Play Ball! (Partial Show Test)

[Deleted]

Jack Morris it is and here your batting lineup.  Would you like any changes here?

[bighornbattle]

Nope.

[Deleted]

Alright then, let's head out to "The Big O" in Montreal for "les Expos de Montreal contre les Blue Jays de Toronto"!

[Deleted]

Well George, that was the wrong time to have a pitchers duel I'm afraid.  It's a strong finish for you though as you win the last mini-game!

You had 1 run on 4 hits and no errors, which included a double and a triple.  So that's $50 for the two base hits, $50 for the double, $75 for the triple, $250 for the run and $500 for winning the mini-game for a total of $925.

Bill, it turns out Morris and Henke out-pitched Pedro slightly, so you earned only $75 in this mini-game for your three base hits.

(ding)

But it's Bill who wins the game overall, 7 to 4!

Bill picked up another $75 for that last mini-game, plus a $1,000 bonus for winning the overall game, added to his previous winnings of $3,375 is a total of $4,450!

George, you picked up your best total of the show with those Blue Jays, $950 added to your previous $1,175 and you leave us with a total of $2,125!

Alright, so that's how the regular game would go.  Before we play Bill's bonus round, I'd appreciate feedback from the two of you (as well as anyone else that has been following this thread).  This is how it would go during the regular show, except we would have had 6 more mini-games like this for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th innings.  Of course, if the overall score was tied after 9, we'd have a 10th mini-game to decide the winner.

Did you like this format?  Anything about this you didn't like?  Suggestions for changes?  I'll pause here for 24 hours or so to give you time to let me know what you think.

[billmcdee]

I think it plays quite well.  My only concern is if 9 mini games are played instead of 3 it could, in theory, take a super long time for an episode's main game to conclude.

The baseball themed puzzles, the eggcrate scoreboard made it feel like a real ball game.

The final run total was good, great many hits though LOL.  But overall I really enjoyed playing and loved the uploads of the actual baseball "action" taking place too.

[bighornbattle]

It was awesome. I wish I could do the full game soon.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the feedback gents.

Bill, I tend to agree with that concern, plus as you say, even with only 3 mini-games, that was a lot of hits.  I will say though that in the test games that I did, more often than not the result was more like this third mini-game we played rather than the first two.

I suppose the mini-games could be just 1 inning long instead of 3, but my worry there is more of them would then just be walk-off dinger games in the bottom of the 1st!

[Deleted]

Okay, well if anyone else that has followed this has feedback, feel free to post it.

Let's finish off with your "Heroes vs. Legends" Bonus Round, Bill.  This is essentially another mini-game, but here the dollar values are doubled except for winning the mini-game.  Your bonus for winning is $5,000 instead of $1,000.  Your team will be the Legends and here are the players you'll face on the Heroes:

Your batters will be facing Nolan Ryan on the mound to start with and the Heroes will field these players:

Once again, the pitchers will bat ninth.  For your Legends team, you have the choice of these starting pitchers:

Which of those five would you like to start for you Bill?

[billmcdee]

I gotta go with the Big Train, Walter Johnson.

[Deleted]

I was hoping you'd pick him!  Wait until you see his unique delivery!

Here's your lineup and bench players.  You can make changes as before if you like.

[billmcdee]

I'll keep that line up as is also.

[Deleted]

In that case, let's head out to the cornfields of Iowa at the recently constructed "Field of Dreams" MLB ballpark for some Bonus Round action!

Part 1:

Part 2:

[billmcdee]

O no (melting)

[Deleted]

Yeah, I think your CPU manager probably should have left Walter in for a bit longer!

So, no five grand unfortunately Bill.

I'm not sure if it's a bug in the game, but I think Mickey Mantle should have been credited with a double on that error by Killebrew since he wound up at third.  I think he would have made it to second easily if Harmen had positioned himself properly to catch that bounce.

So, instead of a triple and two singles, we'll give you a single, a double and a triple.  Dollar values are doubled here in the Bonus Round, so that's $50 for the single, $100 for Mantle's "double" and $150 for Ty Cobb's triple in the first, plus $500 for each of the two runs is a Bonus Round total of $1,300!

We add that to what you won during the regular mini-games and it's a grand total today of $5,750 and you'll be back to face another opponent on our next show Bill!

Okay, so that's it for the test.  So, I'll be honest, I thought the Legends would easily beat the Heroes, but what I think I'll do on the actual show is give you the choice between the two teams.  I also have an idea to cut down on the hits a bit in the regular mini-games.  There is an option called "Scenario Editor" in the game where you can set things up inning to inning.  So, I might do it that way where in Inning 1, you pick teams from the 1900s/1910s and play just 1 inning.  Then, for inning 2, it's teams from the 1920s/1930s and again, we play just 1 inning.  That way, we might have some legit scoreless innings and the overall total should look a bit more like a real ballgame total.  I have never used that scenario editor though, so I'll have to test a bit to see if it's viable or not.

Anyway, that's a wrap for this test.  I thank you both for playing.  I plan to do this show in April to coincide with the real 2024 season and April 1st is a Monday, so I'll probably premiere it on that day, my own schedule permitting of course.

Thanks again, gents.  If you two or anyone else has any other comments about this, feel free to post them here. Cheers.

[billmcdee]

You read my mind about the day's winner having the option to choose between the Legends and the Heroes teams!

And yes that sounds quite feasible the scenario editor.  I play that quite often on my MLB 2005 Game Cube game (yes I truly AM old and do have that very old MLB game that still plays like a dream for me!)

[Deleted]

Cool, thanks for the feedback Bill.  We'll give the choice between Heroes/Legends and use the Scenario Editor.  Look for the show sometime in April!

[bighornbattle]

Great job Jack.

[billmcdee]

And I don't know why but I found the video uploads of the action to be cute!