Field Hockey or Netball games

[sigh]

Oh well I didn't notice the bottom scoreboard in the third image, my bad.

Ok, my last 2 cents here. If it ends being a 320x200 screen maybe a bit of scroll is not a problem anymore both vertically and horizontally. You can keep the original size of the court and just scroll a bit when a team is at the leftmost or rightmost part of the court same for up and down.

I don't think it's worth the hassle of having to code some scrolling on a court that small, as the scroll would be too small to make it justifiable. I would rather just have the focus on the AI of the players and the locomotion animation sets to make it look fun and lively.

I'm currently still redrawing the animations to a smaller size and there maybe a bit more space left to add some more anims.

[sigh]

Animations have been redone in a new size. There was enough space to add the 'slingshot' throw which is a similar to the 'one tap' auto direction ball movement to nearest player move in sensible soccer. Not much control, but it's quick.

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There is also one more move which is a spin bounce pass. This is basically after touch like in football games to curve the ball. In this case, the ball would curve a little after hit the ground. This doesn't need a separate animation.

Next, I am going to redraw the backgrounds to fit the 320*200 screen size.

[sigh]

Here is the new court size 320*200

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[sigh]

Here is the comparison of the new scaled version of the court and players against the original version:

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I'm keeping the backgrounds the same size.

[sigh]

Another update. The players are even smaller now(2 pixels shorter)as I was thinking that maybe they could have a bit more space to move around the court:

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Any thoughts?

[sigh]

Resized street court. Well - not really resized, just cropped with the new lines placed on top. The only things I will be redrawing on all of these courts are the spectators.

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[sigh]

All courts redone. I decided to stick with the shorter sprites.

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                 Championship Court
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                     Street Court                                               Beach Court
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                    Bedroom Court                                           Car Park Court
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                  Sports Hall Court                                          Garden Court
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                      Neon Court                                             Night Club Court
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                      Snow Court                                                Super Court

[sigh]

Had to re-colour the snow court as you wouldn't be able to see the ball.



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[eto]

or re-colour the ball on the snow court?

[sigh]

or re-colour the ball on the snow court?

That was my first thought, but there are many animation sprites that have the character holding the ball:

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This an example and there are lots of these.

[sigh]

'The Bee Mob' VS 'May's Mates'

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The boss from the opposing team will come onto the screen on the 3rd and 4th quarter. The boss can activate the teams special abilities.
The player and boss now have portraits to give it that 'rival' feel.

[sigh]

Updated the HUD positions and now have the timer at the top. I would like to know if it's easier having the HUD all in one place at the bottom rather than splitting them up?

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[andycadley]

Updated the HUD positions and now have the timer at the top. I would like to know if it's easier having the HUD all in one place at the bottom rather than splitting them up?

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Doesn't really matter if it's split up. If the screen was going to scroll, it might, but since it's basically a static screen there isn't really a reason I can think of that the precise position of things like that should make any difference.

[sigh]

Updated the HUD positions and now have the timer at the top. I would like to know if it's easier having the HUD all in one place at the bottom rather than splitting them up?

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Doesn't really matter if it's split up. If the screen was going to scroll, it might, but since it's basically a static screen there isn't really a reason I can think of that the precise position of things like that should make any difference.

Thanks!

[sigh]

Looking at the sprite sheets, I'm wondering how much memory this would take as there is a lot of grey space. It looks as though most of the sprites have around 40% of empty space. I'm thinking that excluding the background tiles (Some which are 256 tiles) the sprites look take up between 10 - 12kb. It's the first time I have properly had a good go at creating a dedicated 64kb game. There are a few extra graphics missing for some of the special abilities, but everything will fit on these 2 sheets.

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I'm imagining around 20kb for all the GFX (background tiles and the sprites) and would go for a simple menu screen like Renegade.

[andycadley]

A lot depends on how accurately they need to be positioned on screen. If they need to be positioned to the pixel, it may be necessary to store pre-shifted versions, which pretty much doubles the amount of RAM usage - you could shift on the fly to save storage but it will impact performance, although with small sprites maybe that's ok.

[sigh]

you could shift on the fly to save storage but it will impact performance, although with small sprites maybe that's ok.

Yeah. The tallest sprites are 20 pixels high but most are 14x14. The pre shifted positions, I assume wouldn't need to be on all the sprites? They would need to be on the ball itself, the running sprite animation, skipping sprite animation, defense sprite animation and the single jumping/ball catch sprite pose? That would probably add an extra 6kb or something.

[sigh]

Hellooooo

Well - it's been over a year since I last posted on this, so I'm giving it another bump as I still would love to create the first ever netball game. I actually also had a look again on steam as I thought that some indie dev may have done it by now - but nothing!

So, I'm still hoping that a coder may take this on

[sigh]

I'm still checking;

from r/netball

[sigh]

from r/netball

..both of these are from this year

[eto]

I would SO love to see this :-) 

[sigh]

I would SO love to see this :-)

Yeah. I think it would be a very fun game. I thinnk that the ball physics would probably be a lot less tricky to do compared to other ball type sports.

[Anthony Flack]

I agree, I think it looks very nice and your sprites look great, and it's crazy that there are no existing netball games out there!

Do you have strong ideas about how the game should play? It looks like you have a vision for what you want; maybe you should try writing up a design document.

The tricky part with any team game like this is likely to be the AI I expect. But how fun it is will likely depend on how passing and intercepting will work. Without other netball games to compare it's an open question I suppose. 

[sigh]

I agree, I think it looks very nice and your sprites look great, and it's crazy that there are no existing netball games out there!

Do you have strong ideas about how the game should play? It looks like you have a vision for what you want; maybe you should try writing up a design document.

The tricky part with any team game like this is likely to be the AI I expect. But how fun it is will likely depend on how passing and intercepting will work. Without other netball games to compare it's an open question I suppose.

I've done little examples from page 1 - 3 on this thread on how the controls will work. Unlike basketball, you are not allowed to run with the ball in netball, so your movements are extremely limited in that regard. Throwing the ball is pretty much a straight line from person A to person B. You can do a bounce pass in netball where some player may add some spin onto the ball:



The AI will be a lot less demanding than other sports games I think.

[Anthony Flack]

I wouldn't be too sure about that! I imagine it will all come down a great deal to positioning, and timing of passes and intercepts and how well the flow works, and how everybody who hasn't got the ball decides to run around. 

I read through some of the thread but I think it would be worthwhile setting out all the design stuff together in a document that would be as easy as possible for a programmer to follow.

The amount of thought you've put into the passing mechanics is great, but since the game design as a whole is untested and quite experimental and there's no existing games to reference, my inclination would be to prototype on PC first, test all the mechanics, figure out the AI, get the feel right, then write the CPC version, rather than hashing it out on the CPC. Others may feel differently but that's how I would tackle a project like this. 

Being that the passing player in netball is stationary, you might even want to consider having the player moving the receiver(s) before the pass? Could be, I don't know! But if not, unless I'm understanding incorrectly you wouldn't actually control the position of ANY of your team while you have possession. Interesting twist or fatal flaw? I think this idea has potential but some prototyping of core mechanics will be needed.