANGE Tables 5 and 6, “Crunch Time” basketball, other play-test games.
• Ian Bach, BLUE Tables 1 and 2, “Crunch Time” basketball, other in-development games.
• Al Wilson, BLUE Tables 3 and 4, Fast-Drive Football.
• Keith and Sam Avallone, BLUE Tables 5 and 6, PLAAY NOW Prototypes TBA
IPFC Semi-Final Playoffs (8-10p, GREEN table 1)
For the first time in the history of our fictional COLD SNAP Canadian Pro Football co-op season, the entire post-season will be played live, head-to-head! Two of the league’s eight coaches will be represented at our convention (Sean Culnan/London and Jeff Tomlinson/Vancouver), as well as stand-by coach Chris Day and the co-op league’s founder and annual team/player creator, Lenny LaFrance. Jeff’s Vancouver Cougars are the west regular-season champs, and Lenny will coach the runner-up Windsor Ambassadors against Jeff in the Western semi-final. Sean will match wits against Chris in the Eastern semi-final, Niagara Nightfall vs. Quebec Liberté. Everyone’s welcome to stop by and watch the action unfold. It’s a great way to learn the nuances of the Canadian game if you’ve never really experienced it.
Saturday, July 30
Fury Football Pro Bowl Draft and Mini-Season (9-1130a, ORANGE tables)
Steve Tower will host this fun NFL Pro Bowl adaptation of our fast-playing PLAAY NOW hybrid football game, FURY FOOTBALL. Steve was the Fury Football champion at the 2019 convention, and will be able to provide expert help for folks who are new to the game. We’ll assign you to a table with three other gamers where you’ll draft your own team from the special Pro Bowl cards we created for this event. Each table will have its own four-team draft, each team will have sixteen picks. You can choose players or strategy cards with your picks. Steve will moderate the draft segment, with a hard 30-second limit for making your pick. (HINT: take some time before the event to familiarize yourself with the players and strategy cards and plan your draft strategy!). We expect the draft phase to take about 40 minutes.
After the draft, teams will square off. You’ll play each of the three other teams at your table in a round-robin mini-season. Table champions earn bonus raffle tickets! In a two-way tie, head-to-head results determine the table champion. In the event of a three-way tie, the team with the most points scored will be table champion. If there’s time and interest, we can hold playoffs between table champions to name a convention champion.
RED WHITE & BLUE RACIN’ Turbo Tournament (9-1130a, BLUE tables)
You received a copy of our in-development head-to-head NASCAR game in your swag bag--this segment will give you a hands-on experience. Over the years, there’s been talk about adding more “game” to Red White & Blue Racin’ which in its current format doesn’t have a lot of decision making--it’s really more of a NASCAR race simulation than a true sports game. It’s our hope that this new “turbo” two-player RWBR game will give gamers an option for when you want a little more head-to-head competitive mojo!
Keith Avallone will host, the session will begin with a tutorial on how to play. He’ll touch on the base game, the advanced game using real-life divers and solitaire version ideas. We’ll then pair off and start racin’ head-to-head! It’s “win to stay in,” and we’ll keep racin’ until there’s just one player left--our champion! (Bonus raffle tickets for top finishers.)
SEMINAR: ST Patrick College Football for SECOND SEASON (1-2p, Conference Area)
Sports Sim Magazine’s ST Patrick discusses his special SECOND SEASON ratings approach for creating college teams. He’ll touch on adjusting ratings based on strength of schedule, timing adjustments, strategy nuances and more. Everyone welcome, handouts will be provided to those who pre-registered.
PLAYTEST: Bob Hansen, James Cast Game Ideas (1-2p, BLUE tables)
Bob Hansen is one of the leading lights in the PLAAY community in the area of graphic design for home-brewed cards. Many PLAAY gamers know James through his Tabletop Sports podcast, which is closing fast on 100 episodes. Both have also been working on game ideas, which they'll share in these sessions. Includes overview and game demos.
HIGHLIGHT MAKER HOOPS College Hoops PLAAY-Down! (2-5p, ORANGE tables)
Here’s your chance to be part of the Highlight Maker “Hoop-LA” by coaching a fictional college basketball teams in our own convention summer version of NCAA “March Madness.” We’re commemorating the original sixteen fictional college teams used in PLAAY-testing our hoops game ideas, and we’ve added 48 (whaaa?!) NEW fictional college teams to provide a full 64-team field! Grab a team from the “Hoop-LA bowl” and see how far you can take it! Bonus raffle tickets for making the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, and the championship!
HISTORY MAKER GOLF PLAAY Gamer Open Tournament (2-5p, BLUE tables)
A convention favorite since 2018, we encourage you to play even if you’ve never played our golf game before! This year we’ll be playing the epic Yellowstone National Golf Course, a course we created for the 2020 online-only convention.
We’re doing the golfer cards a little differently this year: instead of a choice of three standard golfer profiles, we’re letting YOU create a custom card of your own choosing! Pick up one of the official tournament DIY cards (we’ll have them at the BLUE tables prior to the event) and choose ANY two full qualities, AND any two semi-qualities. For example, you could choose LEGEND, LASER, semi-GOLD and semi-ICON (as shown below). Or, BOMBER, SHAPER, semi-DYNAMIC, semi-MASTER. Or any of a million different other possible combination.
The first round will be a rather open arrangement, start play whenever, with whomever. The second round (starting around 315pm) will be a staggered start, grouped in foursomes arranged by score, with the tourney leaders going last. This will create a lot of drama at the end, which is always exciting, just like on TV. We’ll do our best to provide an up-to-the-minute leaderboard as the tournament winds down with a white board in the center of the play area.
+ NOTE that you can participate in BOTH the hoops AND golf events, you don’t have to choose one or the other! If/when you’re eliminated from the hoops tournament, you can immediately segue to the golf tournament which will be run in a staggered round format.
Raffle Winners! (7-720p, Conference Area)
Here’s where we draw the winners for all of our raffle prizes. Be sure to put your name on EACH of your raffle tickets! You CAN win multiple raffle prizes, if your name is drawn more than once!
Here’s a list of this year’s raffle prizes...
HISTORY MAKER BASEBALL Continental League Package (game, card set and book).
HIGHLIGHT MAKER HOOPS All-Timer Package (game, 75 ATG Hoops card set and PLAAY Mat).
SECOND SEASON FOOTBALL Package (Full-play and Express games and PLAAY Mat).
RED WHITE & BLUE RACIN’ SCRAM-pack (Game plus 2022 SCRAM cards and PLAAY Mat).
SOCCER BLAST World Cup Flashback Pack (Game plus 2018 World Cup cards).
DEMO DERBY SMASH-DOWN Dust-Up Package (Game and PLAAY Mat).
FURY FOOTBALL Campaign Package (Game, expansion card set and PLAAY mat).
PLAAY Dot CON football jersey (2XL, 2021).
DIY Dodgeball Tournament, DODGEBALL WORLD TOUR (720-10p, ORANGE tables)
We wrap up the ‘22 convention with a massive dodgeball tournament! If you didn’t custom-craft your team from our online download before the convention, you can pick up a printed download from a convention host before the tournament and choose your team during your convention down time.
Saturday night, find a place at the ORANGE tables and listen for last-minute instructions. H
IPFC Championship Game, “The Cartier Bowl” (720-10p, BLUE table 5)
It’s the culmination of the 2022 IPFC season, our fictional PLAAY gamer co-op league with COLD SNAP Canadian Pro Football Game. You’re welcome to watch the action and cheer on your favorite! East/West coaches to be determined.
Questions? Comments? Let us know!