We’re coming back this Spring.

Note: this is a copy of the full text of an update from Blaseball.com. You can see the full history of updates in the Messages tab.

As part of the lead up to re-launch, we’re shifting how we do these updates to give you more substance.

In this update we’re including a breakdown of our current priorities for our return (some accomplished and some in-progress), and every 3 weeks we will be updating it with new focus, completed projects, and interesting tidbits. Patch notes will continue weekly on the site.

Much of this break has been fixes and updates based on Fan feedback, but we’ve also been dedicating time to updating our workflows and investing in a more nimble development style. Basically, we want to be in a place where this kind of break doesn’t need to happen again because we’ve spent the time building a more stable, easily updated game. We’ve also built in a ton of extra time to make sure everything is tested thoroughly before it hits your screens.

With that in mind, here’s what we’ve committed to for re-launch in Spring! This is not exhaustive, so if you don’t see something you’re looking forward to, don’t worry! It’s likely already on our list.

Quality of Life Fixes

These are small decisions that have a big impact for Fans but minimal impact on larger systems. This category is choices like improving font size and surfacing game days.

Readability

• Increased font size
• Weather icons
• Team color contrast updates
• Accessibility consulting for future site improvements
• Consolidated icon displays across different parts of the site

Info Surfacing

• Adding Game Days
• Pitcher displayed for future games
• Additional explanations and context around how to interact with Blaseball
• Social links in footer of site
• Weather Outcomes and post-game scores shown in Schedule after games complete

Heavier Lifts

These are systemic changes or larger visual improvements like making site navigation easier and schedule improvements.

Site Navigation

• Updated sidebar navigation to minimize clicks + surface pages like Election and Schedule better
• Team Page information updates (makes key info easier to find)
• Player Page information updates (makes key info easier to find)

Schedule

• Improved schedule display for understanding current events
• Users can click on days in Season header for a preview of what will happen on upcoming days (what’s going on Thursday?)

Community Interaction

• A new internal process for surfacing Fan feedback to the development team weekly
• Designing Watch Party Roulette for the official Discord

Getting Ahead on Story

• Building out & testing narrative, mechanics, Season features long before the Season goes live

Systems and Mechanics

This includes a ton of new systems, mechanics, and choices to make the Era as exciting as possible, including several new communal choices / elections for Fans to participate in.

• Idols Board
• [SPOILERS]- a new Idols Board mechanic
• [SPOILER]- a pivotal Season-end Election
• [SPOILER]- an Off-Season Team improvement Election
• A new schedule that makes Seasons more manageable for you and for us.
• A bunch of new systems that will let us run an entire Era of exciting Seasons, including some of the most commonly requested systems

Long Term Goals

Long-term goals include bigger projects like internal tools for a better Blaseball, story surfacing projects and internal tools. These are priorities for the future but may not be complete in time for our Spring return.

• Story surfacing from emergent narrative — how can we easily surface and celebrate the stories the sim influences
• Onboarding new users with official resources and easier to find information
• Improved internal systems and tools for building Blaseball

Want to know more? Submit a question for the team to answer in regular updates alongside our Patch Notes and future communication. How frequently we answer questions will depend on how many we get, so ask away!