Board Game Review: Bottom of the 9th

Select your starting pitcher and stare down the competition because you're about to face the starting lineup filled with some serious slugging power. Bottom of the 9th truly captures the baseball feel as you step up to the plate and roll the dice for a chance to crush the competition.

Spider: I got a really good initial feeling when I opened it because of the components. The makers went above and beyond with the theme. The players were baseball cards, the meeples were little baseball players ready to steal bases. I enjoyed opening the box and going through the parts. It had such good vibes, the art made everything feel nostalgic.

I thought it was cool that all the players had different abilities. The gameplay was really quick and it really felt like baseball. The threat of hitting a homer was always there. The opportunity to guess the pitch to open up new abilities which could drastically affect the outcomes of the game, which made it feel more real. There were so many little parts to the game that fit the vibe of baseball perfectly.

For a 15 to 20 minutes game the designers nailed it. The luck aspects of rolling the dice was perfect because will this be the third out or will it be an RBI. It was a great, quick game packed in a small box, but full of theme.

Owl (age 8): The game reminded me of real of baseball. The cards looked like baseball cards. I liked how all the pitchers had their own super shot. There was one pitcher that I really liked, he chewed bubble gum, his name was Hurricane something. I liked how you could get a home run, but it was super difficult so it made it more exciting.

Cat: This game brought me back to childhood. I grew up near the Mets training facility as a kid and this totally matched the feelings I got going to their games. I could hear the announcer in my head as I tried to guess the pitcher's pitch in between rounds. I loved the hit mechanism when you made contact with a strike. The roll off was super fun and it captured the excitement of getting a base hit and having to run, but still there's the chance of getting called out! I also loved the first player marker is a stick of bubble gum. It was just such a cute game.