2025 Year in Review

Here’s a list of what I played in 2025, my third year of cards-and-dice games:

369 games	APBA Baseball
90 games	Pocket Pennant Run
60 bouts	Wrestling Dice Game
29 games	Highlight Maker Hoops Prime Time
20 games	In the Trenches
7 tournaments (299 individual rounds)	History Maker Golf

Looking back, I’m surprised to see that only six games got on the table in 2025, after playing 10 in 2023 and nine in 2024. I’ve been playing bigger projects and just stuck with those games instead of mixing in other games with smaller projects. Somehow I didn’t play any soccer, which also surprises me.

This was my first full year of creating YouTube videos. I produced 171 videos in 2025. Sixty-eight of them were APBA games, and the rest were devoted to sports cards and unboxings.

As usual, baseball took up most of my time on the tabletop. I finished off Great Teams of the Past season 2 early in 2025, then played the entirety of season 3 and season 4. I took part in my first in-person event with the 2025 Vegas APBA Baseball Championship and that was a lot of fun.

I can’t imagine I won’t ever have an APBA project going for the next couple of years. GTOP season 5 will get underway at the start of 2026. After season 5 ends, I might take a break from GTOP to do another APBA project I’ve been thinking about.

Pocket Pennant Run also got a lot of time with the second season of my West Coast College MLB League. I’ve already started thinking about how I’m going to change things up for the third season. But that will probably happen in 2027 since I seem to be on an every-other-year schedule with that.

I only played seven tournaments with History Maker Golf, but that was a big time commitment as I played out six three-round events with 16 golfers, plus a seventh championship event to complete my Pepperdine Golf Tour. History Maker Golf is definitely one of my favorite games but I don’t have any more golf projects planned at the moment.

I put in a lot of time with In the Trenches, an NFL football game of my own design. I tweaked the game engine from the year before and built the 2024 team cards. After play-testing for a bit, I gave up on it. I just couldn’t figure out how to get it where it needs to be. That was the only football I played in 2025. Hopefully I’ll play some other football this year. I purchased a used copy of Second Season and I may do something with that in late 2026, or I may go back to Fast Drive Football.

Basketball got back on the table. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t played a basketball game in a year and a half. That changed with Highlight Maker Hoops Prime Time and the Kings Gauntlet, where I took the Sacramento all-time team and had them play games against each of the other 29 NBA all-time franchise teams. I really enjoyed that and it made me want to keep playing basketball. I’ve bought two more basketball games with Bank Shot Basketball and Hoops, and I’m going to do a 2022-23 Sacramento Kings replay alternating between the three games. It will probably take most of the year to get through that as I juggle 82 games with the other projects.

I designed a big wrestling tournament using 96 all-time greats and the Wrestling Dice Game. I didn’t get too far and that one kind of faded while I engaged with other games. I’d like to get that going again at some point, but I keep choosing baseball or basketball over wrestling.

I still can’t believe I didn’t play any soccer. That’ll change in 2026. Being a World Cup year, there will probably be an opportunity to do something with that. I’ve also got some season replays I’m thinking about.

I purchased Plaay at the Races during the Black Friday sale. I’m not really into horse racing, but I’d like to give that one a try at some point if I can come up with a way of doing a quick mini-project that makes sense.

Happy New Year!