The Regen3 Project (A football game development diary)

[GoldenCrest Games]

Coaches have been installed, teams have been created, players have been generated, and we’re ready to go!

Season 2.5 is officially ready for draft day!

As before, here’s how it fits in the grand strategy, and what we’re looking for in Ex2.5:

What’s already implemented that needs to be tested:

• Coaching AI: I need to see if the coaches can really track the relative success of their plays and adjust accordingly. I’m purposely having every coach use the same playbook, with plays that won’t fit their style, to see if they start calling those plays less often.
• Draft AI: I think I have a decent system created. Let’s see how it works out
• CPU-vs-CPU games: I’m only going to coach the Greens. Let’s see how the CPU teams do against each other.
• Overall engine stability: I need to make sure the engine plays a good game of football, even with the new players. (this one makes me a little nervous)
• Player Ratings Limits: I think I have a good feel for the top and bottom limits for speed/strength. I just need to be sure it’s finalized before moving out of the Exhibition Season.

What I’d like to finish/implement during Ex2.5:

• Basic animations (catching, throwing, tackles, etc.)
• League structure (in-game schedules and results, standings, stat sheet, etc)
• Full-week sims (without me managing it)
• Work on optimizing the engine for performance (I can only sim 2 games at the same time before it bogs down. I’d like to get to 4.)
• Save/load optimization (it takes forever to save and load everything)

I’ve also added a few new teams. Now we’re up to 10 teams! We’re going to play/sim by week this time, instead of just doing all the Greens games in a row, before moving on to the next team. Here are your Ex2.5 teams:



With a random draft order, the Greens have the #3 overall pick in the draft. Our nemesis, The Purples, grabbed the top pick. 🙁

Since the AI is picking for all the other teams, I’ll only be able to recap my picks. Prior to each week I’ll make some notes of what the team I’m playing looks like.

This is a 9 week season, with the top 4 teams making the postseason. I’ll limit any engine updates to 3 days of programming time, to keep things moving.

Hopefully, at the end of this season we’ll be ready to move into the Regular Season!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Funny thing happened during a test draft.

After the first round I started noticing that the AI was taking players that weren't even on the top 20 overall rating list. I got a little nervous about my player value formulas, but I just stated snapping up all the skill left on the board. I just wanted to see how badly I could pwn the AI.

Then, around round 7, it hit me. The AI was snapping up all the speed.

Ugh.

By the end of the draft, my fastest player was rated 70 (now speed is out of 100) I guess I was the one who got pwned!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Draft time!

This looks like a pass-heavy draft. Good top-end talent at WR and QB, but not much at CB or DL. The special teams looks pretty deep, too.

Urquhart comes in as the 10th ranked player overall. Other than kick returning, he has a 67 LB and 58 WR skillset. Not bad! I'm not worried about the Purples taking him #1 overall, but it makes me a little nervous that he won't make it past the 14 picks between me and my 2nd rounder. There are other KR in the pool with better positional skills that I should consider with the 1st rounder. There's also a 100 WR 99 CB with 98 speed (Carl Cornett) that's the 2nd overall player. I'm really hoping he falls to me at #3!

Anyway, here we go!

....aaaaaand Cornett goes to the Oranges at #2. 🙁

My pick. It's way too early for Urquhart, but he's probably not going to make it back to me in the 2nd. I can't take him here. I'll take WR(90) LB(87) S(88) K(93) Lonny Mincey. I've learned my lesson about taking 1-dimensional players.

Round 2: And Urquhart goes to the Blues 2 picks before my 2nd rounder. 🙁 All the elite speed is getting snapped up! I wanted to get a QB here, but I can't afford to go into the season without speed, so I grab WR (98) Scottie Bachman. With only 80 speed, he's one of the fastest guys left on the board.

Round 3: ok, I promise this is my last 1-dimensional player! I need a QB or my first 2 picks were worthless. Luckily, the QB position has been neglected while everyone is grabbing fast players. I get QB (95) Darin Phelan.

Round 4: I'd rather play my 1st rounder Mincey at LB than S. Seems like he can make more of an impact there. There's a little talent left at S, and none at LB so it makes sense. Sean Walling RB(75) S(84).

Round 5: I might have missed the boat on most of the other defensive players. There's skill, but they are all slow as hell. 🙁 I'll just sell out on offense then! OL (95) Micah Irvin

Round 6: KR(89) CB(74) Bradley Lucier. If I've learned anything about this game, it's that you need a serviceable KR or you're in trouble. 72 speed won't set the world on fire, but he'll do well enough.

Round 7: OL (82) Carlo Asbury. My passing game is going to be everything for this team. I can't afford to have weak protection.

Round 8: Now I'm just filling holes. I took too many 1-dimensional players again. 🙁 WR(71) CB(72) Arnoldo Paschall

Round 9: OL(78) Donnell Escamilla

Round 10: DL(73) Jonah Riddell

Round 11: DL(65) Carmelo Chalmers

Round 12: ST(44) Barrett Sipe (yuck)

[GoldenCrest Games]

Here's how the Greens shaped up:

I wasn't ready for the run on speed. My top 2 WRs have speed of 80 and 79, and my RB runs a 77. This is really going to put the 'skilled WR' updates to the game engine to the test. If I can't put together a passing attack, I have nothing. Which brings us to the next point...

I wasn't ready for the AI to value special teams. My top special teams coverage guy is 56...and it drops off quickly after that. This is so unlike Greens teams of the past. I can usually count on my special teams to dominate. I might have the worst in the league now. I do, however, have an elite kicker!

My defense might actually end up being serviceable! My DL is pretty bad (73 and 65) but my LB is elite and my S is pretty nice. My CBs are slow but that just means I'll play a lot of zone. I think I have the LB and S talent to do it regularly without giving up huge pass plays.

Overall, this is not a normal team for me. It's going to be interesting to see how the season shapes up, and if I can find a way to make it work.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Just killed the most epic bug EVER!!!!

I was holding off on playing Ex2.5 games to finally squash a bug that's been in the engine since day 1. It comes and goes, but it's always bothered me. Basically, once or twice a game, a pass would all of a sudden warp in mid-air and end up being an incompletion for no reason. Even if your guy was wide open, the ball would suddenly warp to a position (usually backwards) but keep its trajectory and miss the WR.

It only happened a few times a game at most, but sometimes you'd go 2 or 3 games without seeing it. It was infuriating.

I spent more than 10 hours tracking this single bug over the last 2 days, and I finally got it.

The problem was this:

• I have the QB as the parent of the ball object until a receiver/defender catches it. It's the same way I manage the ball on kicks/punts, too. (Problem has never shown up there)
• When another player catches the ball, it switches its parent to the player.
• The bug happens only when the ball is in flight, before the parent is switching. It's triggered when a defender's collider overlaps with the QB's collider, while the ball is in the air. (Note: Colliders aren't supposed to overlap at all. They are supposed to bounce off eachother. Sometimes they briefly overlap if the physics system doesn't keep up with the movement, though)

It won't happen any other time, but it happens 100% of the time in this very specific situation.

My best guess is that the collider conflict causes a problem with the ball's positioning, because the ball is still parented to the QB when it happens. (and is being controlled by physics at the moment) If I parent the ball to the game at the moment the QB throws the ball, the overlap problem disappears!

That's pretty satisfying.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Planning on running the first week tomorrow, so I'm using the time today to make a few more engine adjustments:

• QB Scrambling decision-making timer is now based off the scramble tendency, instead of the QB skill. This makes scramblers really good at running, but not necessarily good at throwing. Just a differentiation in skill sets.
• Major update to open field running. Runners should avoid free defenders a little better now and look a lot smoother in their running.
• Made CB pass knockdowns a little more meaningful. Now it's not just coverage skills that matter. (help out slow elite-skill defenders)
• Add a "Pass Confidence" system to the QB. Now great QB/WR combos will attempt to connect in smaller pass windows than normal ones. The basic idea is the QB 'trusts' the WR more and takes chances. Plus he'll throw into coverage if they have high confidence.

I think I fixed/updated the engine enough to have a really meaningful start to the season. I want to keep stats this season, so I'm really pushing to have the engine tightened up as much as possible.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Week 1!


The Purples are special teams focused. They completely locked down my returns and broke a couple of their own, but it wasn't enough. Our passing game dominated the Purples.

Having a superstar QB (Darin Phelan) really makes a difference. He gets the ball in all kinds of tight windows, which is great because my WRs aren't very fast. I might have had 1 play for 20ish yards. Everything else was in the 5-10 yard range. It was a lot of catching the ball in traffic, and then getting tackled immediately. I tried running the ball, but that usually ended in a tackle for loss.

On defense, the Purples should have tried to run the ball more. I stopped the passing game by going to a strict zone policy. Any time I ran a man defense, my CBs got beat for a big gain. Once I committed to the zone, I bottled them up. It will be interesting to see if the Purples coach shifts strategy as the season goes on.

Overall I was happy with the game. No additional bugs made it on to the list, and I can't see any engine adjustments I need for next game. I'll use the time to update some interface stuff.

Now, the league leaders!
Passing: Greens Phelan is leading with 385 yds and 6 TD. The Yellows QB Vanburskirk is 2nd with 223 and 4td.
Rushing: The Reds Duine Artis is dominating with 150 yds and 2 TD. The next closest RB only has 30 yds!
Receiving: Yellows WR Amerson is leading with 216yds on 13 receptions. It's pretty clear the Yellows are a 1-WR offense. I'll have to watch out for that. My QB Phelan used all 3 of his WRs, so my top guy is #3 with 147yds. All 3 of my WRs are in the top 7, though.
Sacks: Oranges Lavern Holloman leads the league with 6 sacks! Yikes! Funny note, Urquhart is #2 with 4 sacks!
Returning: Urquhart leads the league in returning with 1 kick return TD and 1 punt return TD.
FG: Yellows WR/K Amerson leads the league with 3 FG. He's 3/7, so that's concerning. The Silvers are also 1/5 on FG. If accuracy doesn't get a little better, it might be worth looking into. This wasn't a great kicking draft, though.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Engine updates from week 1:

• Changed the playcalling screen to get rid of page 2. It was annoying to have to look through 2 pages to call plays. To compensate, I upped the number of plays on page 1 from 20 to 25. So far it seems to be an ok number.
• Added missed tackle, got tackled, and throwing animations. Man, they look terrible. The got tackled animation looks like the player got shot. It's a start, though.

I was going to take another day of development before Week 2, but I'm going to tackle a pretty big feature so I need a little more time to plan it all out. Might as well do week 2 then!



We took on the mighty Yellows, and barely escaped with a 3 point victory. We might have lost if there was more time on the clock, because the Yellows just got the ball back. I got a good look at the Yellows Amerson, who is actually their RB instead of WR. He racks up all those receiving yards because the Yellows call a LOT of swing passes and screens. He's so fast that most of them turn into huge gains. I had to go to a max zone (essentially prevent defense) to try and slow him down. You can tell by the score that I wasn't able to.

My passing attack is still unstoppable. I'm now exclusively running a 3WR set, and exploiting the WR3 mismatch. He's usually lined up with a LB or the S. My QB is so accurate that I just need a little space and it's going to be a completion.

Now the leaders!:
Passing: Greens Phelan and Yellows Vanbuskirk are still in the lead with 792 and 621 yards. The next closest guy has 418, so I don't see anyone overtaking them.
Rushing: The Reds Artis leads with 169 yds with the Pinks Catron behind with 108. Oddly enough, my RB Walling is 3rd! We can't run to save our lives, so that's a surprise.
Receiving: Yellows RB Amerson is dominating with 534 yds and 10 TD. The Blues Bahr is 2nd with 393 and 8 TD with the Greens Bachman in 3rd with 355 and 6 TD.
Sacks: Oranges Holloman is still leading with 7. Urquhart got another one and is at 5 now.
Returning: There are 3 guys with 4 KR/PR TDs. Urquhart, the Purples Samuels, and the Oranges Cornett. Urquhart is still the only player in the league with a punt return for TD

[GoldenCrest Games]

Week 3:


Ugh, we got smoked. Urquhart even took one to the house on us.

This game exposed a couple things about the game engine, so I guess there's a silver lining. The Blues have dialed in on the plays that work for them, and they called those plays a LOT. The Blues probably called some form of a RB swing pass at least 80% of the time. Of those, at least 80% of them went for more than 10 yards. It was unstoppable.

As the game wore on, and I threw every defense I could think of at them, I started noticing that there's a problem with zone defense. It's small, but it's causing the swing pass to be nearly unbeatable. The defenders are not passing off players that run through their zone quickly enough. Most of the time, that leads to a CB/OLB who gets sucked inside a little too much and the swing pass has nothing but open field to look at. If you have a decent RB, you're going to turn that into 73 points.

That's something that can be fixed, though.

On to the leaders!
Passing: The Yellows Vanbuskirk falls to 4th! Our QB Phelan still leads with 1099 yds and 19 TD with the Blues Goldberg in 2nd with 979 yds and 17TD.
Rushing: League leader is the Reds Artis with 174 yds. Ok, that's not what we want. It looks like I'm going to have to spend some time working on the running game to make it a realistic option.
Receiving: Blues RB Bahr leads with 736 yds and 15 TD. The next closest receiver has 582 yds, so he could be running away with it.
Sacks: Urquhart is now leading the league with 9 sacks. Yeah, he got me last game.
Returns: Urquhart is tied with the Oranges Cornett with 5 return TDs.

[GoldenCrest Games]

I had a great idea for running plays and I got too excited and took the afternoon off from work to implement it!

I do that a lot more than you'd think.

I found 2 things that are hurting the running game:
1. I don't have a handoff animation yet so the RB is starting with the ball at snap. That's not letting the blocking develop enough, and the defense is getting to the RB too easily.
2. Defenders are getting around blocks too easily. (DL speed is still a problem)

I fixed #2 easily because I found a bug in the blocking system. There were a lot of situations where the blocking system was actually making DL faster.

For #1, I implemented a "route delay" system. Now, for any play that requires a route. (pass route, run route, block route, blitz) you can specify a part of the route where the player pauses. You can also define how long the pause it. The big benefit of this is that I can have the RB wait a quarter-second before running, and let the blocking develop. I'm also going to use it on pass plays to have late-progression WRs leak into the pattern after other WRs clear out.

So far, these 2 seem to be working really well. Instead of getting blown out by the Blues because of the swing pass, they blew me out with the running game.

I'll let it play out for a couple weeks before tinkering with it again.

I'm working on zone defense right now, and I think this problem is coming down to crappy play design. I have my zones set larger than they need to be, which might be causing the problem. I'll have to do some refinement of the plays and see where we're at.

Other than those things, I just tightened up some of the decision making timers to make player seem less dumb. So far it feels like I'm getting a better game. We'll see if it holds up through the season.

Next big feature: Either the stats/leaders screen or the standings/schedule screen. It really depends on which one I get inspiration for first.

[GoldenCrest Games]

We're comin'!


We had a good one against the Cyans this week. They have incredible speed at WR, so it was a little bit of a shootout. Luckily for me, their QB isn't as good as mine, so there were a few overthrows in critical situations. Once, it led to an interception that we brought back for TD!

I was pretty happy with the updates to the engine overall, but it looks like the defense AI still needs an upgrade. It looks like the defense is working as I intended, but it's always a step behind. I added the decision making timer into defensive coverage because the passing game was nonexistent early on in development. The slight delay in reaction time for the defense helped get us out of that funk. However, now that the passing game has developed to this point, I'm not sure the timer is needed anymore. I'll have to play around with it and see what makes sense. It's not horrible the way it is right now, but it could be better.

I also noticed an issue with gravity that needed immediate attention. (long-form post on that coming) I got that sorted out, but it exposed a critical design issues that I need to wrestle with before release.

Now the leaders!
Passing: Greens Phelan is leading with 1222 yds, with the Blues Goldberg right behind with 1098. The Yellows Vanbuskirk has fallen to 6th, so he's probably out. Funny enough, the Purples Vanderpool is last among starters with 154 yds?
Rushing: My RB Walling leads with 199 yds with the Reds Artis 2nd with 186. This is still not right. The Reds have only rushed 39 times this season, so that looks like the problem. (4.7 yds avg) ...... oh crap, I just realized that a 4.7 yard run is not considered a "successful run" and would tell the coach not to run the play as often, which leads to less overall running. duh...
Receiving: Blues Bahr is dominating with 794 yds and 16 TD. Avocados make an appearance on the charts with Kibler taking 2nd with 642 yds! My top WR is 5th.
Sacks: Urquhart is dominating now with 18 sacks from the LB position. yikes! I bet they are blitzing every play now. That play was killing me.
Returns: Oranges Cornett (that superstar WR/CB I wanted) leads everyone with 10 KR/PR TDs. Urquhart has 8.
Kicking: Yellows are killing it with 12/19 on FGs. Fixing the gravity problem is really helping FG accuracy.

[GoldenCrest Games]

A funny thing happened during my game against the Cyans. I lined up for a punt, and kicked the ball. The ball sailed up as normal, but then all of a sudden it darted back to the ground as if it got yanked by an invisible chain!

???

As I started digging into it, I noticed that it only happened when I was playing my game at the same time as I was running multiple games in the background. I thought it was weird because there’s nothing special about running 1 game in the background, or 10 games in the background. It’s all the same as the game I’m currently playing. In fact, they even use the exact same calculations engine and physic-…….oh crap.

Every game is changing gravity each time the ball is in the air.

Remember way back when I was having a hard time with getting the ball flight to look right? I fixed it by specifying the height and speed of the ball, but I allowed the gravity to be changed to get the ball to land at the right spot. The end result is a really nice looking ball path. The downside is that gravity is changed every time there’s a ball in the air, and that means every other game with a ball in the air is affected.

Ugh!!!

I can solve that 2 ways:

I can fix gravity, and not let it change. It’s not hard to do, but the ball flight looks like crap. Believe me, it gets really annoying.
I can make sure only 1 play is being run at a time. This is really going to extend sim time.
So I started doing the quick math to see how long we’re talking for option #2. I’m planning on shipping with 20 teams in the league. During my Ex2.5 sims I’m averaging just under 4 seconds per play. So if you do the math, I should expect a 20 team league to play a week in just under an hour.

Yikes! That’s way too long!

So that won’t work. However, if I met my goal and was somehow able to sim 4 games at a time, we’re still talking about a 15 minute sim time. That’s still not going to cut it. There’s no way I’m sitting at my computer for 15 minutes every sim.

So now what? What’s that mean for the regen3 universe?

It means I need to develop a fast-sim option.

I’ll probably leave the slow-sim as an option, if you want it. (I know I’d use it for my high-profile leagues) Adding the ability to fast-sim the league is now a necessity. You have to be able to run a week’s worth of CPU-vs-CPU games in under 5 minutes for this to be a viable game. The problem with that (besides development time) is you have to somehow make the fast-sim relatively consistent with the slow-sim and the played games. That’s the thing I hate about most games’ fast-sim, they almost never jive with what you see on the field. I remember back when I was a big EA Sports: NCAA Football fan. I got so tired of the fast-sim being wildly different than the played games that I started stocking my roster with “sim only” players and “play only” players. I’d put the sim-only players in when I simmed games, and take them out when I played.

I really don’t want to have a situation like that.

Well, that’s solved…. 🙂 That’s pretty far down the list of things to do, though. There’s a good chance we don’t see the fast-sim option until right before release.

[GoldenCrest Games]

I did a lot more engine work this week than I'd anticipated. I think the game quality is improving a lot, though!

Engine updates:
Updated the man defense assignment procedure. I finally abandoned the "CB1 covers WR1, CB2->WR2..." style coverage. I could see on the greens games that it's really easy to exploit and get mismatches all over the place. I took the control out of the human's hands and put it in the coach's hands. Now, no matter what you do on offense with depth charts and game plans, the defensive coach will line up coverage from best to worst. His top man defender will cover the top receiving threat. (even if it's a RB) Then the coach goes down the list and assigns the rest according to his rank of coverage skill and receiving threat. If there's not enough man defenders, it always ends up being the worst receiver that is uncovered.

Tightened up man defense coverage positioning. Overall, made man defense a lot better.

Greatly reduced the QB scrambling. It became pretty clear that scrambling is more of a problem than it's worth. If you have a high scramble QB you can't do anything in the passing game, even if you have a highly skilled QB. That's not right. Now every QB will hang in the pocket for a reasonable amount of time. High scramble QBs will still break the pocket earlier than others, but not nearly as soon.

Replaced scrambling with QB running. Even though I got rid of scrambling, I still want running QBs. Scrambling has been replaced with overall QB running, on designed running plays. The scramble rating is going to be more of a measure of how well the QB is at running. It's the RB rating for QBs.

Refining Open Field Running. Still dialing this in, but runners are getting a lot better at finding holes, avoiding tacklers, and following blocks. The hardest part left is balancing the tendency to run upfield with the tendency to run sideways to find a hole.

Non-Engine Updates:
Changed how coaches evaluate their roster and potential draft picks. Previously I had coaches preference based on position. They liked WR, they didn't like DL...etc. It worked, but the system broke down when we got to lower depth chart players. (WR3, OL3...) Instead of getting too cute about it, I changed the system so the coach has a preference for every depth chart slot. Coaches differentiate the value between WR2 and WR3 based on their roster style, which wasn't possible before.

Coaches have different "starters", depending on style. Now that each coach can build a personal roster style, they also each have different starters. Some coaches will use 2 RB and 2 WR, while the greens will probably use 1 RB and 3 WR. The starters package will also be tied to the coach's individual playbook..... at some point.

Started the "League Central" interface. It's not 100% functional yet, but when we get to the next season we'll get standings, game results, league leaders, and team rankings all on one page. It's pretty cool.

I just have to make sure I didn't introduce any bugs to the game engine, and we're off to the next week of Ex2.5!

[GoldenCrest Games]

It's week 5, and we take on the Silvers. They are an all passing offense team, with no defense to speak of.
Week 5 Scores

It's hard to say if the defensive Ai adjustments made a huge difference, because the Silvers have an atrocious defense. Their #2 CB is rated in the 50s with a speed of 67..... and that was the 2nd best player not on the D-line.

The offense is stacked, though. Top to bottom stacked. I think the worst guy on the starting offense was rated 85ish and was the center.

One thing I noticed with the passing game update is that the RB is no longer a guaranteed long reception. In fact, my RB drops more passes than he catches. I changed receiving for RBs to use the WR ratings, and it's killing my RB. I had a lot of drives where I had to think really hard about calling a pass to the RB because there was a +50% chance he's going to drop the pass. That really changed how I use him in-game, which is the kind of decision making I'm looking for.

Now the leaders!
Passing: Phelan still leads with 1503 yds. The Blues Goldberg is next with 1251.
Rushing: The Greens Walling leads with 203, but he's also got 50% more carries than the next guy on the list. I'm pretty sure this isn't going to work itself out until next season. The Coaches have really figured out what works for them, and it might be too late to change that this season. (without wiping the play records)
Receiving: The Blues Bahr has 947 and 19 TD now. The Greens Bachman moves up to 2nd with 695 with both the Avocados Kibler and Yellows Amerson at 690.
Sacks: Urquhart is up to 23 now. He's making a mockery out of the sack leaderboard.
Returns: Oranges Cornett is pulling away with 12 return TDs. Urquhart is 2nd with 9.
Kicking: The Yellows are leading by a LOT with 14 FG. We're next with 6, and 3 of those came last game!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Ha! I finally figured out why running isn't working!

It's not blocking, that's turning out to be pretty great. It's not the RB (usually) because they are pretty good at finding running lanes and following blocks.

It's because I drew up most of my running plays with the 11 man NFL-style game in mind, instead of the 8 man game. You can't power run the same way with 8 players on your side, no matter how many blockers you pull in to help. There's just too much free space for defenders to get around the blocks.

What I'm finding is that any time I go power, and bring the WRs tight to block, the defense has too much of an advantage. The defense only needs one guy to get through and blow up the play, and WRs generally don't make great blockers. However, if I spread the field and then run, the offense has a much easier time. Spread 2 WRs out and take the CBs with them, and now you have a chance with the inside running game. In fact, a 2 RB set with 3 OL and 2 WR split wide can do some real damage. Have the stronger RB lead block up the middle to pick off the LB and you can get some sweet runs!

That's a relief.

Back to zone defense now!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Week 6: Cornett continues his return dominance.

The Oranges are 0-5, we better win this one.

[GoldenCrest Games]

We have a pretty easy time with the Oranges, despite the continued kick return dominance of Cornett.

Cornett also did a pretty good job locking up my top WR Bachman, and my RB can't catch the ball to save his life, so I leaned on the running game a bit more this game. Running out of the spread might be my new favorite play.

Also, you might notice only 4 games this week. I had to start giving 2 teams a bye each week because I didn't have a balanced schedule when I started. Something for me to remember going into next season.

Now the leaders!
Passing: Phelan up to 1684 yds. The Blues Goldberg is 2nd with 1258.
Rushing: It looks like the rushing numbers are starting to creep up now. The Reds Artis now leads with 322 yds with our Walling in 2nd at 301. The Pinks Catron is starting to climb up the charts with 190 yds now.
Receiving: The receiving change must REALLY be hurting the Blues Bahr. He is still at 947 yds. Unfortunately Bachman couldn't gain much ground and is at 738. The Reds Artis must be the new flavor of the week because he's also jumped up on the receiving chart to 3rd with 704.
Defense: Urquhart adds to the sack total with 29 now. Seriously? 6 more sacks?
Returning: Oranges Cornett keeps rolling with 14 returns for TD. Yeah, he got 2 on me. The Purples Samuels has jumped up to meet Urquhart at 10.
Kicking: Yellows add 4 more and lead with 18 FGs. The 2nd place team (Greens) only has 8.
Misc: Weird stat. My LB Mincey is leading the league in special teams tackles with 38. Twice what the next guys has.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Me running out the clock on a disastrous week 7 against the Reds. (but my favorite play )

As bad as the score looks, it wasn't even that close. It was a butt kicking from start to finish. I'll have to lick my wounds before I can take a look at the league leaders.

On the positive side, I found a couple more things to tighten up in the engine before next week. Most of it has to do with tightening up defensive pursuit. It's still just a little off on low-skilled defenders.

[GoldenCrest Games]

So we got our butts kicked by the Reds. When they were on offense, we couldn't stop the pass to the RB. He was ridiculously fast and could catch. I also couldn't do anything to stop the kick returner after I managed to score. (probably the same guy)

We started off pretty even, trading offensive TD early. Then the Reds started running a double blitz and got a couple sacks. After that, they blitzed nearly every play and there wasn't much I could do about it. My RB doesn't catch nearly well enough to counter consistent LB pressure. Once they found that out, it was pretty much the end of any chance I had.

With 3 game-weeks left, here's how the playoff chase is going:
Reds: 6-1
Greens: 5-2
Blues: 4-2
Cyans: 4-2
Yellows: 4-3
Pinks: 3-3
Avocados: 3-3
Silvers: 3-4
Purples: 2-5
Oranges: 0-7
Top 4 teams make the playoffs. Looks like Silvers, Purples, and Oranges are out. Everyone else still has a chance!

Now the leaders:
Passing: Phelan still dominates this one with 1958 yds. The Silvers Kohler moves up to 2nd with 1436
Rushing: Walling still leads with 381, but the Reds Artis has now moved to within 50 yds. The Silvers Cardenas is the last ranked starting RB with only 38 yds! (and the only RB with less than 1 yd/carry)
Receiving: Blues Bahr leads with 947 with the Reds Artis right behind with 924. Our top WR Bachman is 3rd with 757. The Silvers Devoe is the most targetted WR in the league with 6 more than Artis and 15 more than Bahr, but he's down at 704 yds.
Sacks: Urquhart stayed at 29 due to the bye.
Returns: Oranges Cornett still leads with 16 TDs. The Purples Samuels is 2nd with 11. The Reds Artis moves up to 3rd with 10, largely based on their game against us.
Kicking: Yellows still lead with 20/27. Greens are closing the game at 12/13. There are only 3 teams better than 50% on FGs. Yellows, Greens, and Cyans. The Blues have only attempted 4 FG this season!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Pretty nondescript game for week 8. The Pinks didn't have much in the way of top-end talent anywhere that I could notice. I took the easy week as an opportunity to try out some of the running plays I'd been avoiding.

There are only 2 weeks left in the regular season, and I didn't pick up any more engine updates to be done. I think I'll power through the last games this weekend and present the final league leaders after that.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Week 9 in the books!

The Greens barely escape the Avocados. Halfway through the game we had to commit to the spread offense and bench our RB for a 4th WR. The drops were killing us. Of course, the Avocados started shifting to an all-out blitz defense since we were in 100% pass mode. We were able to manage that with the added receiving out of the backfield.

One more week until the playoffs, but the top 4 are already set. Reds, Blues, Greens, and Cyans all clinch this week. Week 10 is all about seeding.

Nobody wants to play the Reds in the first round.

[GoldenCrest Games]

As it turned out, the Greens-Avocados game got a little confusing.

So much green!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Week 10 in the books!

Finals standings are:
#1 Reds 8-1
#2 Blues 7-2 (won the tiebreaker against the Greens)
#3 Greens 7-2
#4 Cyans 6-3
Yellows 5-4
Pinks 5-4
Avocados 3-6
Silvers 3-6
Purples 2-7
Oranges 0-9

Oranges make the clean sweep and lose every game!

Playoffs are set. The Cyans have the honor of getting destroyed by the Reds in the first round. Blues and Greens will play to see who gets to be desert.

[GoldenCrest Games]

End of the season awards!

Passing: Greens Phelan. 2435 yds and 40 TD.
2nd place: Blues Goldberg with 1616 yds and 27 TD

Rushing: Greens Walling. 437 yds and 9 TD
2nd place: Reds Artis with 344 yds and 4 TD

Receiving: Reds Artis. 70 rec for 1345 yds and 27 TD
2nd place: Blues Bahr with 56 rec for 1290 yds and 24 TD

Tackles: Pinks Hendry 65 tackles
2nd place: Silvers Kruse with 61 tackles

Sacks: Blues Urquhart 32 sacks
2nd place: Pinks Hendry with 26 sacks

Returns: Oranges Cornett 18 Kick Return TD, 1 Punt Return TD
2nd place: Reds Artis with 11 Kick Return TD, 4 Punt Return TD

Kicking: Yellows Amerson. 25/33 FG
2nd place: Greens Mincey 17/20 FG

MVP: Calculated from standard fantasy football scoring, and a modified version based on this engine.
Reds RB/CB/KR Artis!!! (533 MVP Points)
2nd place: Blues RB/CB/ST Bahr (398 MVP Points)
3rd place: Yellows RB/S/K Amerson (343 MVP Points)

My top guy was #4 WR/LB/K Mincey with 327 pts.

[GoldenCrest Games]

First round of the playoffs done. As expected, the Reds move on pretty easily.

We had a pretty tough time with the Blues. It went down to play 77, where we hit the WR4-turned-RB for a game winning TD! For the championship, I'm going to let the Greens coach cal the plays. I think I've built up enough play record now that the coach should call the game pretty well on his own.

Here are the (newly implemented) scoring logs for both games:

(23): Reds - QB Yost passes to RB1 Artis for a 46 yard TD!
(36): Reds - QB Yost passes to RB1 Artis for a 9 yard TD!
(39): Cyans - QB Mclellan passes to WR1 Matthew for a 15 yard TD!
(46): Reds - K Yost hits a 26 yard field goal.
(58): Reds - QB Yost passes to RB1 Artis for a 1 yard TD!


(9): Greens - K Mincey hits a 34 yard field goal.
(12): Blues - QB Goldberg passes to RB1 Bahr for a 32 yard TD!
(17): Greens - K Mincey hits a 56 yard field goal.
(30): Greens - QB Phelan passes to WR3 Paschall for a 22 yard TD!
(39): Greens - K Mincey hits a 35 yard field goal.
(48): Blues - PR Urquhart returns the punt for a 83 yard TD!
(55): Greens - K Mincey hits a 43 yard field goal.
(59): Blues - QB Goldberg passes to WR1 Towle for a 52 yard TD!
(72): Greens - QB Phelan passes to RB1 Chalmers for a 47 yard TD!
(74): Blues - QB Goldberg passes to WR2 Urquhart for a 61 yard TD!
(77): Greens - QB Phelan passes to RB1 Chalmers for a 41 yard TD!

[GoldenCrest Games]

In a shocker, the Greens coach calls a much better game than I do and destroys the Reds to win the Exhibition season 2.5 championship!

Scoring Log:
(5): Greens - K Mincey hits a 61 yard field goal.
(11): Greens - QB Phelan passes to WR3 Paschall for a 56 yard TD!
(15): Reds - QB Yost passes to WR2 Ozuna for a 58 yard TD!
(18): Greens - QB Phelan passes to RB1 Chalmers for a 52 yard TD!
(25): Greens - QB Phelan passes to RB1 Chalmers for a 45 yard TD!
(36): Greens - K Mincey hits a 49 yard field goal.
(41): Greens - CB2 Paschall intercepts the pass and returns it for a TD!
(50): Greens - QB Phelan passes to RB1 Chalmers for a 59 yard TD!
(56): Greens - QB Phelan passes to RB1 Chalmers for a 67 yard TD!
(61): Reds - K Yost hits a 35 yard field goal.
(64): Greens - QB Phelan passes to WR2 Mincey for a 50 yard TD!

The WR-at-RB experiment really paid off. I gave up all my running attack to get the extra passing attack. Seems like a good trade to me.

Now that the exhibition season is over, I can take stock of where the game is at and what needs to get done before we kick off the first regular season. I'd like to get the game into a nearly playable state before the next season. It would be great to start playing a compiled and deployed version of it from now on. (Then I can play it on my gaming PC, and record videos!) It would also be cool to start playing around with multiplayer options.

Before we got to all that, I need to figure out the plan for the next phase of development.

[GoldenCrest Games]

We ended up in a pretty good place, engine-wise. The last 4 games didn’t show any outrageous issues, so I think the engine is pretty stable now. There are some thing I thought I wanted to improve, but it’s hard to tell if it’s an engine issue or a player ratings issue. I decided to hold off until I get some different players tested.

So now we’re back into hardcore development again. Here’s the plan:

1. Get to the final league size and configuration (20 teams, 2 division, 260-300ish players)
2. Completely finish the functionality of player generation and the allocation draft. Everything should work as it will in the final game. The style and graphics will change, but it needs to be 100% functionally correct.
3. Complete all of the league structure stuff. Standings, schedule, playoffs, league leaders, etc.. should all work and be in final functional form
4. Finish off the coach personality, playbook style, and roster style systems. Should all be in final form
5. Implement contracts and free agency
6. Create and implement the college draft
7. Implement player potential/progression system
8. Create all the plays and style-specific playbooks
9. Everything should run on a compiled and deployed version of the game, on another computer. It really needs to be stand-alone after this development cycle.
10. I need to be able to take videos of game play. This is really a must if I’m going to hit my goal of releasing in the spring. I need to start building momentum towards the release date, and game play videos will really help. If the next hardcore cycle isn’t going to happen until February, I can’t afford to wait.

Basically, everything should work as intended by the time we get to the next season. Regular Season 1 should be about play balance, interface graphics, and prepping to send alpha versions out for play testing (or multiplayer).

As I look at the list, it seems like a lot. I’m going to shoot for completing it by Jan 5th. That would give me the weekend of the 6th/7th to hold the Regular Season 1 draft.

I’m starting with the allocation draft, and I’m not moving off of it until it’s complete. I think I’m far enough along now that I don’t need to leave features partially completed in order to get something else working. Now it’s time to finish things off.

[jct32]

I'm loving this. 8 man football is really big in my area with smaller schools. If I could somehow modify this and play it as a 8 man high school sim. I would buy it.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Originally Posted by jct32

I'm loving this. 8 man football is really big in my area with smaller schools. If I could somehow modify this and play it as a 8 man high school sim. I would buy it.

I've heard that a few times as word starts to get out about the game. I have some cool ideas for a HS version of the game, so there's a pretty good chance that comes next. As I go through and refine each section of the game and engine, I'm trying to make sure it's flexible enough to allow for different league types in the future.

If I could somehow find more than 2 hours a day to work on this stuff, we'd probably have both versions out in 2018!

[GoldenCrest Games]

I'm pretty sure we've got the final league size, player generation, and draft nailed down. (I've been secretly been working on this for a week )

Player generation was the hardest. The trick is to have enough elite talent at each position, with a little overlap between positions, while still creating specialists. In the end, I think I have a pretty good system. We'll see when I get to playtesting....

The allocation draft is 100% functional now. Coaches draft according to their roster preference, their specific starters package, and their current depth chart. The depth chart is also evaluated after each pick, and each potential draftee is measured against the current roster to try and maximize value.

If you're a human, you still get to use the benefit of the CPU player value AI through your coach's suggestion. The top 3 players (according to your coach) are proposed to you. Click on any of them, and you're brought to them in the draft list so you can see how they stack up against the pool. I've found that I end up going with one of the suggestions about half the time. It's not too bad.

Initial contracts are generates based on the overall player value score, and it's sort of based on fantasy football auction drafting. The contracts start at $1 for the bottom players, and rise quickly near the top of the draft to a max of $80. I've never seen a perfect player yet, so the functional max is somewhere around $70. Teams are usually drafting around $170-$200 worth of contracts. Right now I have each initial contract at 1 or 2 years. The thought is that you won't want to be locked in to a long contract right away, and could extend players as you see fit.

I've also got a few other small features built in, I just don't know how I want to use them yet. The entire draft is logged pick by pick and can be exported. I might use this for league news or something. The draft is also set up to be used for the college drafts, so I won't have to redo any of the work later.

The player value scoring AI needs a little work, but I can't dial in exact value until I'm done with the final refinement of the in-game engine. It's pretty close right now, but it could use some improvement.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Quick note:

Remember this line item from the to-do list at the beginning of Ex2.5:
"Save/load optimization (it takes forever to save and load everything)"

I thought this was worth a specific followup, in case anyone else out there is using Unity and the EasySave asset. (it's pretty popular)

At that point, my saving time was about 120 seconds and the loading time was 60 seconds. I switched from the default save/load to the data-writer that leaves the file open and writes/reads continuously until you close it. That got the save time down to less than a second!

Unfortunately it made the load time 93 seconds. (and I still don't have career stats saving/loading yet)

I finally changed everything to sequential save/load instead of using tags. It's a little harder to keep track of everything, but I got the load time down to about 1 second with the save time still around 0.5 seconds. It was a frustrating problem that I thought it best to share the solution, in case anyone else is struggling with it.

[GoldenCrest Games]

I have a request for anyone following this topic:

I need to fill out coaches and teams for this round of work. If you're interested in following a team through development, drop a post here with the following information:

Team Name (remember, these are going to show up on my blog/social media, so be reasonable )
Team City or 'location'
General style of play (wide open passing, running, defense, special teams...etc.)

Formation package
Offense: Every play has a QB and 3 OL. You can choose between these packages for the remaining players
4WR
3WR 1RB
3WR 1OL
2WR 2RB
2WR 1RB 1OL
1WR 2RB 1OL

Defense: Every play has 2DL, 1LB, 2CB, 1S You can choose the between these packages for the remaining players
1LB 1CB
1LB 1S
1CB 1S
1DL 1LB
1DL 1CB
1DL 1S

Special Teams package is the same for everyone

Also, let me know if there are any positions you want your coach to specifically focus on. I'll tweak the coach to make sure he gives specific value to those.

[SirBlurton]

Very cool!

Team Name: Swarm
Team City: Saskatoon

General style of play: Defense (emphasis on speed)

Formation package
Offense:
1WR 2RB 1OL

Defense: Every play has 2DL, 1LB, 2CB, 1S
You can choose the between these packages for the remaining players:
1CB 1S

[GoldenCrest Games]

Originally Posted by SirBlurton

Very cool!

Team Name: Swarm
Team City: Saskatoon

General style of play: Defense (emphasis on speed)

Formation package
Offense:
1WR 2RB 1OL

Defense: Every play has 2DL, 1LB, 2CB, 1S
You can choose the between these packages for the remaining players:
1CB 1S

Added!

[GoldenCrest Games]

I've been putting it off, and putting it off some more, and convincing myself I don't need to work on it yet, and then putting it off again.....but I finally got down and finished the schedule generation and schedule saving/loading stuff. Talk about mind-numbing work. ugh!!

That said, it's finally done!

I've also implemented the league schedule into the league central screen. You can see upcoming games as well as this week's games. Eventually you'll be able to click on a game from the league central and jump to it in progress. (assuming you didn't fast sim it)

Back to fun things now!

[jct32]

Team Name: Twisters
Team City: Oklahoma City

General style of play: Wide Open Offense (Hurry up if possible)

Formation package
Offense:
4 WR

Defense: Every play has 2DL, 1LB, 2CB, 1S
You can choose the between these packages for the remaining players:
1LB 1 S

[GoldenCrest Games]

Originally Posted by jct32

Team Name: Twisters
Team City: Oklahoma City

General style of play: Wide Open Offense (Hurry up if possible)

Formation package
Offense:
4 WR

Defense: Every play has 2DL, 1LB, 2CB, 1S
You can choose the between these packages for the remaining players:
1LB 1 S

Added!

[GoldenCrest Games]

I have about 2 weeks to go before I hit the yearly office shutdown at my day job. That will give me a whole week of all day, hard-core, uninterrupted, lock the windows and doors, development time. Last year I found out that I didn't have enough stuff in my detailed to-do list and ended up wasting a couple of those days. I'm kind of stuck in a creative rut right now, so it's probably a good use of time to get that list together.

First, here was the original list of what I wanted to get done:

1. DONE Get to the final league size and configuration (20 teams, 2 division, 260-300ish players)
2. DONE Completely finish the functionality of player generation and the allocation draft. Everything should work as it will in the final game. The style and graphics will change, but it needs to be 100% functionally correct.
3. 90% DONE Complete all of the league structure stuff. Standings, schedule, playoffs, league leaders, etc.. should all work and be in final functional form
4. 50% DONE Finish off the coach personality, playbook style, and roster style systems. Should all be in final form
5. Implement contracts and free agency
6. Create and implement the college draft
7. Implement player potential/progression system
8. Create all the plays and style-specific playbooks

Here's what I can get done before the lockdown:

• Create all the offensive and defensive player packages
• Create a bunch of plays for each package
• Create all the package specific playbooks
• Create different coach profiles and style
• Start the player progression system

Here's the lockdown list: (to be updated as we get closer)

• Design and implement player trading and the trade block
• Create the draft pick tracking system, so you can trade picks
• Create a team management screen
• Create screens and AI to support player contract renegotiation
• Design and implement free agency
• Implement the college draft
• Tighten up all the screens and make sure everything works

If I can get all that done, I think we'll be in a good place to start Regular Season 1. I've found that I really need to be in real games in order to improve the game engine. When it's not live, it's hard to really focus on the details of what's happening on the field. I'll focus on the off-field stuff now and leave all the game engine updates to in-season.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Still preparing for the programming lockdown. With about 8 days left before the beginning of the "week-of-code", I'm making good progress towards being ready.

The hardest part is grinding through all the play creation. I underestimated how much discipline it takes to write the hundreds of plays I need just to have the basic playbooks in place. I've powered my way through half of the offensive packages so far. I'm pretty sure I'll get it done before the code week starts, but it's really a grind.

I've also started dabbling in screen design (to break up the monotony of play design). I though it would be nice to have all the screens laid out before next week so I can spend the whole week on functionality. As you can see from the player profile screen, I'm starting to inch my way towards a nicer looking style. Not there yet, but it's getting closer.

I'm also trying to limit the overall number of screens by adding functionality into other screens whenever possible. In the player profile screen you'll get the contract negotiation panel if it's appropriate, instead of opening up a new screen for it. Always trying to limit screens and keep it as simple as possible.

List Update:

Here's what I can get done before the lockdown:

• DONE Create all the offensive and defensive player packages
• Create a bunch of plays (40+) for each package 3/6 Offense Done. 0/6 Defense Done
• Create all the package specific playbooks
• Create different coach profiles and style
• Start the player progression system

Here's the lockdown list: (to be updated as we get closer)

• Design and implement player trading and the trade block Screen Design Done
• DONE Create the draft pick tracking system, so you can trade picks
• Create a team management screen Basic Screen Laid Out
• Create screens and AI to support player contract renegotiation Screen Started
• Design and implement free agency
• Implement the college draft
• Tighten up all the screens and make sure everything works

[GoldenCrest Games]

I like how the player profile screen turned out, so I'm going with something similar for the coach profile.

They key things you're going to look for when evaluating a coach are:

• Player packages: This is going to determine who is on the field most of the time, and designate the official "starters". (which could come into play during player negotiations)
• Playbook: As I'm developing the playbooks, I'm realizing how big of a deal the coach's playbook is going to be. There's not going to be a ton of overlap between playbooks. If a coach picks a QB run heavy playbook, he's pretty much committed. If he has a pass-heavy playbook, he's not going to be able to have a meaningful running attack. There aren't enough plays in the playbook to do everything.
• Roster Makeup: A large part of what makes coaches different from each other is how they value players. The depth chart value section shows you how the coach values each position, and how he'll build/maintain the roster. Remember, each player is rated in all 3 phases so your coach is rating each player across all 3. If a player rates highly in all the critical categories, he's going to be a superstar in the eyes of the coach. If that same player doesn't fit another coach's Critical slots, he won't be valued as highly by that coach. For this coach, a WR/CB/KR would be an ideal player and would be picked ahead of slightly better players that don't fit all 3. (assuming he didn't already have a starter in those positions)

Screen isn't functional yet, but it should be set up for a quick implementation over the next weeks.

[SirBlurton]

Nice - really like how much is crammed into those screens!

Looking forward to seeing what will happen with having more time to work on this!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Thanks!

Resisting the temptation to add a screen for every little thing is a lot harder than I ever would have thought. I'm not in love with the player screen yet, but I came up with a few ideas to try before the programming lockdown week. The stats area is a little too busy right now. I need to get a few of the words/numbers off the screen.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Programming lockdown starts at the end of the week! Wow, so much to do.

Let's take a quick look at the list:

Here's what I can get done before the lockdown:

• DONE Create all the offensive and defensive player packages
• Create a bunch of plays (40+) for each package 4.5/6 Offense Done. 0/6 Defense Done
• Create all the package specific playbooks
• DONE Create different coach profiles and style
• Start the player progression system

Here's the lockdown list: (to be updated as we get closer)

• Design and implement player trading and the trade block Screen Design Done
• DONE Create the draft pick tracking system, so you can trade picks
• Create a team management screen Design Done
• Create screens and AI to support player contract renegotiation Screen Started
• Design and implement free agency Design Done
• Implement the college draft Design Done
• Tighten up all the screens and make sure everything works

I'm not quite as far as I want, when it comes to plays and playbooks. I think I can get caught up today, though. Might mean another lunch over at Broadway Pizza (also known as the GoldenCrest offices) so I can get some work done. The good thing is that I don't necessarily need them to be done for the lockdown. I really only need 2 packages and playbooks to make sure everything works. I need them to be complete before the Regular Season 1 kicks off, though.

I don't anticipate any real roadblocks for the week. As I draw up the screens, I have a pretty good idea of how the code is going to function. The hardest thing is going to be controlling how/when the screens get used without having too many weird bugs/cheats. Most of the ones I've found so far have to do with variables not getting set correctly as you move through screens. Not rocket science, but keeping track of variables is getting harder and harder.

Today's goal: Finish off all the offensive plays and packages.
Tomorrow's goal: Finish off all the defensive plays and packages.
Wednesday: Complete all the playbooks and start the programming lockdown (half-day)
Thursday through the end of the year: Dominate

[GoldenCrest Games]

Finish off all the offensive plays and packages. DONE!

[GoldenCrest Games]

DONE Create all the offensive and defensive player packages
DONE Create a bunch of plays (40+) for each package
DONE Create all the package specific playbooks
DONE Create different coach profiles and style

It's go time.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Man, the development PC is really groaning under the weight of the new stuff I've implemented. (in design, not even run-time!)

Might be time to invest in a new toy!

Good news is that the 400+ plays that are loaded didn't kill the engine. I was a little worried what would happen when all the plays were loaded into memory. Poor design decision, but we're way past the ability to redesign the play system. That's probably high on the list for the next version. (or a future major update)

We're about a day into programming hammertime, and it's looking pretty good. I feel like I'm still on track to be able to play full-featured seasons and offseasons by Jan 5. All the systems are drawn up with the screens laid out. It's just code-monkey time to get them all to work together.

So far so good!

[GoldenCrest Games]

Here's a newsflash: tracking trade offers is HARD!

This is another of those things I wish I'd thought through (and planned) a long time ago. It's easy for me to forget that I've been learning game development as I go, but I still wish this had been planned a lot better. Design decisions about how I track future draft picks are coming back to haunt me when it comes to submitting trade offers. If I'd planned these systems together, they'd be a lot easier.

I think I have a system now, but there's probably too much brute-force. I do a lot of 'checking' when it comes to offering future picks in a trade, just to make sure the pick is what's intended. It should really be a lot easier.

I guess this is what they mean when they say that developing games is the best way to learn how to develop games.

[GoldenCrest Games]

It's funny how a simple looking thing can be such a victory.

Just got this section working for the trade proposal screen. It looks pretty simple, but getting future draft picks tracked by original owner, current owner, round, and year got really complicated. All those things have to be referenced and moved around by a lot of systems, so they can't just be hard-coded anywhere.

It's quite a relief when I hit the 'show' button and everything pops up correctly.

small victories.

[GoldenCrest Games]

Quick update while my brain cools off.

I've been hammering through the hardest parts first this week. I hope I don't fall short of the goal, but if I do it will be easy stuff leftover. (that I can accomplish in the code-hour each morning)

Here's what'd been done so far:

• Picks are now completely tracked, tradeable, and can be shopped on the block
• Trading screen fully functional.
• Trades can be created and submitted to the league for team review.
• Trades incorporated into the save/load scripts
• Trading block functional
• Trading block items can be added/removed and submitted to the league in real-time for other team "shopping".
• Trading block incorporated into save/load
• Roster screen fully functional, with the addition of team finances and dead cap space.
• You can now view trade offers from the roster screen for approval/rejection. Including offers you've submitted.
• Player Profile fully functional and career stats added to the game.
• Career stats added to save/load

So far I've limited trade proposals to a max of 2 players and 2 picks. It's possible it gets opened up more, but it's not easy to tell how much trading is a bad idea until we start playing. Right now it feels like trading 2 players and picks, with a roster size of 12, is a good limit. I grabbed a quick shot of the team management screen, with a few test trade offers thrown in. Seems like it's all working!

[GoldenCrest Games]

It looks like today is a big debugging day.

I almost dove into FA, but the transitions between screens were a huge pain, so I worked on that for the first hour. It was then that I noticed that trades weren't getting submitted or saved exactly right.

Cool, I can fix that.
Then trades weren't getting accepted correctly.
No problem, start displaying the trade validity results to screen....WTF??

repeat about a thousand times today.

It's good that I caught it now, but it's eating up a lot of time. I implemented so many things at the same time that there are a lot of little bugs that add up to the system not working. I think I'm close to having the new stuff playing together nicely. I just have to run a few more league drafts/trades/save/load scenarios. We're down to little things like refreshing screens correctly without me hitting the "load" button.

ONWARD!