Hexed And Countered

Category: Sports Games

News, reviews & playthroughs of tabletop sports games.

  • Second Season Pro Football (PLAAY Games) — Gameplay

    Second Season Pro Football (PLAAY Games) — Gameplay

    PLAAY Games has a house style, and it’s a good one: their sports sims are built to narrate. You’re not just resolving plays, you’re getting momentum swings, star performances, and the occasional back-breaking turnover, all delivered with a broadcaster’s sense of drama. Second Season Pro Football is their gridiron entry, and in this one I take it onto the field for a full look at how it plays.

    Fast, but with a pulse

    The trick with a football sim is pace. Model every play in full and a game takes an evening; abstract too hard and it stops feeling like football. PLAAY’s approach keeps things moving while still leaving room for the coaching decisions that matter — when to gamble on fourth down, when to take the clock into your own hands. If you like your sports gaming solo and story-driven, this is a system worth a look.

    More PLAAY playthroughs and solo sports gaming on the channel. Subscribe to follow the season.

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  • Red, White & Blue Racin’ (PLAAY Games): The 1995 SCRAM Season

    Red, White & Blue Racin’ (PLAAY Games): The 1995 SCRAM Season

    Motor racing is a natural fit for solo gaming — a long season, a points chase, and the week-to-week soap opera of who’s hot and who’s blown an engine. Red, White & Blue Racin’ from PLAAY Games captures that in their trademark storytelling style, and here I drop the flag on a full 1995 SCRAM season to see how a campaign comes together.

    The season is the game

    A single race is fun; a season is a story. What makes racing sims tick is the arc — the standings that build week over week, the rivalries that develop, and the gamble of pushing a fragile car for a few extra points. This is the setup and season introduction, laying the groundwork for the campaign to come. If you like sports gaming with a narrative through-line, buckle in.

    The full SCRAM season plays out race by race on the channel. Subscribe to follow the standings.

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  • March Madness (Avalon Hill) — Playthrough

    March Madness (Avalon Hill) — Playthrough

    To wargamers, Avalon Hill is holy ground — the company that more or less invented the hobby. Less remembered is that they also made a run of excellent sports games, and March Madness, their college basketball title, is one of the better ones. In this playthrough I put it on the table and see how well the old warhorse runs.

    Tempo, matchups, and the upset

    College basketball is the right sport for a board game because it’s built around tempo and matchups — exactly the levers a good design can put in your hands. March Madness lets you control the pace, exploit a mismatch, and sweat the kind of late-game possessions that make the real tournament what it is. It carries that Avalon Hill DNA a wargamer will recognize instantly: clean systems, meaningful choices, and just enough chrome to make it sing.

    Classic and modern sports sims, played through in full. Subscribe for the next tip-off.

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  • The Main Event Boxing Game: Hagler vs LaMotta

    The Main Event Boxing Game: Hagler vs LaMotta

    One of the great pleasures of a good boxing sim is the fight that never happened. Marvin Hagler and Jake LaMotta ruled the middleweight division four decades apart, so they could only ever meet across a table — and that’s exactly the bout I put together here using The Main Event. Marvelous Marvin’s cold, surgical pressure against the Raging Bull’s granite chin and forward march: on paper it’s a wonderful clash of styles.

    Does the game tell the story?

    A sports sim earns its keep when the numbers produce a story you’d actually believe. Boxing is a hard thing to model — you want punches to land, rounds to swing, and a fighter’s style to shape the fight without the dice simply flipping a coin twelve times. This playthrough is as much a test of the system as it is a fantasy card: does a Hagler win look like a Hagler win? Watch and see how it goes the distance.

    Sports sims are a regular feature here — boxing, football, hockey, racing, and more. Subscribe for the next bout.

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    Watch the fight
  • Patriot League cards for History Maker Baseball

    Patriot League cards for History Maker Baseball

    MEMORIAL DAY 2022

    I created a card set back in 2014 in honor of the 70th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. This set honors the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice as members of the U.S. Armed Forces in the Second World War. I am re-releasing this card set to remember these brave souls for Memorial Day 2022. 

    This card set is for PLAAY Games’ History Maker Baseball. Each card bears the name of a servicemember who fell in World War II. Please download and enjoy these cards, and while playing, spare a moment to remember the brave souls whose names are printed on the cards.

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  • Review: Highlight Maker Hoops

    Review: Highlight Maker Hoops

    HIGHLIGHT MAKER HOOPS: Nothin’ but net

    Highlight Maker Hoops

    I’m a big fan of Keith Avallone and PLAAY Games. I have several of Keith’s games, ranging from Second Season Football to History Maker Baseball, Hockey Blast and Red, White & Blue Racing. I love them all so I jumped at the opportunity to pre-order Keith’s latest offering, Highlight Maker Hoops. I am pleased to report that Keith and PLAAY Games have yet another entry in their growing catalog of outstanding games.

    I must admit that there was some trepidation on my part while I (briefly) debated pre-ordering. This was a “highlight” engine and not something that was going to generate a full, or even partial, slate of statistics. Stats are the sine non qua for sports gamers, and I’m no different. However, as I was already fully cognizant of the talent and ingenuity of Mr. Avallone, I felt safe in taking the plunge.

    BOXING OUT

    What’s in the box you might? Well, you get the usual assortment of PLAAY Games goodies, all constructed of their typically solid quality materials.

    Specifically, what you’ll find inside the now-standard colorful PLAAY sleeved box :

    • The always essential, and well-written rules booklet
    • A set of charts for determining the score
    • Two sets of strategy cards
    • A game board with boxes for each team’s lineup and bench, surrounded by the scoring track for each team
    • A double-sided gamer’s aid board with one side for the FAC deck and discards plus three tables and the other side featuring the final minute “minigame” where you can play out the last 60 ticks of the clock using dice and the player cards.
    • A set of player cards covering the final four squads in the most recently completed pro season.
    • A note, hand signed by Keith, with notes about the game. My note, as a pre-order, had tidbits about the use of the strategy cards, which were inadvertently left out of rules booklet. 

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