NHL Squares

Overview

The excitement of fantasy hockey. A chance to follow your favorite team even more closely. The tactical strategy of ... tic-tac-toe??? Yeah, that's right. Select your team and be pitted against others in your fanbase where you will arrange players from your team in a 3x3 grid. If the player you pick scores more fantasy points than the one your opponent does you win the square. Do that in 3 boxes in a row for the win.

How It Works

This game is in testing. Right now I'm trying to see if this game will work as an enjoyable game and see how much strategy is actually involved. If you're here I've set up test games for you. There are two pages to use:

1) The Grid Setup page:

Place the team goalie and 8 skaters and place them on a tic-tac-toe grid.

Since it is not possible to know which goalie will be playingthe goalie option is a team option. For this testing session, you need to place the goalie in your grid. After you place the goalie you will then be able to place your skaters.

The grid will automatically save when it is filled or a change is made (message on page). You can either replace someone from the available players list or swap their position in the grid. The player you select will appear at the top of the page before you move them. Clicking on them again will unselect them if you do not want to place/move them.

At the start time of the game listed on the top of the page whatever you have in your grid will be your lineup for that game. Any changes you make after the deadline will be reflected in the next game.

2) Box Score page. This page shows your matchup with your opponent. First you will see who is assigned to X and who is assigned to O. Under that is the tic-tac-toe grid. This will show who controls each square or is blank if no-one does. The skaters get points each game for the square they are assigned. The current totals for X and O are under the symbol. Clicking on the square will give a summary of who was in that spot for each game and the points they got. Next is the box score. T3 stands for tic-tac-toe. This is how many 3 in a row each player has and is what will win you the game. Whoever has the most tic-tac-toes at the end of the game wins. Next is the number of squares each player controls. Third is the largest point total along a tic-tac-toe line and which line. If a different number is in parenthesis than 1 it means there was a tie with the top line and the system finds the top non-tied total and displays it. These are the tie-breakers in order. A gold box will highlight who is currently winning and what stat is winning it for them. A green box means the game is over and shows who won. Under that is the summary for each game showing all players that played each game, their stat line, total points and which square they were assigned to if any for each X and O. You can click left or right to see each team game for your matchup. Stats are updated during each game, but I haven't set up automatic refreshing so you'll have to refresh to see the updated score totals for now.

I have set up matches based on which team I would assume everyone would be following so you can look at these pages. If you want to play that team simply set your grid. If you want to play a different team, let me know. You can also play multiple teams at once if you want. If you don't want to play let me know so I can realign matchups. I'm setting the matchups to last 10 games for this test to see how long it takes for the strategy to play out. I'm guessing that 5 games will be enough but want to see how it plays out over a longer stretch. Towards the end of the ten if the matchup doesn't feel overlong I may extend it, but shorter games means you can play more in a season so I'm trying to keep it shorter.

I will be looking for any feedback you have. Here are a couple of questions I have going in:

- What is the desirable length of matches (namely how many NHL games to one match does it feel like is the right amount to allow people to use strategy instead of just luck but not so long that someone can run away with it and it becomes static?

- Do any scoring adjustments or adjustments to the goalie requirement need to be made? For instance is a particular stat over or undervalued? Does requiring the goalie option, or even allowing it increase/decrease the strategy/enjoyment of the game?

- Mostly, I just want to make sure this game is playable in concept. This is the first time trying this weird idea I came up with during an insomniatic night so if you feel like it's not a realistic format or if you think any adjustments need to be made please let me know.

Scoring

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(feature not yet available but here for color test)