What would make for a good high school football PC game?

[Izulde]

As long as we're in a football game mood with Gary's recent announcement, I thought I'd visit this topic, which sadly hasn't been explored as a game, but I think would be an interesting one, particularly if it could later be tied to in all-in-one-universe.

So what elements do you guys think would make for a good high school football game?

[Honolulu_Blue]

I can't see there being a good highschool football PC game. Without any element of recruiting (college) or drafting (pros), I just can't see how one would actively "build" a program.

Without that component, I just don't see the game being all that fun.

[SackAttack]

I can't see there being a good highschool football PC game. Without any element of recruiting (college) or drafting (pros), I just can't see how one would actively "build" a program.

Without that component, I just don't see the game being all that fun.

There actually is an element of recruiting in high school ball. Nothing as formal as college, but it's there.

But look at it in reverse. You build your program by turning it into a pipeline to Division 1 schools. Players go to your school because you hook up running backs in the Big 10 with regularity, say.

[Izulde]

I can't see there being a good highschool football PC game. Without any element of recruiting (college) or drafting (pros), I just can't see how one would actively "build" a program.

Without that component, I just don't see the game being all that fun.

Well, one would assume with tryouts that it would be a form of drafting... and tying in to SackAttack's idea, your high school could get known for certain types of players, etc, which would increase the probability of higher quality versions of that type of player showing up in tryouts.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Hmm, lemme see here, off the top of my head and not in any particular order really ...

-- a detailed player development segment, that includes a very dynamic development model in-season as well as out
-- an extensive AI model for player physical development between seasons, including development influenced by players who play other sports
-- some sort of "personality modeling" for interaction between players & coaches, including a "local politics" rating (to account for those nasty battles with principals & school boards which are often the cause of coaching changes)
-- AI coaches, head & assistant, must be rated for their "personal priorities"; i.e. whether they'll job hop up the ladder or if they're looking for a location to stay for a lifetime. Other common factor in HS football coaching changes appear to be geography (either moving closer to their alma mater/original home area or in certain age groups to be closer to their aging parents) and lifestyle (inner city/metro coaches moving to more rural locations because of their own school-age children).
-- Coaching movement must also find some way to at least attempt to account for the variation from state to state in the success/failure rate when coaches change states. For example, very few head coaches have moved into Georgia from other states & been as successful here for whatever reason, other states results are almost certain to vary.
-- a wide variety of offensive sets available
-- option to call your own plays (as so many HS head coaches still do)
-- at least an option to do something with getting your graduating players signed with various colleges
-- ultimately, it would need real teams/locations and structures (given the differences in 50 states that might be the most challenging thing to get right of all), and they would need to be user editable (since those alignments change at least as often as every two years in some states)

And that's just off the top of my head. I'd absolutely love to see something that could do all this but I'd be lying if I said I ever expected it to happen to a satisfactory degree.

Note: A couple of things have been added to the list since it was first posted.

[BYU 14]

I can't see there being a good highschool football PC game. Without any element of recruiting (college) or drafting (pros), I just can't see how one would actively "build" a program.

Without that component, I just don't see the game being all that fun.

Trust me, some high school coaches recruit as well as a lot of College programs ;)

That said it would be hard to really put a game of that scope together, because like HB said, you would want it to be part of a larger scale.

One thing I could see working for this format is a WWSM manager type database style, where you could enable the pros, D-1 colleges, then have the option to activate one or more states and have all the High Schools in that state as coachable.

Probably a better option would be to just incorporate an all-in-one game, again WWSM style, that let you select coachable teams that would include the NFL, D1, D1AA, D2 and D3 college levels, it would have to include recruiting from High Schools and JC programs and have spring ball :)

[Honolulu_Blue]

There actually is an element of recruiting in high school ball. Nothing as formal as college, but it's there.

But look at it in reverse. You build your program by turning it into a pipeline to Division 1 schools. Players go to your school because you hook up running backs in the Big 10 with regularity, say.

I don't think that's nearly enough of an element of recruiting to make it all that interesting. Sure, you can build your program into a pipeline to Division 1 schools, but you still have very little in the way of choice or influence when it comes to who you recruit.

Aren't there rules against recruiting in highschool? I know it happens to some extent, families may move to be in a different school district with a good program, some kid may "live" with his aunt or grandparents, some private schools attract better athletes than others, but I still think the whole process, reverse or otherwise, would be too limited to actually feel like you're building a team/program.

[Pumpy Tudors]

silent reacharounds in the locker room

[TazFTW]

Friday Night Lights: The RPG

[Young Drachma]

It'd be doable as part of a game that included at least college, but maybe the pros as well. OOTP has high school and college, though not in a linear way necessarily and I haven't yet been able to immerse myself to want to follow a player from high school to the pros. I think you have to have a structure in place that makes wanting to do that interesting. Otherwise, it would just be a gaping hole with too much that can go wrong in terms of stuff missing.

The FM/WWSM reference seems to work best. Something with a robust engine that works smoothly could surely pull it off.

[BYU 14]

Dola - Jon's suggestion for local "politics" involving school boards and parents in spot on......Also to that add your schools other Coaches who fill your athletes with BS like "No, play hoops all year round and I will get you a college schollie, np" need to come into play....BTW, I have never enountered that type of rhetoric before, just throwing wild ideas out there...:rolleyes:

[SackAttack]

Well, one would assume with tryouts that it would be a form of drafting... and tying in to SackAttack's idea, your high school could get known for certain types of players, etc, which would increase the probability of higher quality versions of that type of player showing up in tryouts.

Wm. S. Hart, for example, had a run of 12-13 years as the producer of the CIF All-State 1st Team QB. They've turned out good players all over the place, but nothing as consistently as quarterback.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Aren't there rules against recruiting in highschool?

Not within your own school there isn't. And that's probably where the "recruiting" aspect of a HS game would have to focus, on the challenge of getting the best athletes to stop walking the halls & get them on the field.

Especially at smaller schools that aren't traditional powerhouses in their classification, the biggest challenge for HS coaches is finding the kids willing to put in the work and keeping them motivated to do so both on the field & in the classroom. And in some places, competing with basketball/track /baseball/all other activities for their time & attention. More than once I've heard phrases like "his starting backfield is hanging out in the back parking lot every afternoon" and "his best RB thinks he's a point guard". That's where the "recruiting" comes into play.

edit to add: I see BYU14 was posting while I was typing ;)

[SackAttack]

I don't think that's nearly enough of an element of recruiting to make it all that interesting. Sure, you can build your program into a pipeline to Division 1 schools, but you still have very little in the way of choice or influence when it comes to who you recruit.

Aren't there rules against recruiting in highschool? I know it happens to some extent, families may move to be in a different school district with a good program, some kid may "live" with his aunt or grandparents, some private schools attract better athletes than others, but I still think the whole process, reverse or otherwise, would be too limited to actually feel like you're building a team/program.

Well, like I say, it's kind of reverse recruiting.

Private schools (at least in CA) do enjoy some advantages that public schools don't, but another part of it is if a kid with college/pro prospects is ready to hit high school, some parents WILL take that kid school shopping. They'll go look around and find the school where he's got the best chance to play right away and the school with the best facilities and so on and so forth.

It isn't anything as formal as Pete Carroll visiting a recruit's home, but it's not as simple as "live here, go there" either.

[Young Drachma]

Violations like school districts offering kids parents a house in the new town if their kid plays for them. Hell, that happened in tennis for godsakes in my county.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Private schools (at least in CA) do enjoy some advantages that public schools don't, but another part of it is if a kid with college/pro prospects is ready to hit high school, some parents WILL take that kid school shopping.

Just to expand on this point, it seems to be a little different sort of recruiting private vs public here in Georgia. The most common form of that kind of thing is when you lose several players that would have been your top backups so that they can become starters as the (typically) smaller private schools nearby. If I had to guess, I'd say probably half the private schools here have at least a couple of starters each year that were transfers because of that scenario. And while they aren't D1 prospects, they could be your nickel back or your future key backup at a position where the starters are injury prone or disciplinary problems. And if you're the coach, that's an issue to deal with.

The other point this highlights is what I was saying earlier about the variety of situations from state to state, something that I really don't think could be overlooked by a game that hits the mark.

[Izulde]

I know this wouldn't be realistic from a realism standpoint, but might make fun from a gameplay standpoint.... Starting off at say, a lower-division high school in your state (for example, say Division 6 or 7 here in Wisconsin) and working your way up the divisional ranks?

Or would that be silly?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Or would that be silly?

It is, and it isn't.

Crap, work is demanding my attention, I'll come back & edit this in a bit.

[BrianD]

For some reason I get the feeling that we are talking about The Sims: High School Football.

[Synovia]

Not within your own school there isn't. And that's probably where the "recruiting" aspect of a HS game would have to focus, on the challenge of getting the best athletes to stop walking the halls & get them on the field.



I could see tryouts being just as intruiging as the Draft in the NFL/FoF2k7. Do you take the kid who is a little faster but played soccer in middle school, or do you take the kid who is already a player? Skills over physical ability?

[NoMyths]

I'd enjoy seeing a high-school football sim as well, and can imagine several aspects which would have depth.

[BYU 14]

Violations like school districts offering kids parents a house in the new town if their kid plays for them. Hell, that happened in tennis for godsakes in my county.

In Arizona now there is a winter league after the High School season that allows Freshmen and young sophmores to play, as well as 7th and 8th graders. We have kids playing who tell us that coaches from other High schools are out there talking to kids in our boundaries as well as our freshmen about going to their schools.

As it is open enrollment here the 8th graders can go anywhere they want, but kids already enrolled would have to sit a year. To avoid this kids have mentioned "insinuations" that they could probably find an "address" in the boundaries of the school. Now granted it is never the head varsity coach doing this, usually a freshman coach or even a parent on the team whose kid already goes to the other school, which allows the school and head coach an out if anyone say anything.

Since kids like attention and some Dads like it even more, this has an impact on incoming freshmen and forces us to go to these games basically to protect our incoming kids and show that we love them too. It really gets kind of rediculous sometimes, but it is what it is.

I guess my whole point is, there is plenty of "recruiting/dirty play" you could incoporate into a high school sim, just can't see this game being done on a large scale, as in you can coach at any high school in the country.

[st.cronin]

I would be all over the game JimGa described in post #5.

[Passacaglia]

I think what would make a high school football game interesting is that you have to literally 'build' your team. Players probably wouldn't have positions yet (well, they might, but those positions wouldn't be set in stone), and you have to decide who plays where, how many kids play both offense and defense, etc.

[cartman]

I think the main focus would have to be around player development. For the most part, the talent distribution is for the most part equal among same sized schools. At the HS level, coaching is the main differentiator. Southlake Carroll in Texas is a perfect example of this. Their players aren't any bigger, faster, more athletic or smarter than the other school's players. It is the coaching and their system philosophy that are the keys. That's kind of hard to translate into a computer game universe.

[Sgran]

I don't see it. Not as a pure simulation. The level of play is simply too low. It would have to have something innovative, preferably graphically, but it's hard to think of something unique to the HS level that you couldn't incorporate into a larger game. There's almost more potential in a high school cheerleader sim.

[st.cronin]

I think what would make a high school football game interesting is that you have to literally 'build' your team. Players probably wouldn't have positions yet (well, they might, but those positions wouldn't be set in stone), and you have to decide who plays where, how many kids play both offense and defense, etc.

I like this idea.

[Cuckoo]

I like this idea.

In addition, players could change to a significant degree from one year to the next. The chubby defensive lineman lost a lot of weight and is no longer the run-stopper he used to be. What do you do with him? The smallish sophomore DB hit the weight room hard in the summer and went through a growth spurt. He's suddenly linebacker material. I think there's a wealth of role-playing opportunities without losing the strategy/management aspect of football.

I've liked the idea of a high school game for some time now. The problems with marketing are likely the reason nobody has tried it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The problems with marketing are likely the reason nobody has tried it.

Then again, there are tabletop sports games for events that have less of a market such as tractor pulls & pro lacrosse so in that respect it isn't that far out of the imagination either.

The problem with this vs those seems to be that the scale of the game would make it impossible to handle without being on p.c. instead of the tabletop. The amount of time involved plus the niche of the market makes me think it would have to fall into the category of labor of love because it would be hard to imagine it being profitable for a for-profit development company (if it were to hypothetically ever happen).

[wishbone]

A successful high school football game would have to revolve around several areas.

Player Development - As the coach, you would need to take a group of players and decide what positions they play. You could base this on size, strength, attitude, intelligence, field smarts, desire, parental/political concerns and other factors. A coach could have a number of action points that allow him to work with players, he may have to use these to attend workshops that allow him to learn/teach different techniques. All players could have a list of known techniques similar to the list of known formations on FOF and a coach could teach them additional that would increase their skill. Attending workshops builds the coaches reputation and can help job security but if you get canned, there is always a school in another state that will hire you.

Scheming - High schools run everything on offense and defense. Wishbone, single-wing, run 'n' shoot, spread, 3-4, 5-2, 4-4, 7-1, whatever. The game should let you create and run it all. Half of the game or more should be about matching schemes to players or players to schemes. I would put a hidden rating in there for all players about what their ideal role is and then match that to the formation where each position has an ideal role. If the roles (and formation?) match, the player is more likely to dominate.

Volatility - Each year would be a new start. Players would quit, get hurt, transfer, move at a much higher rate than college or pro games. Incoming players would rarely help and may not even develop. Late bloomers would be common, players would come out of nowhere fromone year to the next. I assume that in a roster of 60 players, 25 would be new each year and the coach has very little control over that. There may be more oppurtunities to recruit unscrupulously, but you would run the risk of getting fired and starting over in another state. A high school game could have clique based chemistry, a preppy kid may get a stoner expelled from school or a geeky kid with QB potential may quit after getting bullied by some jocks.


I can see a lot of fun in here if done right, but those of us that thought TCY was tedious, the game would be a nightmare.

[Icy]

I see it into another game, starting from high school to pros, but as standalone game... as other have said, no draft/fas and no recruiting could make it a bit boring.

[JonInMiddleGA]

no draft/fas and no recruiting could make it a bit boring.

Not for those who enjoy HS football (which presumably would be the core audience).

[NoMyths]

Oh, there'd still be a draft...of sorts. Every year you'd get what, 20-50+ freshman kids who figure they'll give football a shot but aren't sure what position they'll play? The unique selling point of a HS sim is you'll be slotting athletes with positions rather than drafting positions for needs -- just because a kid comes in thinking he's a WR doesn't mean he isn't a D1 quality CB. My sense is that a successful sim will focus on the things that are unique to the HS game, and that would certainly be one of them.

[bhlloy]

Passacaglia and JimGa have nailed it. The idea of having a pool of x number of average kids, and trying to make a reasonable team out of them would be a pretty cool game IMO. For example, what do you do with the short skinny kid who is ridiculously fast, or the fat kid who won't get in shape but is the only kid who has lineman size? You have one D1 kid in terms of talent and size, but where do you play him to maximize his impact on your team?

It would have to have a completely different emphasis than an NFL/college game, but if the interactions were done right along with a solid, flexible game engine (wishbone made some great points about this) and a good, goal based career mode, I think it would be a really, really fun game to play. Would it sell a ton, prolly not. But on this board, I think it would be the stuff of legend.

[BishopMVP]

I don't know how VPI's doing, but he was at least thinking about developing something along these lines http://www.ebmsports.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=678d27ac85987202691b9b17d177050d

[VPI97]

I don't know how VPI's doing, but he was at least thinking about developing something along these lines http://www.ebmsports.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=678d27ac85987202691b9b17d177050d
The high school portion is still a long way off, though. Right now, I'm about 50-60% done with the coding of the pro module...after that will be a period of support for the pro release before I start on the college module. After that's released (and supported) comes the high school module.

I will say, though, that aside from playcalling, the stuff that Jon and wishbone posted in this thread pretty much matches what I've been thinking when it comes to implementing the high school module.

[stevew]

second the whole thing about "recruiting" being more about working within the resources you already have available, and less in getting players from other sources. Gotta get the players to buy into the system, and into their roles. Keeping the kids in offseason training. Also, as a HC developing pipelines to colleges for scholarships would have to be a big thing. Even if it isn't division one schools. You'd have a better chance of getting a kid to buy into your system, maybe quitting another sport, if you had a good chance at placing him at a local div 3 school for a partial scholarship.

In the lower level small school, you'd have to somehow work on the gamebreaker aspect quite a bit. A lot of times 1 or 2 players(esp at RB) can carry a team far into the playoffs.