After having a week off to get back into programming, and to actually finish and release a game, even if it was a small game done in 3 days (check out the game here: Netball Shots). I’m back working on and going down my list of my rugby league game fixes. I’m quite please by the number of things I’ve ticked off my to-do list and I feel that I should and could release a demo soon. I guess the decision on the demo is whether the basic game works well enough without too many little bugs and is it fun enough yet. Anyway, this blog is about is what I’ve done this week.
A LOT OF FIXESI’ve fixed a major issue with the ball-carrying player deciding who is available to pass to, meaning that often he would see a player in front of him as a valid pass. I’ve improved the way that this is calculated. This has seen several improvements, before it was to easy to make a forward pass from a scrum. Also, it means that the AI works a little better, as the AI looks at the passing options it’s given from the player and then makes the decision on whether to pass or not, so, if the AI’s only option was a player who is in front it would obviously not pass, this has meant the AI has started to pass the ball around a lot more.
I showed a quick game to some friends and saw that they laughed a bit as two of the defending players kept running around each other and swapping positions while waiting for the ball to be played after a tackle. This is now fixed. There was another issue related to this that if the player pressed one of the ‘change players’ buttons, the players would reset to their default defensive positions and not the best positions after a tackled.
I’ve also fixed an issue with the tackled player not getting out of the way once he had played the ball. This lead to a lot of forward passes and also the AI not passing the ball as the tackled player was in front of the AI’s player, thus removing one option to pass.
I’ve also improved the scrum positioning a lot. Now, the scrum is held in the correct place an on the correct side.
IMPROVEMENTSThe hooker is now always nearly the player waiting behind the play-the-ball for the ball.
The ball moves downwards with the score try animation. I still need to fix the ball to the players hand when they have it, but it’s not such an important issue right now, something to do later.
OTHER FIXESThe hooker was running away from the scrum which wasn’t helpful!
The pause menu wasn’t working as it should, so, now it’s been fixed.
The ball was being collected by the player in the middle of the scrum.
The controller select screen was had a few issues.
When the AI kicks off, pressing the kick button, tells the computer to start the game.
Now, the game waits a moment for the try animation and getting up animation to finish before going to a conversion kick. Probably, I’ll add a celebration animation too before the game is released.
Also, as you can see, I’m changed the team logos a little. I think that badges look better than the squares that I had before. Again, all the graphics will be editable and the game is designed to be modded and updated easily with new teams, players and graphics.
Other NewsI also made a little netball flick/swipe game for Android in 3 afternoons last week, just to try something different and have something finished.
Nothing, serious, but available here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sionco.netballFreeMy blog:
http://www.sionco.com/blog/Twitter:
https://twitter.com/sionco