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Sports Games
- 1. Sports Games Chapter 12 On Game Design By Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams OLIT 593 Learning Games Design and Development
- 2. Common Elements Rules: generally follow the same rules as the sport being simulated. Some contain “referee levels” that allow the player to forgive or make strict certain faults, fouls or judgment errors Competition Modes: allows all possible modes: single – player, competitive, cooperative and multi-player
- 3. Common Elements Cont. Victory and Loss Conditions. Season Mode: player selects a single team or athlete and plays matches through an entire season trying to get to the championship Exhibition mode: plays on single match, win the match, win the game Sudden death: plays one match, first player to score wins
- 4. Victory and Loss Conditions Cont. Round Robin: Players in a group, select a team and play each other a specified number of times. The player with the most wins, wins the game. Tournament mode: single elimination tournament, loss and you are out, win and you continue on
- 5. Victory and Loss Conditions Cont. Franchise mode: controls team or athlete over several seasons to build strength through the years. Includes hiring and trading of athletes.
- 6. Common Elements Cont. Setting: usually the setting is the normal venue that the sport is played in. can include factors like weather conditions and crowd noise to enhance game play. Interaction Model: Generally the person controlling the avatar is one of the athletes in the match
- 7. Common Elements Cont. Perspective: not first person. Generally side view, or over head User interface design: complex. Player roles: Athlete, coach, the action, or general manager
- 8. Special design issues Physics Rating the Athlete Athlete AI Design Injuries Arcade Mode Versus simulation Mode Simulating Matches Automatically Licenses, Trademarks and Publicity Rights Audio Commentary Other Peculiarities
- 9. Physics for game design Physics for sports games: Human movement is complicated and takes more in to account than just speed and direction. Rating of Athletes: biggest task, provides raw data that the physics engine needs to simulate the behavior of the athletes. common ratings: speed, agility, weight, acceleration, jumping, endurance, and injury resistance . special ratings include: (for football) passing strength, passing accuracy, dexterity and awareness.
- 10. Athlete AI design Athlete AI Design: deliberate , intelligent action, not random or crude Need to 1. define the state space 2. set collective and individual goal
- 11. Define the state space define the state space: using a flow chart
- 12. Set collective and individual goals setting collective and individual goals, what the team should be doing in each state. Once determined and athletes roles have been assigned. Must define the movements of each athlete: how fast, which direction, body movements and so on.
- 13. Injuries Common in all sports Need to determine how to manage can have controls to allow or not allow injuries limit injuries to certain kinds only, like only collision injuries. need to include factors relative to injury such as weight, speed, their injury resistance factor.
- 14. Arcade versus simulation mode “Is a realism switch that lets the player adjust the behavior of the game to suit his tastes” (page 363) Arcade: makes the game more exciting by sacrificing realism. Simulation: closer to the real sport at the expense of fun.
- 15. Licenses, trademarks and publicity rights Both have legal implications and consequences League and Team Trademarks: Owned by the league or team and require special permission to use. Varies form league to league, country to country. Personal Publicity Rights: belong to the athlete. Can not use name or photograph without permission. Photographs: need permission form the person in photo and person who took photo
- 16. Simulating Matches automatically Computer versus computer: often slow, but producing realistic results based on player abilities Simulations without graphics: computer versus computer yielding the same realistic results without graphics, which take less time. Faking it: Scores are determined by the roll of the dice. Team with the highest roll wins. Disadvantage: no stats
- 17. Audio commentary Makes game more real Includes play by play: person describing the action on the field And color commentator: person giving insight on strategy and tactics, as well as background on the team and players. Usually a retired coach or player.
- 18. Putting it together Good sports game requires compromise Sports game designers’ job is to fit the sport to the machine Does not require raw creativity as designing adventure or role-playing games Endless tuning and tweaking to find the right balance of realism and playability When you get it right, it will sell for years
- 19. References Rollings, A., & Adams, E. (2003). Sports Games. In Rollings, A. & Adams, E (Eds.), Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (pp. 371-394). California: New Riders.
Editor's Notes
- I will be giving an overview of Chapter 12 Sports games in our text book On Game Design
- Common elements of game design include Rules, competition modes, victory and loss conditions, setting, interactions model, perspective user interface player roles and structure.
- There are six victory loss conditions: Season, Exhibition, Sudden death, Round Robin, Tournament and Franchise
- In games like tennis this is straightforward. But in games like baseball, football and basketball the it can switch to other athletes, depending on what is going on in the game or who has the ball.
- Because part of the game is observing the athlete exercise their skills, the first person perspective is not used. You want to choose a spot where you have a clear view of the athletes and their movements User interface is complex because you have to factor in different athlete movements as they progress during the games. Need to think about what kinds of things a player will want to do at each stage of the game, (run, jump, tackle, dripple, throw etc) and how best to make them available to the player on the game’s input device, usually a hand held controlled with several buttons. You will need to make sure each button has a purpose, (jump, movement forward backwards side by side and so on)Players roll is commonly that of the athlete, but in some games the focus of control is on the action on the game, who has the ball. The player can also assume the role of either a coach where he can call plays and make substitutions , or a general manager where he can hire and fire new players. The last element is structure. This is fairly simple. The mode is match play, where you can pause the game periodically to make substitutions of change the camera view.
- During play, your game will be running a physics engine that determines the behavior of moving bodies in the match. For many sports games the physical movement of humans is rather complicated. When looking at a running athlete, we no longer just look at speed, direction and acceleration. Many other variables are now considered. Factors like conditions of and types of playing fields, weather conditions and their effects on player performance. Real life factors may be reduced. In real life players for example can hit a fast ball at 95 miles per hour with the ball travelling from the pitchers hand to the catcher mitt in only .04 seconds. In the game you have to slow that variable up to allow the game to be playable. The biggest tasks is to develop a rating systems for the skills and athletic abilities of the athletes in the game, this information provides the raw data that the physic engine needs to simulate the behavior of the athletes in the game.
- In most computer games AI design is crude and simple. The players AI driven opponents have very few behaviors most are trigged by specific events, and it is every monster for himself. When no stimuli is present they go into a simple idle loop, wandering aimlessly or just standing around. But in Sports games, the athletes must behave like humans so the AI design must be deliberate and intelligent action. The best way to design sports games AI is to map out a game’s states in a giant flow chart. Consult the official rules of the sport as you construct the flow chart, they will often describe the states in detail with special rules applying to each of them. The above example is the flow chart detailing a corner kick in soccer.
- In most computer games AI design is crude and simple. The players AI driven opponents have very few behaviors most are trigged by specific events, and it is every monster for himself. When no stimuli is present they go into a simple idle loop, wandering aimlessly or just standing around. But in Sports games, the athletes must behave like humans so the AI design must be deliberate and intelligent action. The best way to design sports games AI is to map out a game’s states in a giant flow chart. Consult the official rules of the sport as you construct the flow chart, they will often describe the states in detail with special rules applying to each of them. The above example is the flow chart detailing a corner kick in soccer.
- Once you determine what the athlete’s role in a particular state, say kicking a field goal, you must then assign each athlete a role in that state. You need to decide how exactly the athlete needs to perform that role, what direction they must go, what movements they must make etc. Even if they are not involved in the play, say for example, a catcher after a ball is hit, will stand up and watch where the ball is going. He may lift up is protective gear to get a better look . An athlete in a game does not do nothing. All of the moves need to be designed.
- In simulation mode for example, the real batting average of an athlete is .25 meaning he gets a hit 1 time in every 4 at bats. This may be too boring for the player, so in arcade mode, you fudge the batting average to .5 or one hit for every 2 at bats, thus making the game action more exciting. With arcade mode, you design what factors you want to fudge. Batting average, quarter back rating, number of incomplete etc.
- In games with long seasons, such as baseball with 2430 possible matches, the designer may want to design a way to simulate games the player does not want to play. You can do this in three ways: Computer versus computer where the computer plays out the game of two different teams.