As a side note, I seriously have to curb the number of ‘active’ projects I have going, and stick with games (and sports) that I like to play.
Baseball and racing will always have a spot in my rotation. Soccer and hockey take the next tier, with football and basketball lower on my list.
I also have golf, tennis, boxing, wrestling and lacrosse in various forms. Of those, I have to be in the right mood/mindset to play any of those. None of those games are ones I consider playing with a long-term ‘season’ or replay.
And then there’s the least played games: bowling, roller derby, demolition derby, and some interesting fictional sports. Someday, I keep telling myself.
I just started the 2013 SCRAM season, and the 2024 SCRAM/SCRAM-B sets arrived in the mail today. Yikes.
So yeah, I need to curb my habit, considering the vast amount of other hobbies I have and would like to pursue as well.
No, I’m not going to complete the APBA base game collection with the football game.
I have a very old set from 1996, with two teams from 1995: San Francisco and Kansas City.
I looked at the price of the game online: $44.
I then looked at the price of an NFL season set: over $100 for anything post-1966! And they don’t even have 1997 available!
I also perused a couple of videos on YouTube, one stating that I’d have to get the new base game to play with the new card sets, I couldn’t play the seasons with my old game.
And seeing how I hardly play football games anyway (have yet to finish a season replay), this purchase is a big fat no.
Second Season/SS Express will scratch that football itch when I get it, along with the two quick play options I have, Game-Winning Drive FB and Fast Drive FB.
Second Season Express still takes a while to play a game.
Not as long as a regular Second Season game, but still longer than other Express games from PLAAY.
Still, I may try to power through and finally finish the 1967 Denver Broncos season replay this week.
The plan is to finish some of these season replays that have been sitting idle under the full PLAAY games using the Express version, specifically this 1967 Broncos replay, perhaps the 1966-67 NHL replay, and maybe the 1974 John D’Acquisto season replay.
I may start a 1974 fictional Lacrosse season replay once Lacrosse Blast Express arrives.
In addition to pulling the APBA games off the shelves, I also pulled the Strat-O-Matic games as well.
I was surprised to find that I have the 1994-95 NHL season set for Strat Hockey.
Arguably my favorite Sharks team, at least in the early years of the franchise.
I mean…
I may replay that Sharks season, in addition to the 1991-92 Sharks season (ordered earlier this week from APBA).
I ordered a new set of parts for Strat Hockey, in addition to the 1945-46 NHL season, in honor of
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I’m not sure why I’ve been going back to the roots of tabletop sports gaming, first with APBA Golf and Soccer, now with the hockey games. I just seem to be wanting something more in my game play, as much as I enjoy playing similar, newer games of the same sports.
Oddly enough I have no desire to go back to APBA or Strat-O-Matic Baseball.
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I also don’t feel like going through the 1995-96 hockey teams and reversing trades to get accurate rosters, so if I end up playing that season, it will be with existing rosters.
I noticed the inaccurate opening rosters when I was about to play Blackhawks vs Sharks, and Sandis Ozoliņš was not on the Sharks roster, having ended the season with Colorado.
He scored the first goal for the Sharks that year. I only remember that because he also scored the first goal for the San Francisco Spiders that season.
Anyways, I felt a little miffed that the rosters were wrong, so I went looking for a list of transactions for that season, and then decided that to heck with it, and will just play with the existing rosters.
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Another pair of games that I pulled off the shelf and put right back: APBA and Strat-O-Matic Football.
Never learned to play either. Maybe when the football season rolls around I’ll pull one of them out, but Second Season and Inside Blitz are good enough for me for now, to scratch the football itch. Which doesn’t come up too often, TBH.
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So is this a tabletop renaissance? Maybe.
We’ll see how it goes. I think I’ve played more tabletop sports games this year already than I had in the last 3 years.
I plan on continuing the following ongoing replays:
Baseball
1921 NY Giants (Payoff Pitch Baseball)
1971 SF Giants (Ball Park Baseball) Soccer
2015-16 Tottenham Hotspur (APBA Soccer)
2020-21 AFC Richmond (Dice United) Racing
1984 Winston Cup (Red White & Blue Racin’)
2012 SCRAM (Red White & Blue Racin’) Football
1960 Denver Broncos (Fast Drive Football)
1967 Denver Broncos (Second Season/Second Season Express/Inside Blitz/Grid Iron Wars)
At some point I plan on adding hockey and basketball into the mix, as time permits. I just have to decide which replays to include:
Hockey 1966-67 NHL (Hockey Blast)
1969-70 Oakland Seals (Hockey Blast) 1991-92 San Jose Sharks (APBA) 2013-14 IHL (Hockey Blast, fictional)
2022-23 Central Cities League (Stone Cold Hockey, fictional)
Basketball 1960-61 Syracuse Nationals (Bank Shot Basketball) 1966-67 San Francisco Warriors (Inside the Paint)
2022-23 Basketball League of America (Highlight Maker Hoops, fictional)
And of course I’ll be tracking all the games right here.
“Captain’s log, Star date 1312.4. The impossible has happened.”
I’ve found a game that, to me, replicates what I see on TV in a soccer match as much as most tabletop baseball games do for me.
I do still like playing Dice United and Soccer Blast, it’s just that to me APBA Soccer simulates the build up that usually results in a goal more accurately than the other two do.
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The other games do one thing better, and that’s give you the amount of stoppage time to add at the end of a half.
With APBA, they have maybe a couple of instances listed on the ‘special play’ chart for injury, but that may not even come into play.
Checking the APBA Delphi Forums, there’s no definite answer either, though there are some suggestions that I may consider adapting.
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The fact that I can play a game of this level in a little under 2 hours, even with distractions, is surprising to me.
It takes almost twice as long with or without distractions to play a non-quick play game of American football or basketball or hockey, though like most PLAAY games I can get a game of Hockey Blast finished in maybe an hour.
Golf is it’s own thing and can take as long as it needs to on any given course.
Same with racing, depending on the type of track I’m running on.
Perhaps I should revisit some of the APBA and Strat-O-Matic football and hockey games to see if the time to play has changed for me.
1-2 hours for a sports game seems to be the sweet spot for me nowadays. It allows me to set up in the morning or when I get home from work, and play before I go to bed, with time to compile a post game report that I can post here.
