Re: Senseless Soccer

Hey thanks for your comments.

It s Windows/Linux/Mac for now, but I ll definitely look into other platforms. I m not sure yet, but I m assuming that if it works on Windows 10 then it should be no problem for xbox.

The AI is turned off at the moment, to allow me to test in peace without them stealing the ball All they do is move into covering positions.

Yeap, the goalkeeper kick is just for testing. Just wanted to get a better look at the ball physics for high bounces

The multi-player is something I m definitely interested in. Offline, it wont be that big of a deal to have as many human players as you have controllers... on-line play is going to be a big job - but I m up for the challenge!

Oh and yes, the ball control is hard coded to be very sticky, again for testing. Eventually, this will depend on the player s skill ratings. Both for how far he knocks it forward, and his ability to keep it when changing direction.

Awesome! You ve answered all of my questions there!

I guess the only other questions are relating to behind the scenes - what are you going to do about licensing the teams, and will it have the depth of SWOS s database do you think? Are you aiming to emulate the depth of the SWOS career mode too? I saw a few mentions that suggested that was your plan so this sounds really promising.

One thing - if you do go down this route, it would be great if you could allow more than one player to play the matches in career mode. I ve never been a fan of the Be A Pro mode in football games, just being able to play on the same team in career mode would be fantastic.

Edit: Do you need any help with beta testing this one? Is the download on your website the most up to date version?

Of course there will be no licensing of teams, so the game would have to be distributed with a modified database.... but it s not going to be a big deal to mod it back to real names

The comprehensive career mode is definitely something I m interested in programming... but focusing on the gameplay for now

I guess my vision would be to make the manager aspect something similar to Championship Manager 93, with sensi as the match engine.

Though that s all quite some time in the future I m just about to start with the AI to bring it to the state where you can play a full game. There are also a couple of gameplay ideas I d like to play around with - I love the idea of a double tap on the fire button to execute a special, context sensitive skill. For example creative midfielders will play a through ball, wingers will cross without having to change direction and strikers will have a precise shot.

It may be overkill and spoil the simplicity of the gameplay, but would like to give it a try anyway

Yeah, that s some great ideas surrounding context-sensitive control - I guess you d have to divide the pitch into different areas that contextually selects the special move in that area? That way you wouldn t have a winger accidentally crossing instead of shooting in the box!

It might be worth having a quick look at the way Sensi 2006 controls worked too. I loved the way that game played, even though it was a buggy, unfinished mess. When you were running along you had a sprint button on the trigger which, used at the right time, was really powerful to get away from defenders. Passing was on the A button, iirc and pressing the shoot button resulted in a big arrow emerging from your feet. A bit like Worms really, the longer it got the more powerful the shot would be - but obviously, the longer you left it, the more likely you were to be tackled. It worked really well, definitely worth a cheeky download from Steam if you ve not tried it already. The way the game controls is massively important, so you ll have to give some thought to how many buttons you re going to use. Personally, I d say two plus a trigger for sprint is a great place to start.

Active Soccer 2 used quite a cunning way to get away with licensing. When you first start the game, all of the players are misspelt. The vowels are swapped around, so you have players like Wuyna Riinay are the rest of it. However, on the main menu it gives you an option to swap the player database vowels around - thus, you can swap U with A , A with E , I with OO etc. This then corrects the player database. The devs have then put in a clever disclosure to say that they re not responsible for misuse of the player editor. This seems to be a perfectly valid way around the issue of licensing - well, Gianluca hasn t been locked up yet at least!

I saw another good way of getting round this in Don Bradman s Cricket game - they had a borked database as well, but when you loaded the game you were promoted to download community updates . Of course, when you downloaded these, it corrected all of the players and teams in the game to the real world players. I guess saying it s a community database and freely downloadable also works. Within the game it included an editor, so I guess it s feasible that these teams were created by the community, but I have a suspicion that it was the developer who published them.

In short, there s plenty of ways around the licensing issue by the looks of it. I don t why Konami are having so many troubles!

Here s the first kind of save (a parry) if anyone s interested

digital-minds-blog.blogspot.com/2015/10/save-parry.html

Awesome, this is looking really good man. When do you think you might have something playable uploaded?

Realistically, a couple of weeks for the most basic of playable matches, depending on how much time I get. Pretty busy in work so it s mostly a weekend project these days!

I gotta do the basic AI/tactics for players and the match state control (throw ins, corners, etc). Although I may just put an invisible wall round the pitch for now.

P.S. I m on the lookout for a talented artist with an idea on how to get the nets to animate

P.P.S. come to think of it, I m on the lookout for a pixel artist to remake all of the graphics

I d love to play this one to be honest, it looks great fun and I think you re capturing the Sensi spirit really well. A wall around the pitch would be a great work around in the meantime
I ve done a bit of pixel work back in the day, but I d not be able to produce anything much better than what you ve already done. Have you tried contacting the guys who did Tiki Taka Soccer? Their graphical style is pretty in-keeping with Sensi too Panic Barn, I think they re called.

The player sprites are borrowed from the Yoda soccer project. Eventually I d like to change them - something instantly recognisable as sensi style but with it s own identity and character.

That Tiki Taka game looks cool - I d already thought about doing a similar control system for mobile (pretty obvious I suppose) but I d definitely keep the up/down view.

I hate mobile games that just use an overlay graphic of a joystick and buttons - so I like the idea of the AI playing itself with the player interacting via gestures to trigger shots/passes/sprints/tackles etc. Maybe even tilting the device to influence running direction.