and now for the graphics

That's right Addictive 247's resident graphics artist is now getting down and dirty with the graphics for Addictive Football. The game is still no where near complete but it's time for Phil to step in and work his magic. The first designs he did for the player sprites were a bit too realistic so we're going for the classic big head cartoon look now.

Phil's worked on all the graphics for Addictive 247 since around 2003. If you want to see some examples of his work then head over to Addictive 247 Games. Some great examples are Coin World and Baby Boom II. As work on the graphics has started we should have some screenies to show off soon enough - hurray!

Away from the graphics side of things I'm currently coding one of the Knockout Cup menus. In the game the player will have the choice of playing either a Friendly or competing in one of the Knockout Cups. So far there are 3 Knockout Cups to play. Each one is slightly more difficult with tougher teams to beat along with more teams in each competition. I'm not sure at this stage if the player should be able to play in any Knockout Cup or if they should have to progress from the easier stages up to the tougher ones - some thought needed on that one me thinks.

Support Gibbage and make Dan Happy!

If you haven't done already get yourself over to Dan Marshall's Blog at http://www.gibbage.co.uk

It's an excellent blog which I've been reading for some time now. Dan has a great style of writing and is very passionate about his game Gibbage. In fact he's trying to raise enough money so he can enter the game into The Independent Games Festival 2007. Details on how you can help can be found in this entry - http://gibbage.blogspot.com/2006/07/gibbage-sold-out.html

Go on, help out an Indie Developer who actually has passion and creates exciting games - otherwise his next game might be a match 3-colour puzzle or Diner Dash Clone !!

In-Game Menus

I'm currently doing some work on the in-game menus for Addictive Football. Now one thing I hate is the amount of menu screens I have to go through in some games to get to the actual game. You have one screen for player 1 teams; then one for player 2 teams. Then you have to select your control method (screen 3); then it's onto other settings such as match length, pitch type, weather, crowd noise etc, etc

Imagine if you've just got back from a good night in the pub and you and your mates fancy a game of football on your PC or games console. By the time you've gone through all the different settings and menus one of your mates will have fallen asleep, the other will be throwing up behind the couch and your final friend will have been dragged off upstairs by the local barmaid who decided to tag along! Looks like your playing with yourself again!

The menu system in Addictive Football will be a lot simpler. I'm trying to get as much info on one screen as possible, without it looking cluttered. So if you're playing a Friendly game both players' will select their teams, control method and match duration on one screen. I may need another menu for pitch type unless I can squeeze it in but at the very least there will only be 2 simple menus before the game starts.

Red Card! Not a chance!

Even though Addictive Football will follow the five-a-side rules of football there will be no fouls in the game. What!! I hear you cry.

In the actual game of football I'm sick to death of players' diving, rolling on the floor and holding their heads as though they've been hit by a rather large hammer. They are killing the game and slowing it down. Whatever happened to football being a fast, skillful game.

So, to right all that's wrong in the modern game Addictive Football will probably be one of the fastest games you'll play. There are two keys you need apart from the direction keys (1) Z for passing to nearest player and (2) X to shoot. That's it! You can't go sliding into your opponents player and take his legs just as he's about to score, you'll basically have to play a skillful game of football for the length of the match. Also, as it's 5-a-side rules it's played in an enclosed pitch, no offside and no throw-ins.

I'm sure I'll get a lot of emails from players' saying that you should be able to slide tackle your opponent - tough! If you want to get the ball off an opposing player then you're going to have to work a lot harder than just pressing a key. Don't fancy it? then go off and play FIFA Street with all the other kiddies!

Sinclair C5 !!

In completely un-related news I've managed to get my hands on not one, but two Sinclair C5's! If you're a young lad or lass then you probably won't have even heard of them. They were released back in 1985 and loads of info about them can be found at http://www.sinclairc5.com/

I'm a massive fan of retro gaming and have a great collection of consoles and games so when my wife spotted these two beautys at a local auction I couldn't resist. So we bid like mad, got them at a pretty decent price and have just moved them back to our house so I can work on them. One of them is (apparently) in full working order whilst the other one needs a new motor.

I'm just like a kid on Christmas morning !

Problems Fixed

We've managed to fix the problems with half/full time now and all the players' are reset correctly on screen. The other bug to do with the players' running out of the play area has also been sorted out, although I'm yet to make the changes to the code to stop this happening. I'll get around to it sometime this week.

I've also been playing around with the different team attributes. So now you may play against a team who are faster than you, run with the ball more often and have a stronger kick when shooting at goal. Or they may be dead slow, pass around a lot and have an average kick power - a bit like England in the World Cup !!

It wouldn't be a game without . . .

Bugs! I've just noticed two bugs within the main core game engine. One is to do with the Half Time code. Basically depending on certain conditions the players' aren't getting reset on the pitch correctly or they lose all power of movement!

The other bug is a bit of a strange one to do with collision. The players can run out of the field area via the corners of the pitch but you have to almost force the player out! I've passed the details onto the two developers who worked on the original main engine so hopefully they'll have it sorted out soon.

I'm still adding bits to the engine and now have Half Time/Full Time boxes appear on screen displaying the current score along with some crappy text saying "GOAL!" when you score. Once the main engine is completely bug free I'll let our resident graphics artist loose on the game so he can work his magic on it.

Sensible Soccer 2006

Got this over the weekend for the PC and fired it up last night. As I'm not a big fan of 3D football games my wife thought it was strange for me to buy it. I call it research!

I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe an option to play the original version rather than me dragging out my Amiga or Mega Drive. But no, it was all in 3D (obviously!). I played a few games and it's ok but it just isn't Sensible Soccer. Maybe I need to devote a lot more time to playing it or maybe I should just leave my Mega Drive set up.

He Shoots He Scores!

The main core engine of Addictive Football is now written. At the start of the game you can select from 10 different teams, but this may increase to around 16 for the final game. The game is fun to play but at the moment all the teams are the same. So if you pick Team A and play against Team D it will be the same as playing against say Team G. So I'm currently working on giving each of the teams some different attributes.

I've started off simply and have already given some of the teams different running speeds when on the ball. Also all the computer controlled teams pass the ball in a random manner so I've changed it so some teams will pass more and others will try running with the ball. Just by making these small changes the game play has altered quite dramatically and is now a lot more fun. Still plenty more to do though

All Play.d Out!

I love games but I especially like retro games. I came across this e-magazine the other day called "Play.d" which had some great retro related content along with some other general gaming reviews and features.

Now I don't normally like e-magazines but this one has some great content and best of all it's free! Check it out at http://www.playd.co.uk

Lets start at the beginning . . .

If you've read the top of the side-bar you'll get the general idea of what this blog is about - It's about a Football game. Not a Soccer game, a Football game. A good old fashioned British football game based on the 5-a-side rules and featuring a number of made up pub teams.

Now this isn't some fancy 3D style affair with real players names, the ability to adjust the camera angle, controls as tough (and ugly!) as Wayne Rooney and so many front-end menus that you get pissed off and throw the game away before you even get to the kick-off!

Nope, Addictive Football is a simple game that everyone can play. With minimal controls and minimal menu screens. It's how the great football games of yesteryear were - Sensible Soccer (the original Amiga version!) and Kick Off are the inspiration.

I'll post more details and the all important screenshots as progress is made. The actual core football game engine is almost complete or will be in the next day or so. It's then time to tweak, tweak, tweak and tweak some more.