Short Circuits Developer Log #1

Hi Blaseball Fans,

Thanks for joining us for Short Circuits! This is our opportunity to try out significant changes to Blaseball’s structure and mechanics before our 1.0 release. While we like to keep much of Blaseball mysterious, given the nature of Short Circuits we want to be transparent with you about what’s changing and why.

In case you didn’t read our last post, Short Circuits isn’t a direct continuation of the Expansion Era. You’ll notice that all the rosters are brand new and the rules are different in places — that’s ok! The stories of that league will continue in the future.

Each Circuit will be two weeks long and will have a different focus. We’re trying out a lot of new things for this first one. Here’s a quick look at everything that’s new:

1. Revised Site Flow

We changed the navigation structure to better surface the core mechanics (not the team, sorry Mechs fans).

A screenshot of the top navigation bar of the website, featuring Home, Watch, Bet, Vote, and League across it.

• Watch, Bet, Vote is Blaseball’s loop. Each action now has its own page.
• Head to the League Page to dig into any deeper information about Blaseball, like the Standings page, Global Feed, and Library.
• The Home Page has been reorganized into modular widgets that we can change and swap out on the fly. Our goal is for this to become a curated view of everything relevant to you. Eventually, we want to surface updates from your Blaseball communities here too! Here’s a few of the widgets you’ll find on the new Home page:
• The Blaseball Beat widget catches you up on major events in the League.
• The Your Team’s Results widget shows your team’s recent wins, losses, and changes
• The Top Upshelled Highlights widget shows the community’s favorite highlights

A screenshot of the homepage of Blaseball, featuring widgets for things like how long it’s been since incineration, a countdown to the election, a sponsor widget, and a live team watch box. It looks so good and polished.

2. New Betting

• There’s a whole new economy in Blaseball. Coin has been melted, the Snack Shop is gone, and so is passive income. In its place is a brand new Betting system.
• You can place a single Bet for each Game Day of the Season. You can choose to pick a single Game Winner … or pick multiple Game Winners in a risky Combo.
• You can now Bet up to 9 Game Days in advance, so you can check Blaseball less often while still getting the full Betting experience.
• Don’t worry if you change your mind, Bets on a particular Day can be changed any time before play begins.
• You’ll earn your Votes directly from winning Bets. You’ll earn more Votes by taking on riskier Bets.
• We’ve got more types of Betting planned, too. One that’s right around the corner: betting on the Season Champion.

A new betting screen that features simplified blocks for each team matchup on each day. There are lots of numbers. Hopefully they go up.

3. Game View & Schedule View

• We’ve got two new long-awaited site features that let you get a deeper Blaseball experience: The Game View and the Schedule View.
• The Game View is a new way to watch teams play in Blaseball. React directly to the events unfolding in each game or scroll back to catch up on what happened earlier. We’ll be adding more game information to this page as we go along, too!

A new popout window for watching your team play live games along with a feed of the game itself.

• Use the new Schedule View on the Watch Tab to check who’s playing on every hour of the Season! Look back at previous games, or ahead at future games. At a glance, you can see who your Team is playing on any given Day.

A screenshot of the upcoming game schedule, organized by day.

4. Usernames

• Create a username for your account! This one is preparation for what’s to come. We have ideas to better personalize your Blaseball experience and for rewards that would persist between Seasons.

5. Where Cards Fall

• Our studio’s first game, Where Cards Fall, launches November 4th on PC and Nintendo Switch. You can buy a Steam key directly through the Blaseball site.

6. And Much More!

• In addition to these big changes, we’ve made a lot of small changes and improvements to the experience overall. Here’s a few:
• Fluting is free. You can change your favorite Team whenever you’d like.
• Upshelling Events on the Feed is now free, too.
• Party Time still exists, but without the Enhanced Party Time rule, Teams eliminated from the Postseason won’t receive stat boosts for losing. All the same, Party on.
• Many systems have been cut. Some of them will be back in a new form, and some are gone forever. RIV!

With Short Circuits, we’re inviting you into our process as we try to improve Blaseball for the long term. These changes are not permanent; they’re simply experiments. We want to hear your feedback every step of the way. Keep an eye out for a survey at the end of this and future Circuits!

Wake up play ball.

– The Game Band