Small Ball is a two-player, push-your-luck dice game that celebrates the highly strategic style of baseball known as "small ball", which places an emphasis on manufacturing runs by way of single-base advancements and aggressive base running.
Teams are made up of nine unique dice that each reflect the typical characteristics of batters in a lineup, including the lead-off hitter who gets on base, the clean-up hitter who is capable of powerful extra-base hits, and the pitcher who can sacrifice a runner over.
Small Ball challenges teams to score runs by making tough, strategic decisions - when to steal a base, when to lay down a sacrifice, when to call the hit-and-run, and when to go to the bench for a pinch hitter - and implements a major rule change that makes decisions even more grueling.
—description from the designer
- looking pretty cool
- distilled
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It looks generic-y medieval, but clean and I like it.
- Such a fun experience of just memory, strategy, energy management, and player powers.
- These things look so good that they look fake.
- That is like a pure pure gambling game.
- It's a game that's actually more fun when you mess it up than when you get it correct.
- I really love the look, the gear mechanism. It's so smart.
- It is pretty fun, chaotic, jumping around game.
- I think this has the opportunity to be even stronger.
- A lot of board gamers are collectors and so this does kind of feed into that collector itch.
- I scored 41 points. He said, 'I've never seen 41 points.'
- Deduction style is not usually my go-to mechanism. This one surprised me.
References (from this video)
- Highly portable and approachable
- Cute, thematic, and conversation-sparking
- Low barrier to entry and quick play time
- Reliant on real-world calendar/weather context; may feel odd outside real-time contexts
- Replay value hinges on card variety and variants
- lighthearted social interaction
- everyday conversation; weather and date trivia
- puzzle/party-leaning mechanic centered on current day and weather
- Lightweight eco-party games; other Buttonshy micro-games
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card overlap puzzle — Sixteen (18) cards depict dates and weather; players attempt to align them so the current date/weather appear simultaneously.
- Puzzle-driven social play — Players compete or cooperate to craft the correct overlap pattern.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I love this logic and lore.
- This is a board game based on the book. So, it's going to be a narrative style game.
- Love, you know, choose your own adventure or these like D and D style RPG style books. And to see it in the board game form, I think that they are cool.
- Small talk the [laughter] game.
- Zen Quest month started.
- standwithMinnesota.com — there’s charities involved. Anything over that stretch goal is going to Minnesota.