Ping: cricket fans & text sim fans

[AlexB]

In March Cricket Coach was released before it was really ready, but the developers at the time promised to release regular updates and improvements free of charge for a prolonged period. Yeah right, I thought.

But guess what - they lived up to their promise. I couldn't justify the purchase of the game at first, but after seeing how they've improved it, and released the promised updates regularly, I have now bought it - it's fun, and is a decent representation of a game of cricket.

It's not perfect yet, but I do believe they will keep releasing the updates, but to do this I imagine they need to see regular sales and feedback.

The game is of a similar feel to CM2, probably not quite as advanced as that game, but for cricket this is the best out there, and, as I've said, it is constantly improving.

You can download a two day demo (if you look in the forums you will find a link to the latest 1.62 beta demo, which will become the official demo by all accounts in a couple of days) which is the second version of the latest gen.

Give it a look - Cricket Coach is a decent game now and the developers are very open to suggestion and opinions: and from the numbers on the forums I think they could really use some extra support.

http://www.cricketcoachgame.com/?section=news

[Oilers9911]

I owned the first one. Michael Vaughan Cricket and it was ok but not great. How has this verison improved?

[SirFozzie]

Cool I'll take a look see tonight

[AlexB]

I owned the first one. Michael Vaughan Cricket and it was ok but not great. How has this verison improved?

Haven't got a clue tbh! Never owned MVC. The only cricket games that I've got anything from are Test Match on the Spectrum :), ICC for a little bit (until the complete lack of knowledge of the skills of your players really pissed me off!) and Brian Lara cricket.

As I say, this is far from perfect, but the improvement in four months is amazing, and I get the feeling if given enough sales to have a run of a year or two this could be the FM of the cricket sim market, which, lets face it, is pretty much non-existent.

[Crapshoot]

Haven't got a clue tbh! Never owned MVC. The only cricket games that I've got anything from are Test Match on the Spectrum :), ICC for a little bit (until the complete lack of knowledge of the skills of your players really pissed me off!) and Brian Lara cricket.

As I say, this is far from perfect, but the improvement in four months is amazing, and I get the feeling if given enough sales to have a run of a year or two this could be the FM of the cricket sim market, which, lets face it, is pretty much non-existent.

You know, I've never gotten into cricket as a sim thing (its much more in an arcade way, though I suck at the EA sports games) - but it might be worth a shot. I don't follow the English counties too well, but how does the system work there with regards to transfers ? I know there are only two overseas players allowed and what not - and a bunch of random junk like that, but not much more.

[SirFozzie]

There are no transfers from team to team.. only bidding on Free Agents.

Also, there is what's known as "National Team Contracts". Where the National team pays the salary and assigns him to a team (1 or 2 to a team, but as you can probably guess, they get first dibs on him)

[AlexB]

There are no transfers from team to team.. only bidding on Free Agents.

Also, there is what's known as "National Team Contracts". Where the National team pays the salary and assigns him to a team (1 or 2 to a team, but as you can probably guess, they get first dibs on him)

What I should have added when I said that it was a decent representation of a cricket game is that I was talking about the match engine. The management side (rosters, finance, etc) and the GUI (accessibility of information) need a bit more work.

The former needs more - the fact that there are no transfers makes it easier for CC, but the AI, especially in terms of the players decisions as to a good/bad move for their career, could be better. For the latter the information is already all there, they just need to make it available in one or two clicks instead of four or five.

The main reason why I am keen on this game is the match engine: IMHO I would have thought it was harder to get this right than the management and GUI - by getting the match engine good initially, and their updating of the game already, I am extrememely hopeful the two (in my mind) more simple areas can be tweaked.

[Marc Vaughan]

I think Cricket Coach has got real potential and deserves support .... the chaps behind it are definitely passionate about it and determined to continue improving it.

(and no SI aren't even going to vaguely consider doing a cricket sim in the near future before anyone asks)

[scooter]

Oh, but to add a couple developers to the SI fold that are passionate about the sport and the game they are working on. . . ;)

[tanglewood]

(and no SI aren't even going to vaguely consider doing a cricket sim in the near future before anyone asks)

:( This has been my big hope for the last 3 or 4 years.


I have bought in total 3 versions of ICC (latest one being 2005) and played all of them to death. Not because its anygood either, cause they are crap, but simply because there is nothing else out there at all. I've even strongly considered writing my own cricket sim on at least two occasions, even though I ave absolutely no programming knowledge whatsoever. I downloaded the demo of Cricket Coach a few months ago but it kept crashing on start up so I didn't bother with it again. Might try it out now though.

[path12]

How easy would it be to get into for someone who knows nothing about the game?

[AlexB]

Fairly easy I would say: although having said that I took one look at PureSim and just thought 'WTF?', which may be the equivalent English-US baseball/cricket reaction! I would say the main area in which you need more info would be how weather and pitch conditions are likely to benefit/attract from bowling styles.

I really like the way these seem to be modelled in the game: I just played a match on a great batting track, with fine weather for the first three days, but the forecast was the final day would become overcast. So I selected an extra batsmen.

Unfortunately I lost the toss and the opposition selected to bat, but we got them out for 380 odd at the very end of the day which given favourable batting conditions was a decent result. We got 630ish/6 in a day and two thirds under similar good batting conditions, and then as the weather deteriorateed over he last day bowled them out for another 380 odd after purely attacking for an entire day (we were in no danger of losing), and the majority fell in the last day where the weather was poor.

So we had a session and a half to get around about 150 - with the weather lots worse than for the previous days, I only just got there with 5 overs left and no recognised batsmen left to come in other than those at the crease.

So the weather and pitch deterioration (it had more turn at the end of the game), and no doubt pressure of the run chase had made a difference of about 500 runs from my 1st to 2nd innings - things like this are why I think this game has a chance.

I have found so far that the the biggest difference maker in the game is to select the right bowlers according to the weather conditions, and let them use the conditions to their advantage instead of necessarily trying to force something, and you have a good chance of getting wickets.

As a very general overview, cloudy or overcast helps medium paced bowlers, and hot conditions help faster bowlers. The more turn a pitch has, the more effective spinners (which includes chinaman and [I would imagine] slow left arm bowlers). The more favourable the pitch/weather to the bowlers, the more cautious you should be with the batting. And in conditions that really are tailor-made for a certain type of bowler, don't be afraid to select a bowler that is maybe not as naturally skilled as another player of a different style: the conditions can make a supposedly lesser bowler far more effective than a superior player who is hindered by the pitch or elements.

Similarly, if you have a period of favourable weather/pitch conditions, once your batsmen get more settled, up the aggression to get runs on the board quickly, which will give you more time to bowl the opposition out. However, at the same time you run more of a risk of playing a poor shot in chasing extra runs, which means you are more likely to lose a wicket...

The decision at any one time is how hard to push your batsmen/bowlers.

There are a number of different styles of match, each of which has a rules page that explains the format, so that should help. The demo is free, only 9MB, and you have two full days to play the full game, so just download it and see how you get on!

[path12]

There are a number of different styles of match, each of which has a rules page that explains the format, so that should help. The demo is free, only 9MB, and you have two full days to play the full game, so just download it and see how you get on!

Thanks! I think I'll give it a shot, even though I must confess I didn't understand what the hell you were talking about in the least.... :D

[Critch]

(and no SI aren't even going to vaguely consider doing a cricket sim in the near future before anyone asks)

Not until after the formula one and the rugby union games then?