uDG 2004: Feathered Soccer

[junyx]

This is the first public release of my uDG entry. I couldn't wait to show something! Now that I'm almost sure that I can produce something for the end of the contest, I made a beta version available for testing.

It is a 3D soccer game! Well, let's say soccer-like game, because the characters are chicks (young roosters ;) ) who plays 5 against 5.

There are still some things to do, in particular "Versus" mode (2 players) doesn't work and graphics, AI, gameplay, sound (no sound yet) are still to improve.

I ask you to try and to tell me if the game runs well on your machine and what you think about it.

A big thank you to everyone who will take time to test it!

In this sort of tech demo you can only play a single match in the "Arcade" mode.
You can choose your team between Brazil and Italy. Brazil is the 2002 World Champion and Italy... Well, I'm Italian! :p

Controls are not yet configurable:

Menu:
- Arrow Keys: move
- Space Bar: confirm
- Esc Key: cancel

In-Game Controls:
- Esc Key: go to pause menu

Kick-off:
- Press an arrow key to begin

Attack:
- Arrow Keys: move
- Alt Key: short pass
- Control Key: cross/long pass (keep pressed to decide power, Pro Evolution Soccer-like)
- Space Bar: shoot (keep pressed to decide power)

Defense:
- Arrow Keys: move
- Alt Key: change control to the player nearer to the ball.
- Control Key: tackle

This is an ambitious project and you'll find a lot of things to do. I'll try my best to make this game presentable for November 6th.

Main thing to do:

AI:
- make the AI able to cross
- AI pressing when player is winning
- make the AI smarter ;)

Gameplay:
- show where the player is when he's not visible on the screen
- allow 2 players game
- allow configurable controls
- turbo power-up
- punish tackles
- create more teams
- general improvements

Graphics:
- lighting/shadows
- some menu graphics
- other graphics improvement

Audio:
- find some good royalty-free tracks or play with GarageBand ;p

And, of course, fix bugs!

I'll also appreciate if you can help me to order the to-do list by priority.
And suggestions with Open-GL are also welcome, because this is my first 3D project.

Thank you so much for your help!


Download:
2.9 MB (http://www.bluepixysw.com/featheredsoccer.zip)
This game require Mac OS X 10.2.7 or higher.

[EvolPenguin]

That game is so absolutely fun. I'm speechless except for this babble coming out of my fingers. It's addictive, except my ducks(?) got tackled a lot. Otherwise, this game is awesome. I played it so many times. Good work. 2 player game would only be fun networked. It's so fun, i have nothing else to say. The mac needed a good soccer game. I'm definately looking at your code at the end of the contest :ninja: .

Alex

[lightbringer]

I think it would help a great deal if the camera was under your control, as opposed to always following the ball around.

[ERaZer]

I think it would help a great deal if the camera was under your control, as opposed to always following the ball around.
Yeah, I found this a bit irritaiting too…
Perhaps an arrow which points towards your selected player, or if the camera shows the player an arrow which points towards the ball.

[skyhawk]

customizable controls
better controls.... for some reason the only key I knew for sure that was working exactly how I thought it was, was shoot. Good job on the shoot :D
Doesn't respond to Apple-Q.
Can you turn on lighting for some of it? some of it BEGS for lighting, and some of it I can understand why you wouldn't want lighting.
I would like the action to be faster, but the level would have to be a little bigger for faster action.
can we have different character details? like for those of with G5s, could we have models with twice or more the amount of polygons?
have an arrow on the side of the screen that points to our current chicken under control

[JustinFic]

Fun stuff!

On the camera issue, my suggestion would be to zoom the camera out just enough to always include both the player and the ball, and any other important objects nearby (goals, nearest defender, stuff like that.)

The UI is polished but still clunky- Command-Q is a necessity. I'd also like to be able to choose menu items with the mouse, and if not, at least let me use the return key to select a menu item.

And I can't wait until you get some sounds in. I want some crunching sounds when the birds get tackled. And some flying feathers! :love:

[Jake]

Looks Good!

You should make return do something in the main menu, and the keys need to be shown while loading or something. I agree Command-Q needs to work.

Also for some reason I lost EVERY kick off I had (and they scored like 4 times)

[funkboy]

Fun game! Tightening up the controls and such would be kind of nice to do, though.

[arekkusu]

* Put your resources in your app package.
* Sync to VBL and don't use 100% CPU.

[skyhawk]

* Put your resources in your app package.
* Sync to VBL and don't use 100% CPU.
I feel you repeating this to many games in uDG this year...

[arekkusu]

And I'll keep repeating it as long as Apple leaves VBL off by default.

[phydeaux]

In SDL you can easily solve the first two issues; allegedly this is supposed to sync vbl:

int swapInterval = 1;
CGLSetParameter(CGLGetCurrentContext(), kCGLCPSwapInterval, &swapInterval);
SDL_GL_SwapBuffers( );


You can stop eating CPU by instead of doing a straight up wait loop- e.g. instead of while(curticks-lastticks<constant) {;} , use SDL_Delay(). nanosleep() I think is also available.

[arekkusu]

VBL sync also reduces CPU usage by limiting the fps to the refresh rate of your display; you don't waste time drawing any frames you won't see.

[junyx]

Thanks for the feedback!

New version:

An arrow points to the player when he's not visible on the screen.
Command-Q now works as expected.
Some graphic enhancements.
Return key works in the menu.
Minor enhancements and bug fixes


Following your suggestions, I also added the code to sync to VBL, however FPS limit works only in windowed mode :???:

Download:
3.4 MB (http://www.bluepixysw.com/featheredsoccer.zip)

[isgoed]

An arrow points to the player when he's not visible on the screen.
Not always.

Could you make a the cameramovement more smooth? Sometimes my eyes had real trouble following the game because it shifted from left to right 20 times per second or so.

I also lost every kickoff? And I did try to tackle the opponent but never succeeded.
The game gets 40-60Fps on my BP550mhz.

Shaded Chickens would be nice. (and real time shadows)
I can see borders around some menu buttons.
Overal quality is good
The AI is already pretty good. (Except that they tend to stand to much on their own half)
I find it difficult to make correct passes to my players.
Ball can't go off the field. (Maybe that's a good thing)

[JustinFic]

I also added the code to sync to VBL, however FPS limit works only in windowed mode :???:

With SDL, I've found that I have to sync to VBL again after I switch in/out of fullscreen.

On gameplay, I could really use more teammates on offense. It seems like it's always just my 1 bird against their whole team.

[arekkusu]

You have to set the VBL bit every time you create a context. Fullscreen and window are two different contexts.

[funkboy]

Awesome job so far. Add sound and you have a winner for the contest I think.

Add sound!

[Carlos Camacho]

Someone say sounds???

http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/display/submain.cfm/sound_group_iid.105/RequestTimeout.480

http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/andorra/57/ocasounds.html

http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/sports.html

Commercial --> http://www.leonardosoft.com/category/library.asp?librarycode=Digiffects

[junyx]

Partial Audio
Other improvements


Download:
6.7MB (http://www.bluepixysw.com/featheredsoccer.zip)

[PowerMacX]

You added Argentina :love: !
It appears twice on the team selection, minor bug?

[junyx]

If we don't consider future bug fixes, this is the gold version of Feathered Soccer.
Thanks to all the people who tried it in these days and who found time to provide feedback!

Download:
7.3MB (http://www.bluepixysw.com/featheredsoccer.zip)

[junyx]

fixed a bug: the arrow that points to the player when he's not on the screen wasn't visible.

Download
7.4MB (http://www.bluepixysw.com/featheredsoccer.zip)