PLAAY Connect 03.29.23

Another month of board gaming has flown by, here’s the latest from PLAAY HQ!…

TONIGHT: Hoops March Mayhem PLAAY-Down FINAL FOUR!

We can't let the real-life NCAA Tournament slip past without conducting our own version of the proceedings with our fictional College Hoops PLAAY-Down cards and Highlight Maker Hoops Basketball Game! We've chosen four teams who roughly parallel the real-life final four: Southern Connecticut, Florida Maritime, Atlantic Shore and Zacatecas will stand-in for Connecticut, Florida Atlantic, Miami and San Diego State! Join us tonight at 6:00 MDT on the PLAAY Games YouTube Channel!

Binge Week Golf starts April 24!

Wow, this is going to be BIG! So much new, and a full week to binge! We have an all-new History Maker Golf PLAAY Mat, a new Course Collection (NINETEEN), and a fresh full-color treatment of the All-Time Great Golfer card set! The base game is also getting an update, with a new, enhanced Augusta course and a new set of golfers based on the 2010s (the current base game cards, the 2000s Stars, will be offered as a decade set alongside the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s card sets).

For those who already own the game but would like the 2010s stars cards, we'll offer them as a separate purchase for a limited time. The new enhanced Augusta course will be available as a free download. Woo hoo!

Dice Tower Review of Score Cards!

We're going to kick off the PLAAY Games "Summer of NOW!" on Friday May 19th with the official release of our new family card game "Score Cards," created by veteran game designer (and PLAAY gamer!) Mike Fitzgerald! We introduced the game to the hobby board game crowd at Dice Tower West, and it certainly was well-received. The Dice Tower's Tom Vasel reviewed the game on YouTube, you can check it out here.

"The Summer of NOW?"

Our plan is to release three new PLAAY NOW games in the span of two months. "Score Cards" will be the first, timed to coincide with Memorial Day. A second new game will be released on "JuneTeenth" (June 19), and a third right around July 4th. I know, right? Ambitious! We'll preview all three games as we get closer to summer--make sure you're subscribed to the PLAAY Games YouTube channel so you don't miss anything! We'll have more info on "The Summer of NOW" coming up in next month's CONNECT.

Coming in MAY: 75 All-Time Great Drivers for Red White & Blue Racin'

NASCAR is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, so with the help of our stock car racing guru Jerry Minks, we've created an all-new set of all-time great stock car racing drivers! Imagine, the best of the best of all-time, tradin' paint on your tabletop! We'll have more information about this special card set in next month's CONNECT.

Recap: PLAAY Games Community 2023 SCRAM Season Play-Through!

James Cast's community co-op play-through of the 2023 SCRAM season with Red White & Blue Racin' is in the books--34 races in 34 days! James writes, "We had 14 different PLAAYers take part in the project, with Dave Davis and James Cast each hosting five races. This season we had 39 different drivers score points, which required a Top 5 finish or a pole position. Of those, twenty won a race."

Julee Justus won the overall point championship with 270 points. Jordy Pettis was second (235) and Geoff Daly Jr. was third (225). Justus won two races, the Sun Coast Capital 400 (hosted by Paul Salzgeber) and the Sentinel Mutual Colonial 500 (hosted by Harvey Couch). Justus also finished in the Top 5 ten times while also securing six pole positions. Donna Tourville also had ten Top 5 finishes on the season as she finished 5th in the season points standings. Brent Tice, Trevor Trostel, and Jordy Pettis each won three races to lead all drivers.

Jordy Pettis scored his final points at the Pemoco 300 (Race 28, hosted by James Cast), and at the time held a 235-190 lead over Julee Justus. In fact, Geoff Daly Jr. was sitting in second at that time with 225. Daly Jr. and Pettis both failed to score points over the final six races. Meanwhile, Justus then finished fourth at the Stigma Foods Healthy Snax 400 (hosted by Jason Stapley) in the next race and secured the points lead for good the following week at the BargainMart Big Laps at OP (Pete Adams) finishing second and winning the pole. That gave Justus 240 points. A 5th place finish at the A to Z Auto Parts 600 (Cast) and a 4th place finish at the Lone Star Financial 500 (Tim Lucas) was icing on the cake.

This was also the final season for legend Wayne Montana. Montana had his final win at the Stigma Foods Healthy Snax 400 (Race 29, Jason Stapley). Montana added a second place finish at the Ice Brew 600 (Bob Hansen) and 4th at the Bitty Beer 400 (AFR Steve Tower). It's worth noting that the team of Montana and Tice combined for 4 wins, the most of any race team.

You can check out the full 2023 SCRAM Season recap here!

2023 Baseball America Comments and Questions

From PLAAY Gamer Zach See, "I just finished playing spring training games with this year's Baseball America set (in the final game, Team 9 upset and almost no-hit powerful team 2, but Kogi Hirota broke it up by getting a single with two outs in the ninth) and wanted to say:

1) Thanks for providing the PDF set in both black and white and colour versions. Like you mentioned in the spring training games video on youtube, I already have an existing league structure so it's nice to be able to play the games without having the 'wrong' team names on the cards.

2) Thanks for doing the Spring Training write-ups and videos. I find it really useful for learning about what's expected from the teams, what their goals are, who the rookie hotshots are, who's supposed to be getting playing time, etc., when I'm making decisions about free agents, lineups, rotations, and so on.

3) I also should say that I really enjoy having unusual attributes included. I find MLB's style to be pretty homogeneous right now (almost everyone has some power, almost every pitcher has a high strikeout rate) so it's a lot of fun to have teams that have multiple scrappers/semi-scrappers, pitchers who can be successful without striking batters out, Jackie Fly being a starting pitcher who can steal bases, etc. It's nice to have a league with a slightly different style of play. I also really like that there's a few pitchers with contradictory ERA ratings (like de Gaas having ACE and SEMI-STRUGGLER, or Varsho's STAR and WORKMAN rating) that make them high risk/reward types.

4) I've been playing since 2021 and when I first started I wasn't sure if it'd actually be interesting to play with totally fictional players who are essentially just attributes on cards, and I've been pleasantly surprised by how interesting their storylines become over time. I see Chick Schramm and Todd "The Heat Seeker" Hampa's mediocre cards and reminisce about how just two years ago they were supposed to lock down the late innings and lead team 4 to success. I grumble at seeing Josh Bell move from team 12 to team 2 (the Flippy/Bell combo was a really good run-producing duo), but wonder if the change in scenery will help him win a championship for the first time in my league. Ross Barragan's been wildly successful for me beyond his talent level, so I'm curious to see if can keep his luck intact now that he's on team 12. I like being able to run a season, compare the players' seasons to what the were expected to do, imagine what they'll be up to next season, then once the next season is released to find out what players have retired, who the interesting rookies are, who's improved or declined, and what teams are on their way up or their way down. It really does become a living league and it's a lot of fun to make history with it.

Anyways, two questions that I wanted to ask before I have a draft to assign free agents to teams:

1) Is Hipolito Amado still capable of playing the field? I know he was SP/UT last season, and I think he was mentioned as a two-way player like Davalos in the Spring Training video but his card just lists his position as SP. His bat's declined and Team 9's lineup has improved so he probably won't have as big an opportunity to play the field as he did last year, but it could still be useful to have him play some innings in the field.

2) Did Lou Volpe lose his Venditte-style ability to switch pitch? Last year he was listed as "Pitches B", and I liked seeing him use his platoon advantage to outperform his card's ERA rating, but this year he's only listed as L. I seem to recall Venditte once having an injury that might've led to him only throwing one-sided so it's possible that's what happened here, but I just wanted to make sure before I used him in games.

And finally, if you take requests, can next year's set have a player who's at least semi-good eye? I know low strikeout rates are rare for batters now (Willians Astudillo is the only modern player I can think of who was notable for avoiding K's), but I'm always somewhat annoyed that there's an attribute that almost never gets used for modern players.

Thanks again for all the hard work that must go into making these cards!

Zach, thank YOU for the encouraging e-mail! Answers to your questions...

1) Sure, Amado can play the outfield with no penalty. His bat has declined and his glove is non-descript, so I figured he would mainly be used as a pinch hitter, aside from his pitching.

2) Yes, Lou Volpe can only pitch L, this year. Honestly, I hadn't thought about it but an injury scenario would make sense. He may return as "B" next year, but maybe with less effectiveness as an R pitcher. Maybe that's too complicated. He might be a STAR as a lefty but SEMI-WORKMAN as a righty. Would make for some interesting/memorable moments!

Agreed, I should have had at least one GOOD EYE in the set, if for no other reason than to have someone who doesn't strike out. Thanks for the heads up--keep an eye out for a GOOD EYE in the 2024 set!

ViDEO ACTiViTY!

With our trip to Dice Tower, our video itinerary for March was pretty light. Last week we got back to streaming live, with our 2023 Interprovincial Pro Football Conference season opener. Our fictional Canadian football league's first week featured a match-up of the league's two new expansion teams, the Pacific Whalers and Manitoba Moose! Played in Cold Snap "express" mode. See which team began its existence with a "W!" You can also get weekly updates on the league's season, just reach out to us and we'll get you on the IPFC press list!

Upcoming video activity (beyond tonight's live hoops stream) includes...

• 03.30.23, St. Louis and Chicago, '98 Baseball: It's opening day in the big leagues, so we're gonna go retro with our new commemorative express release of the history-making 1998 season. The two major contributors to '98's "dinger dizziness"--McGwire and Sosa--will get a chance to display their stuff in this full-play game of History Maker Baseball.

• 04.03.23, College Hoops PLAAY-Down March Mania Championship Game: We'll determine the participants on tonight's stream, and the winners will match up for the fictional national championship on Monday night, just before the real-life tournament tips off ITS championship game! Again--that's a MONDAY night stream on the PLAAY Games YouTube Channel!

• 04.13.23, Game Lab 2023: Once a year we pull back the curtain on some of the in-development game ideas we've been working on. Always a fun show--especially fun to watch live and share comments in the peanut gallery!

• 04.20.23, Binge Week Golf Preview and Course Collection NINETEEN Reveal: We'll give you a sneak peek at the new golf goodies, and run through the four all-new courses included in our latest course collection! "Must-See Streaming" for HMG fans!

ALL streams start at 6pm mountain time, 8pm eastern time on the PLAAY Games YouTube Channel...

FREE STUFF!

• 1998 New York vs. San Diego Fall Classic Cards: From our new full-color commemorative express set, you can re-live this series which, in real-life, saw the Yankees sweep the Padres enroute to a big-league record 125 season wins (including playoffs).

• Jule Sigall's improved Out-of-Town Baseball Scoreboard: This chart is designed for baseball season replays where you want to generate inning by inning results for games that you do not play out. You can do this while you play games in full, just like glancing at the out of town scoreboard at the ballpark! There's a simple but very effective built-in mechanism for making these scores realistic. Check it out!

• Lenny laFrance's Association of Canadian Colleges and Universities 2023 Football Season: Lenny's the brain behind the Interprovincial Pro Football Conference, and as if that weren't creatively taxing enough, he's somehow got mental energy left over to create a complete Canadian college football universe as well! The ACCU consists of twenty-eight fictional colleges and universities across Canada, broken down into four conferences. The top players within the ACCU are often drafted into the IPFC.

Photo Finish!

Paul Wallo made a mock-up of a sports newspaper front page with a brief AP-style writeup of the race! Paul writes, “In a previous life (as in, back in the 1980s) I was an Associated Press sports writer. I posted this to a sports sim/game Discord channel to which I belong. Though you might get a kick out of how well the game plays to write-ups as if it were an actual real-life sports event.

Next month we'll have updates on two of our 2023 Live Events, PLAAY-Dot-CON 2023 July 27-29, and "PLAAY Games at the Hall of Fame," History Maker Baseball in Cooperstown, October 14th. Until then—PLAAY on!