Let me apologize folks. It's before noon (Illinois time), so I'm not horrendously late. But my web stats tell me there are impatient people out there waiting for their content. I am happy to oblige. I took some extra time reading the news this morning, though, as you might understand. A world without bin Laden is a better world indeed. Is this as big of news as it would have been in 2001 or 2002? Probably not, but it is still undoubtedly huge. Congratulations to our military, especially the special forces involved to get their man without any casualties.
As for this weekend, it was great. Saturday saw the three of us (myself, Kristine, and Katelyn) win big at Jillian's before the game. After we walked over to Victory Field, though, the day got even better. The Indians were thumped by the Durham Bulls. Judging by their record and what I saw, that's going to be a common thread all year. But the game was still good, the ballpark atmosphere was great, especially for a lopsided game. It made me want to live in Indy again so I could make more games. Also, Wabash won their first NCAC Baseball crown. That was pretty big news, as far as Wabash is concerned. I'm sure I will keep you posted on how they do in the national tournament. Sunday, my brother (Andrew) came over, and after doing some grilling, we got down to work on some game development. It's not a finished product, but we have a really good base developed. I took a picture but wasn't able to get it posted yet. I will. At it's base, we blended MLB Showdown and APBA Baseball. Those games have been discussed in earlier posts. For most rolls, a twelve-sided die is used. Basically, any checks are done with this die. So, rolls for advantage (pitcher vs. batter), running, and fielding are made with the D12. Two six-sided dice are used to determine the play, which are found on play charts. Here is a quick walkthrough of an at-bat in our game. Whoever is on defense rolls the D12. If the roll plus the pitcher's control is more than the batter, the pitcher wins advantage. If that sum is equal to or less, the batter wins advantage. The player with advantage then rolls the two D6's. One die is designated as tens, the other ones. So, we'll say a 21 is rolled. The player then finds 21 on the appropriate player card to get the play number. Find the play number on the chart, and that will tell you what happens. We'll say for this example, it's a deep double, which means the player has an option to try to stretch it into a triple. If that is decided, the player on defense would roll the D12, where the roll and outfielder's* fielding rating must beat the runner's speed. Obviously if this fails, the runner is safe. If it passes, the runner is out. *The play chart tells you which outfielder (or infielder, if it's a double play attempt) to use. And that is pretty much the game. There is (or will be, I think Andrew is working on it now as I type) a bunting chart and some other special situations, but that last paragraph is essentially the game. Just like baseball itself. On the surface, it's a simple game. You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. With a little bit of digging, though, you start to peel back layer upon layer of strategy and possibility. I would like to think our game does its best to get the best of both worlds. A simple base with the flexibility to handle almost any strategy you can throw at it. I'm going to be spending a decent amount of this weekend making player cards, in theory based on last year's Danville Dans and Chillocothe Paints. That was last year's Prospect League championship, so that seems like a good starting point to try balancing the game. If things go right, and I can get a lawyer friend to say it would most likely be fine, I plan on doing the rest of the Prospect League. That probably won't be the version we end up selling, though. We'd have to get rights to the Prospect League name, and they would probably have to approve it on a team-by-team basis. It might be worth a look, because I would assume getting those rights would be pretty cheap, and it would open up a new avenue for selling the game. But, we'll see. I'm not sure if we would be able to use the actual players or not, either. I know NCAA video games just use the player numbers, and I'm sure there's a reason for that. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, though. Comments are closed.
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