Hello! All this week Eurogamer is celebrating Pride with a series of stories examining the confluence of LGBT+ communities and play in its many different forms, from video games and tabletop games through to live-action role-play. Kicking things off is Jay, who explores the joyously queer world of Blaseball and beyond.
Blaseball is pretty difficult to explain. On its surface it’s a browser-based fantasy sports simulator. Players with randomly generated names like Zephyr McCloud and Justice Spoon bat and pitch their way through 100 games per week for teams like the Ohio Worms and the Hellmouth Sunbeams. And also along the way people get incinerated, or do sick skateboard tricks, or have run-ins with gods.
Blaseball is also pretty commonly regarded as a queer game. That might seem odd, at first, because none of the characters exist beyond lines of text describing their hits, strikes, or untimely deaths. But fans have become a buzzing, communal lore factory, turning the game into something much richer.
