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As you may know, replaycricket.com has announced it is publishing a new edition of the classic cricket game, Minden Playing Card Cricket. We are currently well under way with the redesign of the game and are due to go into beta testing “sometime in the next month”, real life work commitments allowing.

The launch date is still looking good for late November, 2010.

In the meantime, we thought those who have been commenting or writing us emails might be interested in seeing some images of a rough prototype of the game. Nice design work by dd, who is about to start work on the board and then the new design for the advanced player cards :-)

As you can see, we’re still designing and editing, but we’re getting there :-)

All comments appreciated.

Very exciting news just in is about a new cricket game called Wicked Wickets from a UK-based company called Boadicea’s Backyard.

“Boadiceas Backyard is a small independent company about to launch a completely new cricket board game that involves virtually all aspects of the game including selection, bowling, batting and fielding. Our pre-production prototype has been very well received by our test audiences and so production is now underway,” the publisher said in an email to replaycricket.com.

The game is due to be launched to the world at the famous Essen Spiel in October this year and will undergo extensive play testing in the UK from next month.

We wish the game well and will let you know what we think of it once we have been able to have a play :-)

To keep up with the latest news about Minden Playing Card Cricket 5th Edition, click here to subscribe to the replaycricket.com email newsletter.

July 20, 2010: Today replaycricket.com can announce that the new cricket game it’s publishing is a major update of the classic Minden Playing Card Cricket.

replaycricket.com has the exclusive license to publish a new edition of this all time classic from game creator, Gary Graber, of Minden Games. The new version of the game, the 5th edition, will be published in November, 2010 just in time for the Ashes.

The game will be compatible with previous versions of the popular statistical cricket simulation which has stood the test of time since it was first published in the late 1970s.

New features include:

- New pitch condition rules to recreate a wide variety of pitches which change realistically over the space of a five day game;
- New bowling stamina and time management rules;
- An overhauled weather system, with regional weather taken into account, as well as specific weather for real life Test Series so you can replay specific Matches with real world weather conditions;
- A massive number of free Basic Player Ratings (available online);
- And much, much more.

Best of all, new yearly updates of Basic Player Ratings and Advanced Player Card sets will accompany the core game, and a series of new Tour Packs will be available for purchase separately.

As always, the formulas for creating Basic Player Ratings will be included with the core game and we plan to launch an area of replaycricket.com where players can share their Basic Player Ratings with each other. We will also publish the hundreds of existing Basic Player Ratings from past Test Series and make them available for free to all players of the game.

From the introduction of the new, 5th Edition:

Since its first publication in 1979, Minden Playing Card Cricket (MPCC) has provided gamers with a carefully designed tabletop simulation that is both quick and entertaining to play and faithfully recreates the drama of Test cricket.

The game is based on real player performances which allow you to accurately replay Test matches and series from the past, or create your own classics between any of the Test playing nations.

MPCC is played using the supplied rules, tables and player ratings, along with a standard deck of playing cards, dice, a pencil and some paper. Each turn of the game represents one over of play, and each over may contain any possible cricketing outcome, from hat tricks to run outs, ducks to sixes.

MPCC comes in Basic and Advanced versions with optional rules that can be added to both versions to create a rich and satisfying simulation of Test cricket and all its nuances. How many and which rules you add is up to you. The flexible game system allows for fast and fun games that take an hour or so to play, or rich and deep simulations that recreate every aspect of Test cricket and can be played out over many gaming sessions.

Player ratings based on real statistics from the past year of play are provided for the Basic and Advanced versions of the game. You’ll also find guidelines on how to create your own Basic game player ratings, while a range of individual player cards of Series, Tours and full Careers are available on our web site replaycricket.com for use with the Advanced game.

Like the real game of cricket, MPCC works best if you stay true to how you might Captain your team in an actual match. Intelligent cricketing tactics are rewarded, while poor decision making and play is punished – just like the real thing!

Whichever version of the game you choose to play, we wish you fine weather, a good pitch, and many hours of fun.

Previous Editions of MPCC: While the 5^th Edition of the game has some great new additions to the existing rules – notably in the areas of weather, pitch realism, time keeping and bowling stamina – the core of the game that has stood the test of time for more than 30 years remains the same. This means that if you own a previous version of the game, or previous sets of Player Cards, they are fully compatible with the 5^th Edition. In addition new Player Cards may be used with 4^th Edition rule books.

Game components, release date and price:

From mid-November the full core game will be available from replaycricket.com. It will include Basic and Advanced Rules, a full season of Basic Player Ratings and an Advanced Player Card Set for all Test Playing Nations from the most recently completed year of play.

replaycricket.com will also launch the first in a series of Tour Packs which contain full Basic and Advanced player ratings and cards for complete Test Series from the past. The first pack will be an Ashes Super Special, containing all players from the 2005, 2006/07 and 2009 series, along with detailed series notes, weather conditions and more.

And, while we will be creating new Career and Season sets annually, we will also be busy during 2011 republishing the complete back catalogue of more than 450 already existing Advanced Player Cards.

Prices and final publishing date will be made available soon. You’ll also be able to reserve your own copy of the game to ensure you’re amongst the first to get it when it’s available in November.

For more information:

For more information contact Darren at replaycricket.com. Press and bloggers interested in review copies, which will be available in early November, should also contact us using the above form. The ability to reserve your copy will be available closer to the launch date.

Game Title: Pavilion Cricket

Publisher: Pavilion Games.

Year: 1990.

Mechanism: Dice rolling, tables and very, very detailed lists of players of all sorts from Test teams to county and state teams.

Description: One of my favourite cricket games from the past 20 years. Someone has obviously spent a huge amount of time on this, and the mechanism is really good. It falls short in terms of a logical approach to weather, pitch, extras and a few other areas, but with a few tweaks could be a top class game. It describes 4 different types of bowlers and about 15 or so batsmen. With a bit of work this could be a classic…

View photos at SmugMug

I have been busy adding lots of images to each of the board game pages. You can see them on the Stumpz, Balyna Discbat Cricket and He’s Out pages. I’m hoping to get the site more organised and will be adding sometime soon a complete list of all the cricket games I know of and which ones are featured on the site.

Game Title: Balyna Discbat Cricket

Publisher: Toogood & Jones Ltd.

Year: 1940s(?)

Mechanism: A variation of the classic cricket game. Small plastic fielders, a mechanism to allow batting, one to allow bowling, a ball and a field made up of different run areas. It doesn’t get much simpler.

Description: Sister product of Balyna Football, a competitor to Subbuteo, Balyna Discbat Cricket is highly collectible in my opinion because of the quality and completeness of the components. In many ways the game is quite surreal, with the bowler being represented by an aluminim funnel from which the fielding team bowls the ball. The batsman is a counter weight which is held by a piece of cotton by the player. When the ball is bowled, the batsman releases the counter weight and, depending on the angle can play a variety of shots. Certainly not the earliest version of this style of game, it’s nonetheless better than the dull, mass produced games of the 70s and 80s. Great scoreboard too, but completely unworkable as the scoreboard is metal and the score numbers cardboard. They fall apart quite quickly.

View photos at SmugMug

Game Title: He’s Out!

Publisher: Glevum Series

Year: 1928

Marketing Blurb: “With this game it is possible to follow exactly the normal course of a test match from the selection of the teams down to the final bowling analysis.”

Mechanism: Spinner mechanism overlays 3 generic batting cards, allowing the player to simulate different quality batsmen and bowlers.

Description: A simple cricket game from the 20s, and one with some potential to modify if you put the effort in to create unique player discs for each batsman. The mechanism is similar to the one used in the classic Cadaco’s All Star Baseball, which was released 13 years after He’s Out. Nicely put together and endorsed by then superstar player, Wally Hammond.

View photos at SmugMug

Having my usual trawl of eBay and discovered this Victorian era game that is currently for sale. The seller is being, imho, optimistic in what they are after, but you never know. I have only seen this once before and I’m sure it would make its new owner very happy.

The seller’s description is: “Not my usual area but trying to clear some room and I have this very scarce table top Cricket game (admittedly from a time when people probably had larger tables in grand houses!). Judging by the picture on the front of the box (Patent Applied For) it is from around 1920/30s vintage with a woman with flapper type hair style and the batsman in his tuxedo. Consists of approx. 2metre green baize/felt pitch with each end weighted by a metal rod, a lovely set of stumps, bails and a beautiful little bat. Rubber ball is not the same vintage! No rules but I guess you make your own regarding boundaries etc. Box has some damage and there is no maker I can see and have not been able to find any info. on line, which led me to believe it is very rare. Baize is showing its age but a very collectible item?”

eBay link is active.

The original publisher of Wicketz, a fine cricket game that unfortunately isn’t as widely available as it once was, has put a much sought after version of a super deluxe version of the game on eBay. The fab boxed version of the game contains lots of teams, the complete game, and of course the wooden case holding it all together. If you want a piece of cricket board game history, get over to eBay now and have a bid. Good luck.

Game Title: Stumpz

Publisher: Thos. de la Rue & Co. Ltd.

Year: circa. 1930

Marketing blurb: “The Indoor Game of Cricket Played by the Australian Test Team, English Teams and Keen Cricketers Everywhere.”

Description: Stumpz is one of the real classics amongst cricket board games. Created by an unknown designer working for the De La Rue Company, the game appears to have first been released in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

There are many different versions of the game that appeared over the years. I would be guessing the order they were published in, but the game came in at least two size formats – large, with a hard backed board, and small, with a soft cloth or material foldable boards.

The large version comes in what I have deemed the “deluxe” version and the normal version. The deluxe version contains a mounted board made of cardboard (the backing) and felt (the board itself). This deluxe version contains small lead figures for the players, and higher quality wicket indicators and components. The lesser version of the large board contains wooden pegs for players, and a paper front of the board.

The smaller version of the game is in itself, quite lovely even though it was pared back to a foldable cloth board, wooden pegs, and lower quality ball selector and other elements. Even this version is a classic.

The game Wicketz which was popular in the 80s and 90s is an updated version of Stumpz, with more cards, but little variation or improvement over the original.

View photos at SmugMug

I recently received an email from Rich about a discovery he made while cleaning out his loft.

“Hi, While clearing out my loft I have come across some table cricket figures. I have a batsman that is connected to a plastic arm, there’s is a length of string that attaches to a metal/lead bat. The batsman’s body is attached to the plastic arm but his head and shoulders rotate as you pull on the string. The bowler is also attached to a large plastic stand. in his right hand he is holding what looks like half a ball, his arms rotate. There is a length of plastic like a gutter that the bowler must push the ball down. The rest of the players I have are fielders all in different standing positions. The fielders stands are plastic and are a half moon shape. The fielders have red hats( the batsman is blue), the bowler has no hat. I have 4 figures that look like slips, 5 upright outfield players but no wicketkeeper. There is also some boundary pieces that would have held the card boundary line. There is Velcro on the base of the boundary plastic pieces.
I have looked for ages on the internet and not found any similar. There are no markings on the pieces. I hope you can help me with some information..”

After Rich sent some pics which looked like this …

… I did a short bit of detective work and identified them as figures from a 1960s version of Test Match (thanks Board Game Geek!).

2 pages of tightly typed codes have arrived in my snail mail. Magic. More soon.

Got an email from Andrew Hopcroft this week about a game he played as a child from an old Eagle Annual (no 5.) that he got from his Dad. The game feels like Book Cricket, an age old game played by school kids everywhere (a relative, I suspect, of Chapel Cricket, which a colleagues father played during church services with his friends!). Following are the scans of the relevant page and some background from Andrew :-)

“As a child I ‘inherited’ from my father his old train set, numerous dinky cars and a collection of Eagle Annuals. In ‘Eagle Annual Number 5′ (1956) amongst the adventures of Dan Dare, a cutaway drawing of a ‘Britannia’ Class 4-6-2 Locomotive and highlights in the life of Denis Compton was a small article entitled ‘Cricket By The Fireside’! Subtitled ‘a realistic way of playing imaginary matches indoors’ the article presented a set of rules to play a match of cricket with a pen, some paper and a book.

I played many enjoyable matches under these rules between teams of actors (John Wayne always played a leading role), family and friends, artists, writers and cricketers of the day, Botham, Gower, Viv Richards and Bob Willis amongst others – on occasion the likes of WG Grace and CB Fry would get a run out. These all tended to be one-off matches, teams were constructed for the match and disassembled afterwards with no records kept, leagues unformed and trophy’s un-won. Eventually my alphabet cricket gave way to rules involving dice where national leagues were formed, internationals played and statistics obsessively poured over! Regards – Andrew Hopcroft”

To view and image just click on it:

Another purchase from eBay. This time a really odd post from the 70s. Part of the “Action Transfer Poster” series. This one recreates eight of Dennis Lillee’s most dramatic moments. The post has lots of empty spaces and you are supposed to rub some letraset-like transfers on. Thankfully whoever bought this one kept the transfers intact and in reasonable condition.

The annual cricket game working bee is in full swing, but along the way I’ve had time to play around with some of the better cricket games in my collection. This end of year break has been punctuated with some Subbuteo with my pal PLG (ok, only half an hours play – it looks more beautiful than it plays!), Pavilion Cricket (some interesting ideas, esp. in the area of fielding), International Cricket (a bit of a dice roll fest, but always enjoyable) and my new favourite, Minden Playing Card Cricket.

Late last year I was lucky enough to get hold of the complete Minden game – Basic, Advanced, and a full set of Advanced Player Cards. The game plays out overs rather than individual balls but there is still some scope for hat-tricks, collapses, etc. This morning Jeff Thompson of the 1977 Aussies managed a hat trick against the Poms … he tore through their line up with only the late, great, Bob Woolmer showing any kind of resistance (with a tiny tail wag from Derek Underwood).

Once you get used to flipping cards with Minden rather than rolling dice, the game is  incredibly satisfying and as far as I can tell, accurate…and, dare I say it, it’s fun. I’ve enjoyed the sheer drama it can create, which is greater than any other game I’ve played.

And, you can burn through a full Test Match in just a few hours.

As always, I continue to find slow gaming – rolling dice, pushing pencil, adding stats – way more satisfying than booting up the computer and playing a computer game (although I must concede that Rockingham’s Cricket Coach is pretty good, as is Childish Thing’s International Cricket Captain).

Back to the deck.