Bottom of the 9th
Welcome back! This is the 2nd part of a look at some exciting kickstarters coming out of my neighboring city of Saint Louis.
Bottom of the 9th is a new kickstarter out from Dice Hate Me games. The game is based around an epic duel between a tiring pitcher and the final batters of a tense baseball game. The game is pretty lightweight in complexity and supports one to two players and can be played in 5-15 minutes. The company also has rules to lengthen the game to cover an entire nine innings and also supports season long league play.
The game features some very cool components. The old fashioned baseball cards that will serve as the avatars for your roster of players are especially neat. The cards use 1mm punchboard to replicate the feel of old baseball cards and feature terrific artwork of players in classic baseball regalia. The backs show the special abilities of the players and also have the monocolor stat printing reminiscent of vintage cards as well. Dice Hate Me clearly went through a lot of work to make the game capture the feeling of old time baseball and it really shows in the beautiful punch board cards that they are including.
The gameplay involves the use of a few different mechanics that look like they will combine well to make for tense strategic duels. The first mechanic involves a guessing game using tokens to determine where the pitcher is planning to place the next pitch. Two tokens, one with High or Low, and another with Inside or Away will be used to determine where the pitch is being aimed at. If the batter can correctly guess the locations on one or both of these tokens he will get an advantage to hit the ball into play. After this guessing game is played both sides will roll their sets of d6’s depending on the results and modifiers certain effects will take place. The batter may swing and miss for a strike, take a ball, find his way on base, or knock the ball out of the park and win the game.
Each time this exchange takes place the pitcher runs the risk of becoming fatigued. The more fatigued a pitcher gets, the less likely he will be able to pitch effectively. This will make strategic pitch selection a crucial component of the game.
The price on the base game is only $20 which is a spectacular deal. It includes 20 cards, a game board, some dice, and some nice wooden components. The All Star pledge tier at $50 is, in my opinion, a slightly less valuable option. It adds a clipboard game board that will give you a fresh scorecard on every game sheet so you can save your records for posterity, as well as a numbered box signed by the designers and a limited edition mascot card.
At the time of writing this article Bottom of the 9th has amassed $26,000 of its $20,000 goal so no matter what the project is a go and you can back it with confidence.
The prices on both versions also include all stretch goals which at the time of publishing include upgraded dice (As seen above) and an improved game board (below). Future stretch goals will include expansion packs featuring new players, custom baserunner meeples, and a special expansion featuring characters from the Sentinels of the Multiverse game to celebrate Dice Hate Me’s recent merger with Greater than Games.
This game is another game that I am personally backing. I think the price tag is more than reasonable and provides a great value for all of the components that will come with this game. I also like how inexpensive it is because I am fairly unsure of how many plays I will be able to get of this game. Most of my games will probably, sadly, be solo since I am the only baseball fanatic in my game group. On the plus side this may inspire some of my friends that aren’t particularly interested in games to take up the hobby, who knows! Either way $20 is a pretty small risk to take.
Dice Hate Me has a marvelous track record of producing very well reviewed games by the community and I don’t see any reason that this game will not deliver the same type of success that they have received from their other titles, Brewcrafters and Belle of the Ball. I have also had the opportunity to meet some of the staff from Dice Hate Me at Gen Con last year and I can attest that they have a passion for the tabletop hobby that runs very deep and will go to great lengths to help their customers.
Finally I would like to clarify that I am in no way associated with Dice Hate Me games. I am not receiving any sort of compensation for this article. I am simply a passionate fan of the hobby and I want to share that passion with as many people as possible. If however any gaming companies do want to submit games to me for review I will gladly accept them and promise to give an honest and thorough review.
Thank you very much for your interest in these articles. Look forward to seeing more Kickstarter Updates here on Living The Nerd Life in the future.