External Links

Steam
for Windows, Mac, and Linux
App Store
for iPhone, iPad, and iPod
Google Play Store
for Android

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

The Fielder’s Choice

by Nathaniel Edwards profile

Sports
2018

Web Site

(based on 1 rating)
1 review

About the Story

Grab a glove and pitch your way to the top of the major leagues! Baseball season is back and you’re on the mound. Starting your career as a rookie pitcher, you'll develop your repertoire and navigate clubhouse politics in the big leagues. Over eight seasons, you’ll use your talent and charisma to win on—and off—the field.

"The Fielder’s Choice" is a 115,000-word interactive baseball novel by Nathaniel Edwards. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Your talented arm will take you places you’ve never seen, and introduce you to some of the most driven athletes on the planet. Do you have the massive dedication to succeed in the big leagues, or will you resort to a little bit of cheating? Will you be baseball’s biggest stat geek or the master of hustle and grit? Will you develop an on-field persona that terrifies hitters or a cuddly exterior that lulls them to sleep? Will you go down in history as a Hall of Fame ace or a live arm that fizzled on the big stage? When your lifelong baseball dreams come true, someone else may have to lose everything they’ve ever worked toward.

• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay or straight
• Play as left- or right-handed
• Choose your pitching style and develop the perfect repertoire to rack up strikeouts
• Perfect a fastball, slider, or curveball
• Find friends, foes, or potential lifelong partners among your teammates
• Pitch in the United States, Japan, or unlock the opportunity to explore a new frontier for baseball
• Use statistical analysis to perfect your game, or #RiseAndGrind to out-hustle your opponents
• Discover the quirky secret behind baseball’s most successful agent

What pitch will you throw when the game is on the line? In that moment, it's the Fielder's Choice.


Game Details

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 1
Write a review


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A career-spanning major league baseball game with randomization, March 16, 2021
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

One nice thing I've noticed through playing Choice of Games entries is that they're willing to take chances with games, leading to some nice results like Nebula-nominated games or niche works that appeal very strongly to specific people (like Cannonfire Concerto, for me).

This game, I think, is an example of an experiment that didn't work out too well. Specifically, it relies heavily on randomization. You can train in 5-6 different kinds of pitches like curveballs and fastballs, and then a big chunk of the game is you facing different hitters with you pitches. It lists the chance for each pitch of getting a strike, a 'ball', or them hitting it, and using the same pitch several times in a row makes the batter more likely to hit it.

I appreciate the idea but both gameplay and roleplay-wise I wasn't really feeling it. In general, I just chose the best strike option, although I realized near the end that choose the lowest 'in-play' option was a different strategy. But then much of the story ended up as a result of these randomized choices.

I don't think randomization is horrible, but most games that use randomization well are games that have frequent save points and involve repeating the same tasks over and over (like gambling mini-games, RPG combat grinding, etc.). In this game, with no save points and no second chances, it's rough, and that's playing as a 'power player' (the game's easy mode).

Outside of that, the game has a lot of threads towards interesting ideas but doesn't really pursue them in depth. I did enjoy the freedom to go to a completely different country for a chapter and playing on the moon was cool. The last few chapters have a focus on preparing for your life after baseball and that was by far my favorite part, as you strategize things that might hurt you in one area (like your friendships or future income) but help you in another. Very cool part.

I can't help but compare it to Slammed!, which for me did a better job with making a story about humans. Ironically, my character in Fielder's Choice was very analytical, and when I first tried out sports broadcasting I was told to back away from the stats and focus more on the human element, and I think that this game itself could probably benefit from that advice.

I received a review copy of this game.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 




This is version 2 of this page, edited by Nate Edwards on 29 July 2018 at 12:20am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page