Re: *** Call to Action: New Sensible Soccer Game ***

Please share them!

I just posted to tell steviebwoy78 that the swos (project) we have in mind might not be the one that Jon Hare wants, that s all.

Which is not quite correct. He was very eager to know everything about Zlatko s work.
Too bad you won t enrich this discussion with your thoughts.

I agree. It would be great to hear more about Zlatko s project too though - I don t know much about it, but I think it could have quite a big impact on us all by the sound of it.

@Retrieving|Searain - man, there s too many points you ve raised for me to handle each one individually - there s some great ideas, but I think it s perhaps a tad grandiose (certainly towards the end! ).

I think we need to abandon the thought of Sensi on mobile devices for a start; I had SWOS running on Android UAE4All with a controller and it was okay, but it still felt like a disconnect between my inputs and the output in the game. Whether this was due to frame rates or lag in the controller I don t know, but it just didn t feel right. It was better on PSP, but the emulator was pretty poor and the frame rates were shocking iirc (it was years ago I did it). Aside from that, the only other mobile option would be on-screen controls which we all know are terrible, especially for a tactile footie game like SWOS.

I think you re a little unfair regarding Kickstarter. Yes, there s definitely a lot of projects that have been delivered late, but every project I ve backed so far (probably around 10 or so over a few years) has delivered the promises and stretch goals that were expected. The latest project I ve backed is Yuka Laylee, which is an old school platform game developed by former developers at Rare Free Radical. I don t know why this isn t an option for Jon - to get the old Sensible Software band back together.

Apart from that, I don t know man, I don t like the idea of big heads and digitised faces a la NBA Jam, I just think they need to upgrade the visuals to a SS06 style. In fact, I think SS06 with OG Sensible Soccer gameplay physics is all you really need. As you say, the community edits would get around the licensing issue completely, so this is negated. I think a central repository of teams with the ability to upload and download freely (including competitions like FIFA used to have) would be fantastic.

You re right about Jon Hare s name perhaps having limited weight outside of the gaming industry. That said, once the word gets out that Jon Hare is involved in a new football game, and that means a new Sensible Soccer-esque game, people s interest will spike. The name Sensible Soccer is a massive part of British culture even today. I quite often bring it up in conversation just to see folk s reaction. Among the 25+ audience, the name often provokes beaming smiles and ooh s and ahh s of nostalgic appreciation.

Wow very happy to see this!

But 300k? Yeah... I d love to be proven wrong but I feel he s completely overestimated his fanbase.

The creator of Monkey Island managed 400k but I d say that game (and ron gilbert himself) is in a completely different league - not restricted to Europe for a start. Sensible Soccer is virtually unknown in the US - a MAJOR market for kickstarter funding.

I think this campaign will be lucky to raise 50k. Hope I m wrong!

Reviving this thread as I am currently playing Sociable Soccer and Super Arcade Soccer and the more I am playing those games the more i am realising that I just want swos to get revived all the rest is just not good enough as swos have some magic into it ..
I am not sure we will get sequel/port from Codemasters ever , as they tried twice and they failed miserably so i am not sure they want to go again that route , maybe if someone change from executives , if will come some retro passionate guy there , I mean they have one of the 10 most influential games in their hands and they dont do absolutely anything with it but lets scratch that for now. I dont understand them they should at least make it open source if they dont to do anything with it.

I know some guys that are in game development in Serbia, so in conversation with them we came to the topic of what kind of money indie devs team would need to collect to create initally just simple port of swos for pc on steam with network play working properly.
As it is ,It is clear that you would need to give 30k to codemasters (because is very hard to clone swos gameplay ).
What i dont understand how much you would need to invest in dev time just to port it to pc/steam with network play working properly ? would you use amiga version (i dont know in what is this written) and try to port directly or use xbox 360 version which is already ported amiga version ? what kind of skills you would need as currently these guys are experienced with just unity engine stuff , would you need some specific porting skills ?
anyone with better insights ?

I am exercising idea of iterative approach where you invest 30k into licence , and small bit into porting with network online play working properly and then if there is any interest you go further. Question will be if you would get enough sale on this because you would technically get what we have now just on newer hardware.. Hard core fans are playing it already online here with kaillera , so I dont know if would be enough people there to make the bussiness model going.

Millenials just dont find the game attractive enough , you can see some of the reviews on the youtube about worst game ever etc.
how you make this financially feasible so you can get next iteration of the game where you add more things like variable structure of the leagues , more then 16 players per team etc?

sorry for digging old thread

If I had the money I would pay for the licence and just add the occasional little twist each year - like overhead kicks from Kick Off 2, and keep the leagues up to date. To change it to a game that millennials would play would be to alter the game to something hideous......it is what it is and converting is difficult. Maybe the current players had such fun playing actual football, and the having a game of Sensi so we have no need for amazing graphics. I always feel very lucky to have grown up in the 90s....