This week saw an explosion in web browser-based games. Following in the footsteps of “Wordle,” “Cinematrix,” and “Cine2Nerdle” comes another social puzzle game that flexes your knowledge (and luck) skills.
Meet “82-0,” “20-0“, and “Chasin’ 117.” These are all brand new games that popped up seemingly all at once that hit social media like a viral pandemic infection (too soon for that joke?). The goal is to select players and build a team that would statistically go perfect in the regular season for basketball and football, or in baseball’s case break the record of 117 regular season wins. And it’s addicting as hell!
That’s right, dear reader, you’re seeing 1:45am in that top left hand corner of my iPad. Couldn’t sleep until I got a perfect team, which I would argue is total BS because in no world is Gilbert Arenas on a team that doesn’t lose a game. Who makes the rules here? How does it determine things like injuries, coaching, strength of schedule, fatigue, travel, defense, effort, or luck? It’s just pure statistical aggregation and interpretation, which leads to some friction when playing (in a good, sports talk argument way you’d have with friends).
All world NBA player for the hated Indiana Pacers Tyrese Haliburton agrees with me!
The rules are all the same for these three: You spin the wheel and randomly get selected a team and decade, pick a position, and go until you have a full roster. You get one re-roll for team and era, and it’s very fun to relive history through the players’ stats and build a fantasy team.
The hardest so far has been the MLB one, because I can pick all the Hall of Famers I want, have the highest batting averages and lowest ERAs, but still get dinged for speed and lead off hitting, and not crack 100 wins. Totally insane, but an addicting dragon to chase nonetheless.
Every time I go to one of my timelines there is another person posting their results, making jokes or references to it, and generally talking about these. Obviously this is a sports fanatic’s dream, akin to Scrabble champions discovering all of the “Wordle” clones people make. I haven’t seen this kind of fervor for a game since “Blaseball.”
Will this fad end in a week? Most likely, when people figure out how to game the system. It’s easy to just refresh the first pull until you get a god-tier player to start your run, but not since the immaculate grids or Sporcle quizzes have I seen stats nerds glob onto a game so fiercely. It’s very fun to be at the forefront of a viral sensation online and be swept up in the madness where nobody has figured it out yet and you’re discovering the magic together with strangers, speaking a new language.
It’s like the first few days of “Elden Ring” where nobody knew where to go, or what to do, and the Souls community got to discover every secret at the same time. Except I don’t rage quit when getting a perfect baseball team and not cracking 100 wins. Fucking horseshit.
And don’t get me started on the fantasy football one, because now I won’t be able to sleep at all going forward! I’m only one win away!!!!!!!!!!
Image Credit: Mathew Benoit
Video Game Town 
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