Brewerfan.netters, we need a few playtesters!

[DuWayne Steurer]

Bear with me folks, this is a long-ish post.

 

SO here's the deal. A friend of mine who's involved in his own small board game company (we're talking games that fit in business envelopes, you provide your own dice and markers) approached me about something that had been on his back burner for quite a long time. Knowing that I'm a huge Brewer/baseball fan, and also a bit of a sabremetric junky, he brought his idea to me.

 

What he wanted to do, being a fan of the old Strat-O-Matic (and knowing I was as well) was create a baseball board game that served 2 purposes. The first, was to give the player who's team is on the field at any given time, something to do. If you've ever played S-O-M, you know that the batting player rolls all the dice, the other guy does nothing. The 2nd thing was that he wanted to pit the all time greats against each other. Now, this has been done before, in various board games, that idea is not novel, but this idea came to him when he was watching the Rickie Henderson induction into the HOF. He asked me, "is Ricky the greatest leadoff hitter of all time?" and that's when the idea hit him.

 

He came up with some ideas for play mechanics, and how he wanted the game to flow, but he came to me for 2 things. One, first and foremost, was the numbers. My friend (believe it or not) does not have internet, and the wealth of data found at places like fangraphs, baseball reference, etc, etc just can't be matched in a store bought book. Secondly, he just wanted someone with a more analytical, stat driven look at the game.

 

What we've got is, what I think, a pretty fun card and dice game, that's all but about ready to start rolling out. He's got a few local game stores that are willing to put it on the shelves for him, I've got the ties to get his material printed up for a cost that's not back breaking, and he's in the process of contacting some smaller game companies to see if anyone's interested in picking it up. I'm putting together a small website for the game as well.

 

NOW, what I'm looking for, is some honest play testers. We've passed out about a half dozen or so hand printed copies of the game, with about 100 players and rules, to friends, casual gamers, and the like. So far, feedback has been positive, but I don't find it to be all that helpful. Friends and family aren't willing to say 'this is wrong' or 'this part isn't any fun', so on and so forth.

 

As I feel we'll be ready to put out some halfway decent beta copies of what he hopes to be only the initial box set within about 4-6 weeks, I'm looking for some true, hardcore baseball fans/stat geeks who would be willing to take a set, with the rules, without someone standing over their shoulders and saying "this is how this works". I feel this needs some brutally honest, but well thought out critiques. We need to know what works, what doesn't. What makes sense, and what needs clarification.

 

It's not a pick up and play game. It's pretty deep. Because we're using historical players, at this time, there's no Lefty/Righty splits, but we've been pretty thorough. Some of the fielding information from before the 50's, we had to base on first hand accounts and some less than stellar stat types (range factor) but all in all, I think it should be pretty accurate.

 

If you're interested, we need some people who will be willing to let me send you a copy, and honestly try to burrow through 10-12 games or so, and give an honest, well thought out review.

 

If you have more questions, great, I'll be happy to answer what I can. If interested, just post here, or email me at rocobrewguy@yahoo.com.

[jjkoestler]

I'd be happy to test it. Would a casual fan (i.e. my girlfriend) enjoy the game?

[pitchleague]

It certainly sounds interesting. I played Pursue the Pennant for many years so this sounds very intriguing.

 

Do you have a "guesstimate" of how long it takes to play one game?

 

If it's not too horribly long to play one game, I would be interested in giving you some feedback on the game.

[DuWayne Steurer]

First couple go around were around 45 minutes per game. After a few games, and becoming familiar with the mechanics, it can be gotten through in about 30 minutes.

 

I don't know how much a casual fan would be interested. Right now (obviously due to licensing issues) we are only using players who are no longer active. Plus it's pretty involved. Maybe I'm wrong here, and the truth is, we do need to know how much a 'casual' fan would enjoy this as well.

[pitchleague]

Okay, well that was about how long it took to play PTP in the hey-day. I'll do it if I'm selected.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Okay, well that was about how long it took to play PTP in the hey-day. I'll do it if I'm selected.

Awesome, you're in! We're working on tuning up a few last things, and I'll have some rough betas back from our printer in a few weeks. At that point, I'll let you know and I'll get a copy sent out to you.

[jjkoestler]

Well count us in then.

[stalton]

Inventing and playing small games is hobby of mine. I've tinkered with making sports dice/card/board games and have come across the issue of making things either way too complex or way too simple.

 

I would love and be honored if I could playtest for you. It sounds creative and interesting and would satisfy a wide market of people (baseball fans, hardcore geeks, gamers, and casual fans like girlfriends/roommates as well)

[tristarscoop]

I'd be interested in checking/testing it out. I'm a freelance copy editor, so I've got a pretty good eye for detail and can give you that kind of feedback.

[OldHoss]

Not sure where you're at as far as testers go, but I'd be totally, totally interested. I'm a pretty avid player of Imagine Sports' Daimond Mind Online, whcih is an online sim game that lets you create a roster (under a specific salary cap) from most historical players, including negro league players. In each league, you compete against 11 other teams. For example, my current Roster looks like this:

 

Position Players

POS	Player	Salary	BA	OBP	SLG	R	HR	RBI	RC	Stats
C	Carter, GaryR	$12,318,000	.247	.318	.323	20	1	20	16.26	Scout, RS,BR
C, 1B	Clarke, BoileryardR	$500,000	.129	.200	.129	1	0	2	-0.38	Scout, RS,BR
1B	Balboni, SteveR	$1,715,000	.293	.368	.500	9	2	8	11.17	Scout, RS,BR
1B, LF	Siebern, NormL	$6,473,000	.232	.313	.326	22	4	27	20.32	Scout, RS,BR
1B, 3B, LF, RF	Ward, PrestonL	$500,000	.077	.143	.077	0	0	0	-1.09	Scout, RS,BR
2B, 3B	Hodapp, JohnnyR	$4,031,000	.241	.288	.331	14	2	15	13.00	Scout, RS,BR
3B	Smith, RedR	$5,851,000	.242	.318	.326	25	1	17	20.60	Scout, RS,BR
SS, 3B	Fernandez, TonyS	$8,760,000	.289	.345	.373	33	1	11	27.78	Scout, RS,BR
SS, 2B	Stephens, PaulR	$836,000	.312	.294	.312	2	0	5	0.86	Scout, RS,BR
LF	Harris, VicL	$3,857,000	.244	.303	.358	24	3	27	18.08	Scout, RS,BR
LF, RF	Lynch, JerryL	$2,081,000	.252	.321	.487	23	6	20	18.84	Scout, RS,BR
RF, LF	Davis, CherokeeR	$1,658,000	.288	.408	.458	8	1	8	10.95	Scout, RS,BR
RF, CF	Holmes, TommyL	$8,287,000	.303	.364	.527	22	8	39	31.47	Scout, RS,BR
RF, LF	Schulte, FrankL	$1,977,000	.240	.313	.413	17	3	14	16.06	Scout, RS,BR

Pitchers

POS	Player	Salary	IP	W	L	ERA	Sv	K	BB	Stats
SP	Gross, KevinR	$2,080,000	57.1	2	3	4.40	0/0	41	26	Scout, RS,BR
SP	Mathewson, ChristyR	$14,624,000	93.2	4	3	3.17	0/0	63	34	Scout, RS,BR
SP	McGregor, ScottL	$6,751,000	71.2	4	3	4.65	0/0	31	29	Scout, RS,BR
SP	Passeau, ClaudeR	$9,330,000	76.0	4	3	3.08	0/0	34	22	Scout, RS,BR
SP	Surkont, MaxR	$1,818,000	32.2	1	3	4.96	0/0	16	20	Scout, RS,BR
RP	Burnside, PeteL	$561,000	5.2	0	0	0.00	0/0	2	0	Scout, RS,BR
RP	Keen, VicR	$562,000	26.2	1	0	2.03	0/0	14	11	Scout, RS,BR
RP	O'Donoghue, JohnL	$628,000	2.0	0	0	0.00	0/0	0	2	Scout, RS,BR
RP	Osuna, AlL	$1,287,000	2.0	0	0	4.50	0/0	1	1	Scout, RS,BR
RP	Sanders, ScottR	$791,000	15.2	0	2	3.45	2/3	10	13	Scout, RS,BR
CL	Frisella, DannyR	$3,600,000	1.1	0	1	33.75	1/2	0	2	Scout, RS,BR

Inactive-Injury Reserve

POS	Player	Salary	Games On List	Stats
SS, 2B	Abbott, KurtR	$500,000	47 games	Scout, RS,BR
2B, 3B	Boswell, KenL	$500,000	47 games	Scout, RS,BR
2B, SS	Garcia, CarlosR	$500,000	47 games	Scout, RS,BR

 

So, let me know if you still need people.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Those who have contacted me, thanks! Those who mentioned interest and want a copy, please message me here on BF, or email me at rocobrewguy@yahoo.com. I just got an email from the folks printing up our stuff, and we expect to have them in hand within 3 weeks.