You’re going to have to clarify to your friends that you didn’t misspell “Baseball,” but rather the wonderfully bizarre game of Blaseball. Blaseball was brought to us just 2 weeks ago, with little fanfare, but it’s quickly becoming one of the bigger and more robust communities you will find.
Simply put, Blaseball is an idle baseball simulator with a twist. When you log in to the site—blaseball.com—you are asked to join a team (go Jazz Hands) and then you are brought straight into the game itself. Since Blaseball is an idle game, there isn’t anything for you to do as a player, aside from bet on games (don’t worry, you aren’t using actual money), buy betting upgrades, and vote on rule changes. On the surface, the game simulations are very similar to the baseball that we all know and love. All of the positions are the same, there are still 3 outs per inning, 9 innings, batters, pitchers, etc.
You “watch” the games (which are all played simultaneously) via the Game Log, which periodically tells you if “Hendricks Richardson hit a ground out to Dudley Mueller” or if “Nerd Pacheco reaches on fielder’s choice. Igneus Delacruz [is] out at second base.” Simple enough right? However, things start to get weird when you look a little bit deeper. Maybe not Doki Doki level of weird, but it’s fairly close.
After buying your voting rights from the shop (yes, really) you will get access to elections. During these elections, you have several choices of decrees that will change the game for the next season/week. This time around, you can choose to increase betting payouts during the post-season, have player interviews, or have 5 players from the two-time reigning champions—The Philly Pies—moved to another team.
You can also vote on “blessings” to be bestowed on a randomly selected player. This is where you really start to see what sets Blaseball apart, and where all of the interest is. All blessings boost team or player stats in one way or another, but the names of these boosts are what’s interesting. Will you vote for “Bloodlust” that maxes the stats of a random player? How about “Performance Enhancing Demons” that give your team an 8% boost overall?
We are told in the heavily redacted book of Blaseball that once a team wins three championships, they—and Blaseball—will “ascend.” There is also mention of an immaterial plane, the length of solar eclipses, and that—if the unknown conditions are met—something will happen involving one million peanuts. Don’t worry if none of that makes sense to you - that’s part of the fun. Blaseball is not just about betting on simulated games, it’s a player-driven fiction that is continuously evolving and growing deeper as time goes on that invites you to join in on the creation of the lore.
In the end, Blaseball is all about letting the fans create the experience. It’s you who gets to choose the rules for next season. It’s you who gets to decide what weird, possibly demonic blessings you are going to bestow upon some random team that is forced to play day and night, rain or shine. The Commissioner and the Blaseball gods give us the raw materials with which to craft our experience. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in Blaseball, we only know two things: The Commissioner is doing a great job, and we are all love Blaseball (sic).
Source: US Gamer
