Joystick, Keys or CPU??

Loads of fun today as I've had to re-design some of the menu screens. I'd originally set it so that Player 1 could use the keyboard to play but no Joystick option and Player 2 could only use the joystick but no keys! How stupid is that!!

So now on the menus you can select to play using the keys, joystick or set your player to be CPU controlled. This works for both player 1 and 2. I've also added a configure keys menu for both players' so people can use their own key combos.

A few other stupid little bugs have been fixed. Basically, it's been a day filled with stupidity!

I've also increased the distance from the goal that the CPU controlled teams will shoot from. Previously they were shooting so close to the goal that the goalie had a chance to close the angle down, therefore saving the majority of them. Now the CPU teams can shoot further out making it much more realistic.
Both team goalies are computer controlled even if you're controlling one of the teams. I suppose this is down to my personal preference in footy games as I hate having to control the keeper as well as my own team. It also means that if you lose a game you can always blame the goalie - as in real life :)

OrbitZ is Freeware

Our puzzle game OrbitZ has now been released as Freeware! The game has 65 levels and will require skill, strategy and logical thinking. If you think you're up to the challenge then head over to the Orbitz Homepage for more information and download the full version for Free!

Fun and Games!

Spent the best part of half a day chasing a bug which I thought was to do with the load/save game code. When playing one of the Knockout Cups the game wouldn't let you progress past the first team that you played. It kept on selecting the team for a replay which can only happen if you draw with them. Turns out it had nothing to do with the code but an old button that was hiding behind the "next game" button. If you clicked Next Game it thought you wanted a replay!! I need to keep on top of things now and remove any old code/graphics that are no longer needed.

I also need to speak to Phil about re-designing the pitch side graphics for the concrete pitch. There's a bit too much grey and red colouring going on which makes the play area look kind of busy and detracts the eye. Should be a simple change.

The indoor pitch is almost complete apart from members of the crowd and the advertising boards for the grass/astro pitches are in but are blank at the moment while we think of what to advertise on them. I think it will look quite boring if we just advertise Addictive 247 and Addictive Football, so we're going to do some rip-off names of famous brands or stores. Should be fun :)

More Graphics!

Phil's been working his little socks off this week getting through a lot of the graphics needed.

Here's how the Custom Game menu currently looks. Still work to be done on the actual background though . . .



. . . and heres how the second screen of the Friendly Match looks . . .



I'm currently working on the actual detail around each of the pitch types. Below is the indoor pitch in it's current state . . .



There's still small people to add as the crowd and probably a few other props around the outside. And of course the much wanted and anticipated Streakers!!

On Track

Had a meeting with Phil last night (in the pub!) to go through all the remaining graphics requirements for Addictive Football. We both know exactly what's needed and think we can get the game complete by around this time next month. The graphics that will take the longest will be the short intro scene at the start of the game which shows how each player gets to the match. It's going to be done in a cartoon-style strip and should be a lot of fun. Who says football games have to be serious!

All the different game modes are complete but the final one, called "The Honours Cup" for now, needs a good old test to make sure that the save/load game stuff is working. Hopefully get around to that today.

One of the points brought up from the beta test was that there was no re-define keys option. I've built that part of the game now and just need to make the menu system for it look a bit better. Feedback from the beta test has so far been positive :)

Features

As development of the game is progressing well and it's actually being tested by real humans I thought it would be good to list some of the features of the game. Now some (maybe all!) of these features might change before release but it will serve as good reference for looking back and laughing at some of the ridiculous ideas!

* Old school 2D football game similar in style and playability to
Sensible Soccer and Kick Off. 5-a-side football rules apply.
* Plenty of different game modes for the player - 1 or 2 player friendly; Amateur Knockout Cup; Inter Knockout Cup; Honours Cup; Custom Game mode.
* Custom Game mode allows you to set the skills of the player/computer teams so you can practice your skills. Play against a really tough opponent or give the computer the worst skills possible!
* Choose from 10 different teams to play as. Each team has different skills and abilities.
* Four different pitch types - Grass, Astro Turf, Concrete or Indoor.
* Trophy Cabinet so you can look at all your lovely silverware.
* Streakers and Policemen!!
* Fast gameplay, minimal controls and minimal menus

So, there you have it

It's my birthday today (21 cough, 30 splutter, ok 33!!) so no more work for me. One of my presents was the lovely "New Super Mario Bros" for the DS so I'm off to waste a few hours on it :)

Beta Testing!

Yesterday, Addictive Football went into Private Beta Testing. Thanks to all the people who are involved in this (you know who you are). I'm looking forward to the feedback and the ideas that come back. Hopefully (crosses fingers!) there aren't too many bugs. I think the engine is pretty solid but I'm sure a few things will turn up.

I'm still currently working on the menu design side of things and have been adding some of the graphics that Phil has just recently done. Small graphics representing the computer, players keys and joysticks have been added. Nothing earth-shattering but it's nice to get those things in.

Phil's also working on the advertising boards for around the pitch and the players' goal celebration animations. Hopefully we'll have these in over the weekend. There's still plenty to do and I have a bad feeling that we won't be able to release the game this month. Sometime in October is looking more likely :(

The Arsecast

The Arsecast is a retro and Indie gaming podcast which I stumbled upon yesterday. There's quite a few podcasts out there about games but this is by far the best. The British humour is excellent and the content it covers is very well thought out. A must for any gaming fan!

Pain in the arse Goalies!

I've noticed over the last few days of playing around with the game that the player (and cpu) goalies aren't as good as they should be. It's been too easy to beat the goalie and score. Before I started adding different team attributes the goalies where tough to beat. I then changed it so they were a bit easier.

Now that each team has different skills it's made it hard to make a fair goalie. A lot of the time they'll stand there and watch the ball whistle past them into the back of the net. I think I've now managed to get a good mix of good/bad goalie by playing around with their line of site. However, I've been playing with the game for a few months now so I know all the tricks to scoring. I need to get the game into the hands of some testers so they can give me some feedback.

Grass and Concrete Pitches

So here's a couple of screenshots showing the new pitch types. The first one is the grass pitch. Ignore the green surrounding areas for now as these will have advertising boards, crowd etc in the final version.



The screenie below shows the concrete outdoor pitch. Originally it was going to be grey (like the surrounding area) but it works much better with a sandy style red. Again, a lot of detail needs to be added to the surrounding areas.



I'm also doing some work on the menus and so that it isn't too cluttered there will be 2 menu screens to go through for the Friendly and Custom game modes. Having the Team select, control select, match length and pitch type on one screen was just too much. Now the player selects the team and control on one menu and the match length and pitch type on another.

A Good Graphics Day!

Yesterday Phil was feeling much better so I received some much needed graphics. I managed to get the four different pitch types in as well as the team kits for the menu screens.



I also completed the Custom Game Mode which can be seen in the screenshot (above). Ignore the menu background and a lot of the text. About 90% of this needs to be changed before release and is currently using my crappy "programmer art" so that it's functional. The custom game mode is a lot of fun and it's nice to be able to create a really bad opponent and completely batter them!

Custom Game

Well we're still no further on with the graphics as our graphics guy Phil has been ill over the last few days - get well soon Phil! (we need them graphics!)

As all of the team attributes are set by variables I had a great idea yesterday that it'd be cool if you could design a custom team and then a custom opponent and then battle it out on the pitch. Settings such as player speed, passing ability, shot power, shooting ability etc, etc could all be set with little sliders on a Custom game menu. You could then do the same for an opponent, pick your match length and pitch type and away you go! This would also be useful as people could set up a really bad computer opponent and then practice against them.

Had to go out on the weekend and buy another game pad as I can't find my other one. I just bought a basic 4 button one from GAME which is good enough for testing the pad support within Addictive Football. A friend who came over on the weekend complained that he got beat by the computer opponent because he hated playing with the keys. It had nothing to do with the large quantities of ale we were drinking though! The game plays well on a pad but my personal preference is still the keys.

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.