Players are in!

All the team players for Addictive Football have been created and added to the game. It's really shaping up now and starting to look more like a football game.

Next thing on the list is to add the different pitch types. There will be four in total - Grass (outdoor), Astro Turf, Concrete and Sports Hall (indoor). The player will be able to select which pitch they want to play on for the Friendly Match but for the cup games the computer will randomly select one.

The areas around the pitch also need to be designed. They will mostly be advertising boards and small crowds of spectators. I loved how in Sensible Soccer there were little men with cameras at the edge of the pitch. Think I might add something like that. One idea I'd also love to add is streakers! I don't think I've seen a football game with them included? They could run on the pitch at random intervals with policeman chasing them. Maybe the game would stop when this happens or it could be more fun if you could take a well aimed shot at them and knock them over!?!

Balls and things!

I was hoping to be able to post some more screenies of Addictive Football today but work on the graphics is progressing very slowly. We've got a new ball graphic in the game now - hurray! It actually moves and rotates when you kick it. It's amazing how the small things like an animated ball can really make the game look different.

There's still some small bugs in the game which I'm working on and I've added a couple of sounds like crowd noise and a kicking ball sample. These are all just temporary for now as proper samples will be put in nearer the end of development. I've also just put in some code so the crowd go "ooooooh" or "aaahhhh" if you hit the post or just miss.

Originally I wanted the game to be released just before the season started but obviously we've missed that deadline. I'm now hoping that the game can be released at some point in September. Keep your fingers crossed!

1st ever Screenshot!

Ok, so people keep asking for screenshots of the game so just to make those people happy, there you go.

NOTE: The screenshot has been reduced so this is not the actual size when playing!

So far the players' in red are the only new graphics. The blue team, ball, line markings, grass and anything else will all be changed within the next week.

When the graphic changes have been made I'll feel happier posting a more detailed and real size screenshot. Until then, that will have to do you!

Shooting Ability

I've currently been working on the players shooting ability at goal for the computer opponents. When testing the game it's all too easy to beat the computer by a large goal difference as their shooting ability isn't up to scratch.

By messing around with some variables I've given each team different shooting abilities. Some will still be crap at it but others will shoot at much tighter angles and away from the goalie. This has worked well and when playing I've actually lost a few games to the computer.

So I've now got some really tough teams to beat who are fast at running with the ball, have great shooting ability and are good at passing. I was toying with the idea of displaying each teams stats on screen so you could work out who was the better teams, but I think the fun of a football game is working out which teams are good and which ones can easily be beat.

A day at the races!

Yesterday I did absolutely nothing and decided to treat myself, my wife and our little girl to a day at the races. It's been a long time since I had a proper day off from coding and it was much needed. We visited Haydock racecourse which is pretty local to us and met up with some friends.

A few beers, sandwiches and bets later we were already down on our money with only one win on the first race! Things improved over the day but we still only ended up with 3 winners out of 7 races, so by the end we'd spent more than we'd laid out for bets. Oh well, that's the races for you. We still had an excellent day although the weather turned pretty shit in the end.


So, it's back to coding today. I've already done some tidying up of the main menu stuff although it's still using my programmer art for the menus which looks bad. Can't wait for Phil to get onto that side of things. Once Phil's finished the main players, goals, ball etc I'll post some screenies up.

The Good Work Continues

I've now managed to finish the load/save game code for the Knockout Cups, which is great as it makes testing a hell of a lot easier as I can actually save my own progress. This will come in very handy when testing some of the other cup games when there are a lot more teams to play against.

We've also managed to get the style of the player sprites just right although we're just smoothing out the running animations. To be honest I think the game looks strange now with proper sprites actually "running" around. Before, the players' just floated about the pitch and I kind of miss that in a strange kind of way. Maybe that should be a new game mode - players with Jet Packs !

I'm also still playing around with the different team attributes. I keep changing my mind about how good (or bad) a certain team should be. I change the variables, test the game, think about it a bit, change 'em again, test again etc, etc. After a while you forget what you're meant to be testing for! Maybe that's a good sign that the game is playable? or maybe I need to start getting more people involved in the testing?

Addictive Football gets the backing of . . .

. . . Steven Gerrard!

He phoned yesterday and demanded that he should star in the game. He agreed to pay me a stupid amount of money and his name was added to the Addictive FC pub team. If Michael Owen also fancies being in the game then I'm sure we could make him the slowest sprite on the pitch (or off the pitch as he spends most of his time!).

In "real" news, progress on the game is continuing although I've got a really bad head cold and don't fancy doing anything today. I started working on the load/save game code for the Knockout Cups but have now given up as my head hurts too much.

Last night I messed around with how the goalies react to the ball. If the ball is within a certain distance of the goal then the keeper starts to move to where the ball is coming from. However, the distance was set to be too near, so if you kept your distance enough you could fire the ball past him without him even reacting. Not good!

I've changed (tweaked) this a bit and now I want to work on each teams goalie so they have slightly different abilities.

Right, time for the Beachams Powders

Knockout Cups

As mentioned before as well as a Friendly Match the player can compete in a number of Knockout Cup games. I've just put the finishing touches to the code so the first "Amateur Knockout Cup" is pretty much fully functional and working.

This Knockout Cup is the simplest one out of all of them. The player has to beat 3 different teams all of which should be pretty easy to win against. The match duration (for each half) is set at 3 minutes so it should be a good introduction to the player. My first game saw me win 12-0 over Addictive FC - that's the best score I've had! Maybe I need to tweak the teams playing skills a bit!

The other Knockout Cups (called Intermediate and Ultimate for now) will feature more teams who have much better skills. The match duration will also be increased to 5 or 7 minutes. The game will also feature a Trophy Cabinet menu option so you can go and view all the lovely silverware you've won.