Wednesday Update #4

Very little real time since the last late update, but some progress has been made still.  To be honest, I've been fluffing around the big issues of AI and collision, but I feel on any day I can be in a position where I want to demo my game on my phone (happened quite a lot on holidays), and while I was proud with what I had to show, a few days work to fluff up the graphical side of things would have made it far more impressive.

Work done in the last couple of days:

• I have a logo.  I created a facebook page now, and it asked for a logo, so I created one.  It's not too bad, and I've already put it on top of my scoreboard, which I think looks nice
• I had a side thought about how to manage instructions in this game, and came up with a coaches whiteboard, so whipped one up.  I found a handwriting font, so it looks a little more like the coach is writing on a whiteboard.  It doesn't look spectacular, but is nice, and lerps in and out from the side.  I aim to use this for "commentary", which will effectively be coaches tips at 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 time... assuming I have time to do this.  At very least I may have an array of encouraging comments for these breaks.  There is then a "got it" magnetic sticker that the user can press so they don't need that instruction any more.  The whole thing works quite well I thought.
• I had various thoughts about this game being too easy, which essentially it would be in real life with just a 1v1.  The forward can lead anywhere they like, and without AI cheating, it would be very difficult to stop them getting a mark.  But if I allow more than one player to control my discs, which I didn't love anyway, won't work.  I also had a very simple approach to a moving version of this game, for mobile.  Drag a player to move them, tap to pass.  This works actually somewhat better than console sometimes, because I can instruct 3 players to move in directions, then tap to pass it to the one that works best, this would be difficult to master with xbox.  Well, I got it working.  Now, when you drag your finger from a player, it plots out points every 4m or so (felt about right) and shows it while you are still planning.  Then you press play, the path disappears, but is remembered by the player and they execute.  Once they get to the last point, the AI kicks in again, and if you don't want that you should be able to drag them again, though it doesn't currently allow this, and I may leave it out of V1 for simplicity reasons.  The way it works is it starts a tracking if MouseDown (also finger down) hits a player or their disc, and then tracks until mouse up.  It only stores points if they are 4m away from the last point, which works well, even if they completely change direction.  It stores those in a List of points for the player, then the various AI elements check to see whether that List is empty.  If it's not, the AI follows point to point, deleting points when they get close enough.  When all points are gone, other AI elements will again wake up and decide where to run to next if needed.  If the ball is kicked, the path is also destroyed, and they will either go for the contest, or not depending on where they are, who they are.  This works really well so far, and the player changes direction in quite a realistic way when following crazy paths, as I made them slow down more the larger the change of direction is.

That is all so far, and the list of changes needed don't seem to get any smaller.  Here is a somewhat brief overview:

• Game management.  Have a main menu, can reset play, it tracks scoring.  But, it doesn't show the score.  I have a scoreboard, but am not thrilled about panning in and out all the time to show this, so would like an on screen score.  This could get tricky, as I've noticed I can't assign free text to the instructions board, and completely different free text to another element.  I'm cheating around this by making images of common wordings (like "got it", "Play", "Start new game"), which I may just continue to do, or find a better way to do text.  Other management issues not yet tackled include 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 time breaks, AI for opposition scoring, storing any setting change, previous scores.  There are stacks of bigger things, but that will be V2 if ever.
• AI.  It's off to a nice start, there are plenty of minor bugs still.  I need to also think about when not to run full speed to places, such as getting to a contest still jogging, not sprinting to a stop and then jumping at contest.  When to run backwards, when to brace for a collision, when to lead or hang back.
• Contest.  Similar to above, but worthy of it's own section, this is nearly non-existant so far.  So I need to build good physics around bumping into players, wrestling, diving for a ball, change of direction.  Not really AI, but more physics around how things will work.  This is vital, if I get this right, the game will feel right, and if feels right, it will be a good game, pretty much that simple
• Graphics.  This area improved a lot, and I need to focus just on what I can easily achieve I think.  I need to paint the bipeds with football clothes, which I started and wasn't all that problematic.  I need to check through the animations and get those looking OK, especially around contests, though animations are going to be a weakpoints, and there is no easy answer there.  I need to work more on the home ground, though it looks OK for now, so this might be a lower priority.  Scoreboard still needs completing for when showing scores, not the menu.  Grass textures, ads on signs/field, crowd, umpires, animations for celebrations, coaches, kick to kick, these are all on the way too low priority right now, AI/Contest are far more important.
• Sound.  There is none right now, and perhaps by V1 release too, again due to not being as urgent.  What I do have planned is crowd noise, football impact, collision noise, players calling.  I'd like noises for pressing options, music in the background.  Options to turn sounds off too.
• Sound.  There is none.  However unfortunate, it may stay that way too

Looking at that list, I could spend a bit more time getting the ability to play a game with scoreboard going, which I'm only a few steps away from, so perhaps that is my main focus by next week, and then AI/contest has to become most of the focus:

• Fix any bugs around end of play, should be able to also go to next contest without fuss
• Show scores after each play, and the score during play.  I'm thinking of using a scoreboard like material and images to place on top rather than free text, somewhere central and big for current goal/behind/miss, and in the top right corner for current score, to give it a more authentic feel, will see how that looks
• Have a 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 times and game finished.  Show the full scoreboard with proper scoreboard look at these breaks too.