Basketboss review— Cardboard manager

My family’s from Kentucky, so I was fated to at least tangentially care about basketball. When I saw Basketboss on our review board, I was intrigued; the fast pace of the game doesn’t really lend itself to a tabletop adaptation, but then I saw that it was an auction game and it clicked that it is more of a GM-level approximation. I have played both Blood Bowl Team Manager and Baseball Highlights before and, though I thoroughly enjoyed both, didn’t walk away feeling the need to pick up either. Does the change of scenery or move to a mechanic I enjoy more make a birds eye view sport game more compelling? Well, yes and no.

There’s a lot of yes, I really like what’s under the hood here. I love the polygonal art, which brings me back to playing sports video games on early consoles. Basketboss’ big showy draw is its ageing mechanic/gimmick,which has players pushing player cards a step into a slot in their boards during each ageing step, adjusting their star rating. But that’s not the only mechanic players have to wrangle with; income is tied to player and role cards, so while you’re managing the team on the surface you’re also managing your money flow as well. Then there’s the positions, which give you a boost if you diversify. You’ve also got the season cards, which mildly tweak the rules of the game from round to round. Finally, there’s the role cards that players draft each round, which do anything from simultaneously manipulating ageing and letting players out of injury auctions to bestowing a single victory point. All this is light enough that sure, there’s a lot, but it’s also thoroughly grokkable.

 

And that brings us to the no, which is mostly that keeping all those disparate mechanics light enough to be palatable in a game of Basketboss’ weight class also keeps any one from shining or being deep enough to sink your teeth into. Instead, they all feel like butter scraped over too much bread. Player attributes are stripped down to just stars; there’s no pursuit of team synergy. Since the order of role drafting is determined by team strength, there’s no way to shape your strategy to use any specific one at any specific time, you just sorta roll with it. Season cards are hit or miss, the Olympics card that limits teams to three players is just a wet blanket, but the ones that double certain positions’ values are game changers. There’s other nitpicks I could point out like the thin shape of the player cards making it a nightmare to shuffle or losing an injury auction and losing your best player for a round being a horrible experience that simultaneously has miniscule gameplay benefit, but I’m rambling.

Honestly, all that wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t land Basketboss in a no man’s land, where attempting to navigate this many interlocking pieces frustrates my family, but there isn’t enough depth of strategy to satisfy committed hobbyists. Which leaves me asking who this game is for, really?

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