As any baseball fan knows, collecting baseball cards is a time-honored tradition. Creating authentic-looking baseball cards can be time-consuming if done manually. Thankfully, Out of the Park Developments’ incredibly detailed baseball simulation game Out of the Park Baseball allows users to generate virtual baseball cards using the players, stats and images from their simulated baseball universes. Here is an in-depth look at how to enable and customize baseball card creation within OOTP.
Upon launching OOTP, users are first prompted to either start a new game or load a previous saved one. For baseball card purposes, it’s best to either start a new game and simulate several seasons to accrue player stats, or load a saved game far into the future with decades’ worth of historical stats. Once in a sufficiently simulated universe, click ‘File’ then ‘Game Options.’ Scroll down to the ‘Misc.’ section and check the box next to ‘Enable baseball card generator.’
Next, click the small wrench icon beside the option to open the baseball card customization menu. Here, users can tweak numerous visual and informational settings for their baseball cards. The front and back card templates can each be customized with backgrounds, fonts, colors and more to achieve the exact retro or modern style desired. Space and images for player photos, stats, names and other details can all be drug and dropped as preferred. Getting the card layout and design just right requires trial and error, but yields uniquely customized virtual collectibles.
Populating the cards with player stats and faces is perhaps the most exciting part. OOTP stores player photos, names, vital stats, career milestones and more within its unified game database. Simply click the small camera icon beside any enabled card section to auto-populate it with that player’s actual in-game portrait, ensuring maximum realism. Similarly, clicking the stats button fills in the section with the selected rate stats from that player’s career within the simulated universe. Minor manual adjustments may still be needed, but OOTP does most of the heavy lifting.
With customization complete, it’s time to start generating virtual Baseball card sets. Users can either create full binder pages with multiple cards at once, or single standalone cards. Simply right click a player on any roster or stats page and select ‘Create baseball card.’ For binders, set the number of cards per page and hit OK. Now the fun begins – start acquiring cards of franchise cornerstones, personal favorites, legends and more. Like physical cards, these can later be organized in binders, traded online with other OOTP GMs or collected indefinitely as prized digital memorabilia.
Finally, OOTP also enables sharing and exporting created baseball cards beyond just the in-game collection. Individual cards or full binder pages can be saved as high resolution image files, perfect for printing physical copies, sharing online or adding to personal webpages and blogs dedicated to virtual card collections. The full card generator settings and templates can be exported for easy sharing with other OOTP players seeking the same style of cards. Even cool extras like holographic card effects or team-colored parallels are possible with some graphical savvy.
In summary, Out of the Park Baseball’s deep stat tracking and customization options elevate virtual baseball card collecting and designing to a whole new experience. Users are empowered to authentically simulate the entire baseball card hobby within the game through decades of league history. While physical cards remain the most authentic sentimental collectibles for many fans, OOTP’s approach offers a fun new way to relive personal save games, stats and more through virtual cards that can even be printed. With so much flexibility and control over every aspect of the card creation, OOTP is simply the best medium available for designing and curating immaculately customized digital baseball card collections.
