Fantasy Critic 2024

Mr Crispy

Welcome to Fantasy Critic, the fantasy sports game where instead of guessing how well overpaid prima donnas will do chasing a ball around a field, you try to predict how well upcoming video games will review (as determined by Open Critic)! Essentially, the higher one of your games reviews, the more points you get. I'll throw in a small prize for the overall winner at the end of the year, just to keep it spicy. So far, our league is made up of the following players, but hopefully more will join.

• Mr Crispy
• @Zero-Cool
• @DeSelby83
• @Penn
• @JimBurnley

You should all set up an account at Fantasy Critic. If anyone else wants to join in (and the more the merrier), just post in the thread!

The first order of business is to decide how we'd like to configure our league. For example, how many games we each pick in the draft, what type of games are eligible for the draft etc. Because it's our first time playing, it might be best to keep things relatively simple but I'm happy to go with what the majority wants. Be warned though, it can get quite convoluted for noobs. Take a look at the league creation page, just to get an idea of what settings we can change. You can even create test leagues if you want to see what settings do what. The site will make certain recommendations based on our choices, but we can tweak any of them I think. I'm gonna have a ponder on it overnight and then post what I think could be a good starting point. Having said that, this is our league, so we will all get a say in how it's set up.

When we've decided on the parameters, we then organise the draft itself which is run in a snake format. That is, if we have five players named A to E, the order in which we pick would go A B C D E E D C B A A B C D E E D C B A etc. There's no immediate rush in getting things going. I'd suggest maybe using February 1st as a start date, so as to give us time to pick settings, think about our own "wish lists", and then organise the draft.

The site has an official FAQ but I'm happy to try and answer any of your questions here if you want. In fact, the more discussion, the better!

PerrinV2

Sounds interesting.

DeSelby83

If we have 5/6 people how many games should we be aiming to pick each? Are we thinking 5 or 6 or more than that?

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121654723#Comment_121654723

For a league of 6 players, the site itself recommends 12 games in total for each player's roster. But that includes counter picks and pickup titles as well as the initial draft picks. So I was thinking something like 8 draft picks per player, 2 counter picks, and 2 pick-ups. Points aren't finalised by the site until the end of the year, so I think the pick-up games are there to keep players engaged for the year, as well as to allow newly announced games to be added to our rosters.

All of these numbers are alterable though, so we could do as many of each type as we like. For example, going with more draft games each means we'd have to take more punts on titles we're not familiar with, or unsure of. The site gives you the ability to trade titles as well, but I haven't looked into how that works yet. As we're mostly beginners (I think?), we could omit that element altogether.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121645947#Comment_121645947

The more the merrier! I should have said this in the OP - when you're creating your account, can you all choose a username that is the same or similar to your boards' username? You can change it in the user settings if you need to.

JimBurnley

I registered, same username as here. I think keep it fairly simple since we're newbies at this. Let's give it a bash and hopefully have a bit of craic

Zero-Cool

Just signed up, is a league created yet or waiting to figure out the settings first? Like Jim, go with recommendations, I'm sure we'll learn as we go. User zero-cool

DeSelby83

Sorry should have said username is same as here. DeSelby83

Penn

I tried my best to make my username as similar to my name here.

So my username is Penn.

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121657248#Comment_121657248

I was waiting until we agreed on settings before creating one. But if everyone is happy with the following, I'll get us started?

• Beginner mode with 8 games total per player - 5 chosen via the draft and 3 chosen at a later date as pick-ups. So no counter-picks.
• Bidding system for pick-ups - undecided. Can be set to public or secret bidding later.
• No trades.
• No dropping games.

Now we just need to decide what games can and can't be part of our league. We do this by either allowing or banning the below tags. For more info, see the FAQ on game eligibility.

After that, we just need to do the draft.

Zero-Cool

Class thanks man. Maybe get rid of free to play and early access. Other than that, have at it i think.

JimBurnley

All good with me. Thanks for setting up!

Kiith

Sounds like fun. Registered as well, same username as here 👍️

Mr Crispy

Okay, here are the league settings;

• League Name: The Deacon St. John Memorial Cup
• Total number of games per roster = 10
  • 6 drafted
  • 4 pick-ups via public bidding system, with $1 minimum bid
  • 0 counter-picks
• Drops allowed = 1 super drop only, no other drops
• No trades
• Tags;

If you're all happy with these, I'll start sending out the invites!

Zero-Cool

Goat league name 😂 LFG!!

Jordan 199

Seeing the league name makes me want to join.

JimBurnley

I was already in, but the league name seals the deal! Great work 👏

johnny_ultimate

Ah sure go on, add me as well. Same username as here.

Retr0gamer

Can you add me as well if it's not too later. Same username as me. Not gonna lie, you won me over with the league name.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121664044#Comment_121664044

Never would there ever be such an insult to the memory of who the cup is named after, than Retro winning the Deacon St.John Memorial Cup. It'd be like Bowser winning the award for "Most respectful of Princess Peach's autonomy".

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121664514#Comment_121664514

Don't put anymore pressure on me.

Mr Crispy

Sorry folks, the website needs some sort of number as well as your username for invites. So scrap that idea - I'll just send you all an invite link via boards PM.

Zero-Cool

I'm getting the same error as Jim when trying to join.

Penn

Same here

Penn

Working now. Fair play

Mr Crispy

Must have been an issue with the site. Hopefully working for everyone now?

If I missed anyone, just say here and I'll send you the working link!

For everyone who has managed to join, you just need to create a publisher name (it's basically your team name). Then we can sort out the draft details!

Mr Crispy

Are you interested @Jordan 199 ? @PerrinV2 ?

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121672723#Comment_121672723

Sorry, I'm not interested.

Dave_The_Sheep

This is a strange thread.

Mr Crispy

Right. Let's organise the draft. I'll set the order to random on the site, but how do you all want to do it? You could post your picks here in the thread and I can enter them on the site. Or we can enter all our picks on the site individually, although I can see that taking ages.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121674636#Comment_121674636

Yeah doing on the site individually would probably be a nightmare.

I think if we were to all submit a list of maybe 30 picks each in our own ordered preference, then your picks are chosen in the draft order. I think though it'd be best to submit our lists by PM rather than publicly (we could submit our lists publicly once the draft is completed). Otherwise people could try steal others picks, like bumping something higher up their own list if they see someone else has it high on theirs.

Retr0gamer

So we just pick 30 games coming out this year that we think will score big review scores? Send them by pm

I'm a newbie to this.