I would like to start this review with the following disclaimer: I love baseball. I have my whole life. One of my first memories is being at Yankee Stadium. I married a woman who also loves baseball and adopted her team as well. My wife and I went to two games in the 2014 MLB postseason, and one of the greatest moments we will ever have was being there for the Giant’s pennant win. There have been multiple years where I have watched every single regular season game played by the team I was following at that time. In summary, my wife and I love baseball, and could not be more the target audience for this game. That being said, here are my thoughts on Bottom of the 9th.
I have worked as a developer in the video games industry for a long time, and starting when I made my transition from being a hardcore video gamer to a hardcore board gamer (almost ten years ago) I started looking for gaming experiences I had come to consider inherently digital within analog gaming. Due to my love of baseball, a great baseball game was a chief target in my search. What I found in the hobby at the time was a pretty limited selection, with all roads leading back to Strat-O-Matic Baseball. These games seemed keener on simulating a baseball game than offering the feel of the sport itself. I eventually gave up on my search.
Then one day I saw Bottom of the 9th on kickstarter. I backed it immediately because frankly the pledge was cheap, the game was about baseball, and if it turned out that it was wasn’t fun it would be easy to explain why I bought it to my wife. After reading the rules it seemed a little hokey, revolving around an expanded rock paper scissors mechanic that is by no means novel. I got a little more excited when they added Sentinels of the Multiverse promo players, as I love that game franchise. After the campaign though I promptly forgot about the game. After all, as a kickstarter addict I knew their goal of releasing before the World Series wasn’t going to happen.
I received the game about a week ago. When I opened the box I was struck first by the novelty of the cards feeling like baseball cards and the fact that they came in a pack within the box. The wooden components were very nice as well. 504
My wife was interested in the game but we didn’t find the time to give it a shot until we went to my folk’s place for Thanksgiving weekend. After our first game (~15 minutes) we sat there stunned. Bottom of the 9th is baseball in a box.
From here I am going to itemize the things that Bottom of the 9th isn’t, followed by what it is, and why I think what it is spectacular.
Bottom of the 9th isn’t a simulation. As a long time baseball fan who has also taken my turn at scorekeeping, I know how obsessed the hobby of baseball is with statistics. Statistics do not fit well into this game. There are no batting averages, or even an analog of batting averages, and you will not be able to recreate great moments in baseball history perfectly, seeing how you could have played it differently. The game is very light. You will not find rules present in the game for a lot of the plays you would expect to see (example: stolen bases, double plays, wild pitches, etc.).
Bottom of the 9th isn’t very accessible for gamers who aren’t baseball fans. This is not to say that they cannot learn it, and learning from someone who already knows the game of baseball will go a long way. The rulebook is the chief offender here, with a lot of aspects of the game not explicitly called out. This is a shame, because I feel Bottom of the 9th could potentially spark interest in the game of baseball for people who haven’t really given it a shot before. Also, while it is rare, there are a couple of abilities that do not have the clearest rules explanation that would be very difficult to decipher if you didn’t know what it was attempting to model by reading the name of the ability (example: hit and run). I hope these issues will be solved by the second printing.
Bottom of the 9th isn’t deterministic. There is a lot of luck here. Despite what a lot of people are saying, I maintain that it is not all luck, and there is a lot of strategy in the game, especially when pitching. Honestly I want there to be some luck in there anyway. Those who are averse to having everything come down to dice should stay away though.
Alright, enough of that. Let’s get down to what Bottom of the 9th is.
Bottom of the 9th is varied while being simple. Bottom of the 9th reminds me a lot of Quartermaster General due to the way the cards are used. 511