The summit or other

A long time ago I wrote something about climbing a mountain. I can't find the blog entry now but basically I was waffling on about how much work I had ahead of me to create New Star Soccer 4. Well, I am nearly at the summit of said mountain and boy is it getting hard to breathe! I'm having sleepless nights worrying about how it will be received by the fans,  if I can release it bug free and wether it will plug the hole in my bank account.

Right now I have a small group of testers that are making sure everything works correctly and letting me know what changes or additions need to be made. I think I have squashed all the bugs in the match engine, although there may be one left where players go on a conga dance around the ten yard zone during a free kick. It's hard to pin this one down and it may even have been fixed inadvertently whilst fixing something else, but we'll keep a look out for it.

I've actually been working quite a lot on the match engine trying to improve the gameplay and hopefully it's a big step forward from the public betas I released earlier this year. There is now an option for basic or advanced dribbling. Basic dribbling makes the ball stick to your feet at all times. Advanced dribbling means the ball is knocked forward if you are sprinting. There is also and option that will automatically guide your player to the ball when it is passed to him. This can help quite a lot in the much improved Player Cam view as the camera pans around. Also it can improve the flow of passing whilst playing as the team in a Quick Match - although experienced players will probably want full control of their players.

Nick (JJU) is putting the finishing touches on the database and when he's done we will be able to thoroughly test the Champions League and UEFA Cup competitions. This is the last real concern I have about the game code as the fixture creation and progression is the most complicated area of the whole game. We just need to make sure that every year the correct teams qualify for the right competitions and everything plays out without any fixture clashes. Aside from that it's just a case of playing it now, racking up a few seasons to make sure that sponsorships, relationships with women, having children, loans, transfers and so on all work correctly and don't cause any major issues. I'm sure there will be a few bug fixes and tweaks to be made post-release but as long as people don't have to restart their careers I'll be happy.

So when? I mentioned October on the forum and that is still the plan. That gives us another 10 days of testing and I may even let eager forum members help out with the final testing. For now though I need to get back to work or that mountain peak won't get any closer! 

PS For those that may not have seen it, here is the NSS4 Promo Video. There are also some new screenshots here.

Back in the game!

Yeah, I know... Long time, no post. The reason for this is simply because Lucy and I went touring around Australia for 3 months and it's hard to find time (or power, or the internet) when you're living in a camper van! Anyway, I'm back in the UK now and working hard to get the game finished, and there's simply no excuse for not working every minute of the day when the English summer is so bad.

At the moment I am concentrating on the background processing, basically ensuring that the skills for all the CPU players in the database increase/decrease and that their career stats are collected. Making sure this all happens without slowing the day to day flow of the game is quite important. I'm sure you'll agree that hanging around watching progress bars is not much fun. You should be able to include up to 10 leagues in the final version, but the only way to keep the processing times down on low-end machines will be to include less leagues.The leagues you include at the start of the game will be simulated fully which allows you to transfer to that league if you so wish.

The one crucial element that needs work is the competition system. I need to make sure that the clubs are promoted/relegated, advance through cup stages, qualify for European competitions and so on. This is really tricky because errors can occur in two places. One, the game code may be buggy. Two, the competition settings in the database may be wrong. I intend to dedicate some serious time to this issue in the coming days.

One feature that will have to be omitted from the game is the management mode. The game is quite capable of letting you control team selection and tactics but suddenly the lifestyle side of the game doesn't make sense. All the relationship incidents are designed for a young footballer, not a middle-aged manager. Bidding for players and negotiating transfers is also another huge element that will need to be created, along with handling the club finances. I know it's disappointing but I feel that this is a feature too far for NSS4 and will have to come along at a later date.

My only other worry is that the lack of training challenges takes away some of the enjoyment that was present in NSS3. Now that skills range from 1-100 it doesn't make sense to have 100 training levels for each skill. I decided reward the player for making accurate manual passes, shots etc by increasing the relevant skill level. This works very well and is similar to the Kudos system in Project Gotham Racing. However, I cant help feeling that training mini-games would give NSS4 that final element that elevates the game from good to great. They would need to be more general challenges than those seen in NSS3 so that I don't need to create 600 different challenges for each skill level, but they could work in unison with the match-play skill increases. Of course, there is only one drawback to adding mini-games. Time. I don't mind telling you that I am desperate to release NSS4 for numerous reasons. The main one being that it has been in development for over 2 years now and it's simply about bloody time! (Check out the first NSS4 blog entry from October 2006.)

What this means is that I will strive to get every essential element complete in the next few weeks, then consider the training issue. It may simply be that I have to hold training challenges and the management mode back until NSS5 but I can tell you something for sure: there won't be another 3 year wait!

New Star Rising

I’ve been cramming in the hours these past few weeks and NSS4 is finally starting to feel like the finished article. I still have some work to do on the competitions, fixing clashes and so on, and you can’t actually get picked for an international match yet, but soon these issues will just be a distant memory (I hope). I must admit it’s getting a bit stressful trying to do as much as possible before Lucy and I leave Melbourne and continue our travels. We fly to Tasmania for 10 days at the end of May then back to Melbourne before heading for the West Coast. How I’ll be able to work during this time is a concern as I wanted the game to be ready for the European Championship. We’ll see…

Feedback from the beta versions I released has been very positive and I can only say that the gameplay will only get better before the final release. I have already made some improvements on the AI and the ball control feels smoother than it did before. I’m hoping to fix any serious compatibility issues with the next beta which will be the last one before the final game is released.

Most of my time at the moment is being spent on the career side of the game and making sure that it all flows nicely. Things like contract offers, the transfer market and the progression of player skills are all hugely important things that need to be finely balanced in order to appear realistic. I think I’ve mentioned it before but I have dropped the training challenges and have made skill progression something that takes place during match play. In addition to your club fixtures you will be able to take part in two types of training matches; full 11-a-side games in an empty stadium or 5-a-side indoor games. These can be selected from the training screen. Notice the custom orange and black interface. Very Half-Life 2...

The indoor games are great fun allowing you to bounce passes off the walls and it helps to increase abilities without expending too much energy running around a full sized pitch.

The outdoor training matches do allow you to set up freekicks, corners and penalties whenever you like though to enable you to improve your setpiece skill. It’s very satisfying seeing your skills chink up at the bottom of the screen when you pull off a nice pass, shot or tackle.

One other aspect I’ve added recently is Achievements. These work in the same way as the Xbox 360 achievements do, recording your progress as you complete tasks like “Score a hattrick”, “Get a sponsorship deal” and so on. The achievement count is currently at 45 but I hope to take this up to 100 by release day. There will of course be some fiendishly difficult achievements such as “World Cup Top Scorer”.

The financial side of the game is shaping up nicely too. Here you can see the finance screen where you can buy vehicles and property and set how much you want to spend on your friends and family each week to keep them sweet. Notice the sponsors panel. Now you can have up to 11 different sponsors ranging from sports wear to cosmetics. Attaining a boot sponsor unlocks the option to edit your boot colours.


Finally, I can't remember if I've shown you any images of the new horse racing section. Here's a brief shot of a race in action...


So for now it's business as usual for me but that finish line is getting ever nearer. :D

Zero To Hero

It’s kind of crunch time here at New Star Towers as the match engine is just about done and I'm working hard to get the career mode sorted. All that remains for the match engine is some gameplay tuning and ironing out of any bugs that arise between now and release day. I’m hoping to release a public match engine beta very soon (like in the next 24 hours) so stay tuned to the forum!

What I thought I’d do today is write up the game controls and post them here. This will also serve as the in-game help file. Two birds with one stone, see? The controls are very similar to NSS3 with a few enhancements so pay attention. :) Ok, here we go…

It is highly recommended that you use a joypad or joystick with an analogue control stick to play NSS4.

Attack
Control Stick - Run
Button 1 - Pass
Button 2 - Lob
Button 3 - Shoot
Button 4 - Call
Button 5 - Sprint

Defend
Control Stick - Run
Button 1 - Chase
Button 2 - Chase/Slide Tackle
Button 3 - Chase
Button 4 - Chase
Button 5 - Sprint

Goalkeeper
Control Stick - Run
Goalkeepers will dive automatically
Button 4 + Control stick - Organize defensive wall

Auto-Shot
If you tap the shot button or hold it down before you have control of the ball you will shoot automatically towards the goal.
If you centre the control stick before the player kicks the ball he will perform a chipped shot.
If you pull the control stick away from the goal before the player kicks the ball he will perform a low shot.
If you pull the stick to the left or right your player will shoot to that side of the goal.
Auto-shots are not precise. The direction will be affected by the player’s shooting ability.
Auto-shots cannot be curled.

Manual Shot
If you have control of the ball and you hold the shoot button down you will bring up the shot power bar. Release the button to shoot with the desired power.
Manual shots are precise. They will travel in the exact direction you kick the ball.
Manual shots can be curled by pushing the control stick left or right relative to the direction of the ball. The shot can also be lifted by pulling away from the ball or dipped by pushing towards the ball.

Auto-Pass
If you tap the pass button or hold it down before you have control of the ball you will pass automatically towards the teammate highlighted. If no teammate is highlighted a short kick will be played.
Auto-passes are not precise. The direction will be affected by the player’s passing ability.
Auto-passes cannot be curled.

Manual Pass
If you have control of the ball and you hold the pass button down you will bring up the pass power bar. Release the button to pass with the desired power.
Manual shots are precise. They will travel in the exact direction you kick the ball.
Manual passes can be curled.

Auto-Lob
If you tap the lob button or hold it down before you have control of the ball you will play a high pass automatically towards the teammate highlighted. If no teammate is highlighted a short lob kick will be played.
Auto-lobs are not precise. The direction will be affected by the player’s passing ability.
Auto-lobs cannot be curled.

Manual Lob
If you have control of the ball and you hold the lob button down you will bring up the pass power bar. Release the button to play a high pass with the desired power.
Manual shots are precise. They will travel in the exact direction you kick the ball.
Manual passes can be curled.

Chase
If you do not have control of the ball you can automatically chase it by holding any of the kick buttons. If you are holding the kick button when you connect with the ball you will perform an auto-shot or auto-pass depending on the button you are holding. You can also use the call button to chase the ball if you do not wish to kick the ball when you control it.

Slide Tackle
If you do not have control of the ball but you are close to it you can tap the lob button to perform a sliding tackle. The length of the slide is depending on the player’s running speed and his tackling ability.

Sprint
If you hold the sprint button your player will run faster. Notice that there are two bars above your player’s head. The top bar (green) is his overall energy. This depletes as he runs around. The second bar (yellow) is the player’s sprint meter. This depletes rapidly when he is sprinting but will regenerate when he stops sprinting. The speed at which the sprint meter replenishes is dependent on the player’s overall energy.
If you tap the sprint button whilst dribbling your player will knock the ball further ahead than normal. You can also affect the direction of the knock with the control stick.

Player Abilities

Energy
Determines how long a player can run at normal pace and how quickly his sprint tank refills
Stamina
Determines how quickly the player’s energy depletes when running.
Strength
Stronger players can push opponents out of the way
Pace
This determines a player’s maximum top speed
Acceleration
How quickly a player can reach top speed
Control
How well the player can trap the ball
Flair
How much a player can curl the ball
Weak Foot
When a player kicks with his weaker foot only a percentage of his passing or shooting ability is used to determine the accuracy of the kick. His Weak Foot ability determines that percentage.
Positioning
CPU - How quickly they find good positions
HUMAN – A higher positioning ability improves the likelihood of a teammate passing to you

Outfield Player Only

Tackling
How far you can slide and how quickly you recover
Shooting
Affects the accuracy of auto-shots
Passing
Affects the accuracy of auto-passes
Heading
Affects the accuracy of auto-headers. Also jump height and dive length are affected by the heading ability
Crossing
Affects the accuracy of auto-crossing
Dribbling
Determines how closely you dribble the ball
SetPiece
Affects the accuracy of set-piece shots and passes

Goalkeeper Only

Distribution
Affects the accuracy of auto-kicks
Agility
How quickly the keeper recovers from a dive
Aerial
How high or far a keeper can jump or dive
Handling
How well the keeper can hold a shot
Organisation
How well the keeper places the wall
Reflexes
How quickly the keeper responds to close shots
Bravery
How well a keeper can save at an opponents feet

Improving your abilities
New Star Soccer 4 is unlike any other football game (including NSS3) in that your abilities are a reflection of how good YOU are as a player. Manual shots and passes are always 100% accurate in that they travel in the exact direction that you point them with the exact power you choose. Every time you perform a skilful action you will be rewarded with ability points. However, points will NOT be awarded if you perform an auto-pass or an auto-shot, and auto-shots and passes are not 100% accurate.

Physical Abilities
Stamina, Strength, Pace, Acceleration can all be improved through Gym Training.

Technical Abilities
Weak Foot
Make a successful pass or shot with your weak foot
Flair
Curl a successful shot or pass
Control
Centre the control stick before you receive the ball

Tactical Abilities
Positioning
Receive a pass or intercept the ball
Vision
Make a successful long pass

Outfield Player Skill Abilities
Tackling
Perform a successful sliding tackle
Shooting
Shoot on target
Passing
Make a successful pass
Heading
Head the ball
Crossing
Cross the ball
Dribbling
Dribble the ball for an extended period of time
SetPiece
Perform a successful shot or pass from a set-piece

Goalkeeper Skill Abilities
Distribution
Perform a successful pass
Agility
Perform a successful diving save
Aerial
Perform a successful jumping save
Handling
Catch the ball
Organisation
Position the wall correctly
Reflexes
Save a close ranged shot
Bravery
Retrieve the ball whilst the opponent is dribbling

Other Statistics
Potential
Skills are easier to build and maintain while potential is high
Consistency
Reflects your performance ratings during your career
Aggression
Reflects how often you foul opponents
Determination
Reflects how gym training work rate during your career

So that's how it all sits right now. There may be a few changes yet but that depends on your feedback. So I'd better go and get that beta ready!

I can see the peak!

It’s been a while, yes, sorry about that. I have to admit that the game went on hold for about one month while Lucy’s sister and my best friend came out to Australia to see the sights and do a little traveling. Lucy and I have also moved to Melbourne and now have a nice little studio flat in St Kilda with a sea view! Unfortunately we are out of money so Lucy is back to working in The Alfred Hospital (she’s a nurse) and I of course am programming every hour that God sends in the hope that New Star Soccer 4 will be finished before we leave Melbourne in three months, but don’t hold me to that! So what’s new? Well today I have at last some gameplay footage to delight your eyes and get that inner footballing genius within you all excited! These are running much slower than normal game speed but that’s due to the video capture software.

Let’s start with a little goal I scored today. The attacker receives the ball and does well to avoid the slide tackle before knocking the ball wide. As the keeper rushes out the 2nd striker squares the ball to his partner who had continued his run into the box and has a simple tap in. If you look closely you’ll see the goalscorer run off and celebrate with his arms outstreched. The 'aeroplane' is one of four celebrations that you can perform after scoring a goal. The others are sliding on your knees, standing with your arms raised, or doing a funky dance. It should be a nice little reward when you score a goal. Here you go…



This next clip demonstrates a nice little passing move I put together before unleashing a shot that the keeper saves. I should have really taken the ball on and looked for the killer pass, but I wanted to test the keeper. Actually I am really happy with my work this week as the keepers are now very very hard to beat. At the moment all the keepers have 100% stats, so when I implement their skills properly, agility, handling and so on, they won’t be quite so super human. This video also shows how versatile the camera is. As you can see it’s a bird’s eye view of the action and old school gamers that fondly remember Dino Dini’s classic Kick Off can actually play in this view if they wish…



This clip shows the computer controlled team crossing the ball and putting the ball in the back of the net with a diving header. Unfortunately for him it was offside, ha! The Com player also uses the “knock” move which taps the ball further away from you than normal dribbling. The AI still needs a bit of work but overall he’s starting to play a pretty solid game and is quite tough to beat.



Here’s one for you defenders out there. A slide tackle to block the pass then send a defence splitting ball through to the forward who scores. It’s a little to easy to get through the back four at the moment so I’ll be working on tactics a bit this week.



So as you can see the match engine is running nicely and is almost complete. I have a bunch of slight glitches to fix and improvements to make which will hopefully be completed this week, then it is back to the career side of the game to complete a few sections like relationships and newspaper reviews before pulling all the loose strings together for final testing. I’m very pleased with the match engine as I’m really enjoying the matches so these are exciting times for me and I definitely feel as though I’m in the final stretch. Keep an eye on my YouTube page because from now on I'll upload anything that I think you might find interesting.

Moving Pictures

Just a quick update to show you some videos of the NSS4 interface in action. First up is an overview of the main screens...



After loading the game it goes straight into the days fixture list, from there it goes into the home page, then the tournament screen, the club screen, the training screen, the relationship screen, the finance screen, the search screen where we look for goalies with 50+ bravery. We finish up looking at a couple of player detail screens. Don't worry about any blank areas in the interface as these will be filled with vital information by release time.

Next up is a look at the casino games. BlackJack, Roulette and the Slot Machine...



The roulette wheel and the slots run a bit slowly, but that's purely down to the video capture method.

Here you can see the interface customization options. It starts off by selecting some of the pre-set colour schemes but then shows how you can change pretty much any aspect of the game; panels, buttons, text and the background. So whatever your team colours you can change the interface to match.



Finally, this video shows the setting up of a quick match between Arsenal and Aston Villa. I created this mode to make it easy for me to test the match engine without having to load up a career. In a quick match you control the whole team, as is normally the case with other football games and of course Sensational Soccer. I will leave this option in for NSS4 but there won't be any multiplayer or online options. However, I am still considering adding an option to let you control the team directly on the pitch when you become a manager, rather than making you just sit back and watch the CPU take over on match day. One problem with the management part of the game is that it cannot ever aspire to the level of detail and control you are given in other games like Football Manager. So by giving you control of the team it would certainly spice it up a bit and help alleviate the fact that the management options are a little sparse.



Also in the video you can see the team run out onto the pitch (or slide out because there still isn't any animation!) and you see how the camera can be adjusted to your tastes; lengthways, side-on, over-head, close-up, far-out... Something to suit everyone! Actually the camera still needs a little work because I want it to be able to keep both your player and the ball in view at all times (if you choose that option). This would enable you to bring the camera right down to pitch level and really put you in the action. Whether this will work or not though remains to be seen.

Don't worry about the green energy meters above the players heads. I'm currently working on energy consumption and need to see how much each player has left in the tank. It might be quite useful to see these in manager mode though, so there will be an option to turn the energy meters on or off in the final version.

As you will see I've cut the video short of the kick off but that's because I want to get the animation working first. It also saves me something to show you in the next blog. :D

By the way, you can keep track of all the NSS4 videos on the new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/newstargames.

Let it snow

Being English, my mind is telling me that November should be cold, wet and grey. Yet, having moved to Australia it should in fact be the opposite, as it is late Spring here. The funny thing is, it has been grey, wet and almost cold here in Sydney for the past two weeks with rain battering down the dull alleyway outside the balcony which is pretty much my office and thunder disturbing the peace every so often. So maybe it's the confused weather that inspired me to add rain and snow effects to NSS4.

For the rain I've employed a similar method to that of NSS3 whereby I overlay the screen with some transparent tiles which have animated rain drops on them. It's a simple method but when I loaded up NSS3 to remind myself how it looked I realised that it's also rather crude and I needed to improve it for the new version. I set about creating better rain tiles and employed a new system where both the rain image and sound gradually fade-in and out. Thanks to the excellent transparency effects in BlitzMax I'm happy to say it looks great! Check out how muddy, miserable and typically English this screenshot looks...


For the snow I have to thank Klaas of the Blitz forums for some excellent Blitz3D code. I needed to convert it to BlitzMax and adjust it for my purposes, but within a few short hours the winter matches felt like an Alpine Christmas. The snow flakes are rendered in true 3D so it actually falls in the game world, unlike the rain which is a 2D overlay. What I like most about it is the way it whizzes by as the camera tracks the match. Just imagine how snow looks when you're driving through it and you'll get the idea. My one concern is that it will slow down the match action on less powerful PCs, but it's possible to alter the number of flakes rendered so it can be cut down to zero if needs be. I've settled for 100 flakes for now which gives a nice effect without looking too sparse. Anything over 300 actually looks too cluttered.


In another flash of inspiration I realised that if I make the snow flakes multi-coloured it produces quite a nice ticker-tape effect which would be great for Cup final celebration scenes. More on that another time though.

Talking of celebrations, one thing many people have requested is the ability to control your player after scoring a goal. Well, your wish is my command because this is possible in NSS4. I've yet to implement the animations but you can run wherever you want during the moments after a goal whilst your teammates chase after you. The plan is to assign 4 celebration animations to the four main buttons (pass, lob, shoot, call) so you can show off to your adoring fans or maybe even run over and taunt the opposing fans. It's this kind of freedom that I'm perhaps most proud of with regards to the NSS4 match engine. For instance, if you are the setpiece taker then you can position yourself by the ball exactly where you want (within a 5 yard zone) allowing you to angle a run-up or simply stand next to the ball for a standing kick. Once in position you set the strength of the kick with the pass, shoot or lob buttons then as you hold the analogue stick (or direction key) the player runs up and kicks the ball. The great thing about this is you can hold the stick exactly how you want to apply the aftertouch and not worry about running towards the ball as the player does that automatically, making it easy to apply dip, loft or curl to the kick. Needless to say, a quick tap of the pass or lob button will pass the ball to the highlighted teammate. A simple thing yes, but it's shocking to think that Pro Evolution Soccer hasn't managed to get short freekicks right throughout the series.

So that's a little update on the state of the match engine and I really, truly hope (and pray) that by the time I next update the blog that it will have properly animated players, because once that is in then the match engine will be 95% complete. At a guess I would say the the entire project is at around 75% complete. Now that's something to be happy about, whatever the weather! :D