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New year, new game

With the two-year anniversary of the website coming up, I’ve made a couple decisions:

  1. I need to spruce things up around here. Be on the lookout for new designs, layouts, and maybe a logo or two.
  2. Some games and seasons may be taken down so I can standardize some terminology (is the top of a soccer pyramid “level one” or “tier one”? seems to depend on which game I’m making). I’ll also be fixing some small issues with Simple Seasons Basketball, which should result in more accurate results.

I’m also excited to announce that a brand new game is about to make its debut! One-Pager Pro Soccer is a simple shot-by-shot soccer game that fits on a single sheet of paper and has ratings for an entire season of a given league. In honor of the MLS Cup this weekend, I’m posting three seasons of MLS (2021, 2022, 2023) and one season of La Liga (2023-24) for your playing pleasure, with the current MLS season to be posted once the final is played.

I’ve been having a lot of fun playing and creating One-Pager Pro Soccer (which I hope is the precursor to a whole line of One-Pager Pro Sports games), and I hope you enjoy it as well! To celebrate, I’m going to offer these first four seasons for free until the end of the year!

Happy early new year! And play on!

Update 12/7: the 2024 MLS season is now uploaded, and it’s also free!

Update 12/9: the 2020 MLS and 2023-2024 Bundesliga seasons have now been added, also free through December.

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So what’s a “rival” league?

You may have noticed in a previous post, I talk about “rival” leagues. This is how I’ll be referring to leagues that emerged with the intention of equaling the status or reputation of the established major leagues. Specifically, I consider the following to be rival leagues:

  • Federal League (baseball, 1914-1915)
  • American Football League (1960-1969)
  • American Basketball Association (1967-1976)
  • World Hockey Association (1972-1979)

Each one of those from their founding was set up to either compete with or eventually merge with the established major sports league. And it’s so interesting how three of the four came around in the 60s and 70s (not to mention the threat of the Continental League in 1961 that spurred the AL and NL to expansion).

You might be wondering about the seemingly endless alternative (American) football leagues that have come up in the last 40 years: the USFL, the WLAF, the XFL, the AAF, the XFL version 2, the UFL, the USFL version 2, the XFL version 3, etc. I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe any of these leagues truly thought they could compete with the NFL (except for the USFL in 1986, but it folded before they could move from a spring schedule to a fall schedule). So I don’t count them as “rivals;” while I haven’t decided for sure yet, I may consider them “level 2” leagues, on par with AAA baseball, the American Hockey League, or USL Championship.

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What to expect from this blog

So what can you expect in this space? A whole lot of things.

  • New release announcements
  • Sale announcements
  • Coupon codes
  • Game previews
  • News about what’s in the works
  • Reviews (of non-Short Season games)
  • Playoff pre-plays
  • And plenty more!

I’m hoping this blog won’t only be a place to say “look out for [game xyz] coming next month,” but a place to share thoughts about games/sports/sports games of all kinds. It all starts February 1!

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What is Short Season Games?

Welcome to Short Season Games!

I’m very proud and excited to start this site, as it’s the next step in 3+ years of work and 25+ years of interest in sports sims and games.

So what will this be?

Primarily, I want this to be a place to showcase the work I’ve done and to share the games I’ve created. Especially since the start of the pandemic, I’ve loved discovering, learning about, and playing all sorts of sports sims. Naturally, as I played these games, I noticed the elements I would change, add, or remove. And so, I started making my own–not because those games were subpar or lacking in fun, but because I thought my own spin on a sport would be entertaining and interesting.

Then what won’t this be?

This certainly won’t be a venture with the aim of replacing those other games. In fact, I’ll probably end up promoting or reviewing some of them in this very blog. There are some truly great games out there, and you should check them out!

It also goes without saying, I’m certainly not starting this site with the aim of making tons of cash and quitting my day job (although that would be nice). Obviously, the print-and-play sports simulation game market does not, from what I’ve seen, appear to be a gold mine. Maybe if this were March 2020, but let’s hope we never see days like those again.

Ultimately, here’s what I want this site to be: a place to where I can present my work and add my games to the pantheon of sports sims.

After all, I’m just like you! I love practicing our brand of alternate history, where the excitement doesn’t always lay in the plays on the imaginary field but in the collection of stats, the pennant race, and the season as a whole. So I’m going to offer everything at as low a price as I think is fair, and there will be plenty of sales (I love sales). Honestly, the only things keeping me from setting the shop prices closer to zero are the hosting fees and my demand to have a nice-looking and easily-navigable website. But alas, internet storage is what it is.

So thanks for checking out Short Season Games! Please check out the shop, drop me a line if you want, and I hope you stick with me!