Football Fever (aka - Games with smooth "1" pixel multi directional scrolling.)

[sigh]

Sure.

But, I don't understand the "18fps".
It's more logic to get 50, 25, 16.66 and 12.5 fps.

The 18fps was the lowest framerate that doesn't feel too jerky. Was using it as the worst case scenario.

Should be doable, but maybe it Needs a particular size of the playfield to enable some adressing triecks, means , you don't increate the high-Byte of the Screen address during plotting a sprite.

The playfield is 320 x 194. The 6 pixels below would be mode 1 and that would display the score, time and players names.
I would probably avoid the vertical scroll for this game as it's useful seeing as much of the pitch as possible.

[remax]

Anybody know how action replays are handled and what other games used them on the CPC?

I know Micropose soccer had them and I would love to have the same for this footy game.

Kick Off 2...

Perhaps one of the few things that worked well in this game

[TFM]

The playfield is 320 x 194. The 6 pixels below would be mode 1 and that would display the score, time and players names.

Could you use a (MODE 1) resolution of 256+128 = 384 Pixel in X? Then you could use Software Scrolling with fixed Screen addresses and fast sprite routines. That would be a big speed gain.
Only sprites which need to be plotted over an X position of 128 or 256 would need to use slow (= regular) sprite routines.

[sigh]

Full length pitch 1152 x 200.
15 Colours

[TFM]

That looks awesome. But IMHO it would be a good idea to extend a bit at the right and left end 

[sigh]

That looks awesome. But IMHO it would be a good idea to extend a bit at the right and left end 

It's currently 384 pixels in X mulitplied by 3 (making 3 screens) so to extend the ends, maybe I could add another 384 screen, divide by 2 to make 192 and then put those halfs at either end? Would fast sprite routines and fixed screen addresses* still be possible?



*I need to research this more to understand what this really is and why it's important...

[sigh]

I've been jotting down some ideas regarding the AI:

Solo CPU A.I In possession of ball:

1)Scoring,
2)Avoiding tackles
3)Passing to team mate
4)Running towards opponents goal.
5)Fake diving.

Team mates AI when CPU is in possession of ball:

6)Making way up towards opponents goal.
7)Finding good position.
8)Avoiding being marked.
9)Avoiding offside.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solo CPU AI when not in possession of ball, but nearest to the opponent that has the ball

1)Nearest go to tackle opponent to gain possession of ball.

Team mates defending:

1)Marking opponents.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GoalKeeper when not in possession of ball


1)Prevent ball from going in goal.
2)Finding a good postion to cover gaps.
3)Coming out of the box in an attempt to get to the ball earlier than the striker.
4)Good Position - Catch ball
5)Medium position - Deflect ball
6)Bad postion - Miss ball
7)Being aware of the position of his defenders.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Goal keeper in possession of ball:
Throw/kick ball to nearest opponent or Kick ball to half way line, depending on opponents position and how they are marked.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I briefly scanned this book that has a good few pages on game AI for football games:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gDLpyWtFacYC&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=AI+football+goalkeeper&source=bl&ots=v-xn7W0q6j&sig=LTQ1kwe9olsyQdxtJ0-n0D9-vrw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tw4IUtOjIKTG7AaH04DACQ&ved=0CHoQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=AI%20football%20goalkeeper&f=false

Has code examples which I'm guessing is C++?

It's starts on page 137 "Sports Simulation - Simple Soccer" and goes through the players, ball and goalkeeper, so any ideas are more than welcome:)

[sigh]

Can anyone point me to heavily animated games on the CPC? I'm guessing that Lemmings has a lot of animations and would love to see the sprite sheet. This football game has around 500 frames of animations which includes the player, goalkeeper, ball and ref. Being that the sprites are so tiny, they take about 80kb of data which also includes the opposing team, the mirrored version of the animations, pitch, goalposts, crowds etc.

[TFM]

Maybe Xyphoes Fantasy?

[sigh]

Maybe Xyphoes Fantasy?

Yeah - I had a look at that and there does seem to be quite a few sprites for when the projectiles are animating.
Prince of Persia is another that has an immense set of animations. I'm guessing that Panza Kick Boxing on the PLUS would have tons! I've seen the megadrive sprite sheet for that game and it's amazing!

[ivarf]

Full length pitch 1152 x 200.
15 Colours

That playfield is so long, I guess you could hide an adventuregame in there somwhere. For example when two particular players meet at a given pixel, the Real Game game could start
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge!!!

[Gryzor]

Hahaha! I was thinking it's too long myself, but didn't think of the Easter Egg possibility


A soccer pitch is roughly 1.5:1. Even with the perspective distortion this is probably too long and narrow... But, fo course, if the speed is good the player won't mind it one bit.


Also, I don't see the Wiki ad at the back - the checque didn't clear?

[TFM]

You are right about dimensions, in this case scrolling in Y shall be (I assume) omitted.

[sigh]

Here are some images of the football pitch sizes in Emlyn and Matchday:













...and here's PES which is a realistic scale





My pitch is definitely too long which I will make shorter. Notice how emlyn and matchday have very little vertical space between the pitch lines. I wanted more space between the lines (and just more space in general)
which is why the characters are so tiny and also, why the pitch has more vertical space between the lines without having to add a vertical scroll, which may add another complexity to the already interesting scrolling method that we talked about here.


So you guys are right that the pitch is too long.(I think that the width is somewhat a reasonable compromise.)

[Gryzor]

I really don't mind tiny player sprites, Lemmings et Co. tought us it can be a good thing


But what I say is this: if it feels like fun then wrong proportions are ok.

[ralferoo]

They take about 80kb of data which also includes the opposing team, the mirrored version of the animations, pitch, goalposts, crowds etc.

It'd be pretty funny to make a 5-6 ROM version of the game for the 464!

[mr_lou]

It'd be pretty funny to make a 5-6 ROM version of the game for the 464!

It would be pretty awesome to see just about any CPC game taking advantage of the 512kb in a cartridge, or just multiple ROMs. 

[sigh]

It would be pretty awesome to see just about any CPC game taking advantage of the 512kb in a cartridge, or just multiple ROMs. 

It would be pretty awesome if I could find someone to program it in the first place!

[andycadley]

I'm surprised this has reached 18 pages and (as far as I can see) nobody has noticed that much of the "pixel scrolling" of the pitch is probably much easier to handle with palette changes. Sure it sacrifices a couple of colours (more if the pitch has to be stripy) but I can't imagine that being a big deal for a football game with such small sprites.

If I were coding it, that's the way I'd be looking (I won't, since I'd need a few years to even begin to learn what half of these football terms are!)

[Joseman]

That playfield is so long...

Well, here in spain, there was a tv serie (anime) called "Oliver y Benji", not sure if was aired in english countries, the anime was about 2 friends and a football team, this serie was famous for one thing (for me at least), sometimes the players to cross the playfield and make a goal will need 2 or 3 episodes XD, i think that that playfield was even more large (300x times) than this

[GOB]

In France her names are "Olive et Tom"

[TotO]

And I don't see it on the TV since 20 years...    (Captain Tsubasa)

[sigh]

I prefer this!


Very creative game and have often thought it would be fun to incorporate the special moves into the game, but it's just way too much graphically to give the same sensation on a CPC.

[sigh]

Here's what I'm thinking with all the information gathered on this thread to make this work:



1) Split the screen into 3 sections

2) For the crowds: Redraw the tilemaps of the crowds in the top part of the background.

3) For the main field: 2 layers of the white lines with one of them being shifted by 2 pixels. Scroll these screens by swapping the layers and using hardware scrolling and R3. to achieve 1 pixel smooth scrolling at 25fps (YAYYYY!!)

4) For score: Static score hud at the bottom of the background.

5) Compiled sprites for the player sprites and football.

6) Normal sprites for ref and linesman.


How does this sound folks? Any problems with this?




1) The fastest!

2) Easy implementation

3) Cheap to use/less CPU strain

Looking at the original scrolling method above.

It's been a while, but I was bought back here after watching the Commando game on the CPC. I downloaded the rom and just played it.

The Commando game is insane.

There are a heck of a lot sprites in play at any one time. The sprites are a tiny bit bigger than my football sprites, but there's anything up to 9 little guys, lots of bullets, grenades, special effects and bits of scenery being scrolled down the screen.

The footy game would probably have up to 13 sprites (5 players from both sides, ball, ref and linesman) and the only scenery would be the white pitch lines scrolling and crowd scrolling.

So I'm thinking - would it work just using the commando way? Would this game be less intensive than what's happening in Commando?
I'm asking because of the whole R3 thing as it was stated a few pages back that it doesn't work well on LCD which would limit the audience and I want as many people to play it as possible.

I'm surprised this has reached 18 pages and (as far as I can see) nobody has noticed that much of the "pixel scrolling" of the pitch is probably much easier to handle with palette changes. Sure it sacrifices a couple of colours (more if the pitch has to be stripy) but I can't imagine that being a big deal for a football game with such small sprites.

If I were coding it, that's the way I'd be looking (I won't, since I'd need a few years to even begin to learn what half of these football terms are!)

Can someone expand what is meant by using "palette changes"?

[andycadley]

Can someone expand what is meant by using "palette changes"?

Sure. Instead of drawing a one pixel wide vertical line in say ink 1, you instead draw a two pixel wide vertical line with the left and right pixels in different inks, say 1 and 2. Now by simply alternating the colour of inks 1 and 2 (one green, one white) you can give the appearance of having a single pixel wide line that moves by one pixel. Doing this means you only really need byte scrolling yet can still get the appearance of pixel scrolling, albeit at the expense of a few colours on screen. It should also be possible to handle the curved sections, such as the centre circle, in a similar fashion with a careful selection of palette colours.