Post by pmanacas in Ballsy! World Cup 2020 comments

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You just gave me an idea, what about a game that mixes tennis with pinball! Where you it and aim with a racket like tennis but have pinball mechanics to achieve goals and targets. The concept of mixing pinball with other genres has been proven by the excellent "Yoku's Island Express".

I totally get and support you wanting to finish the game and that all these wacky ideas are totally out of scope. (love the hats idea by the way)

That said I still have to ask: Please add a net bulge + sound effect when the ball hits the net!

It makes scoring a goal so much more satisfying. It can really complete the experience. Trust me, even if its just a simple shake of the goal frame with a simple "thwack" sound it will make a huuuuuuuuuuge difference.

I mainly program in python for work and fun, and I tried to do a couple of game prototypes using Godot Engine. I tried to build some tutorial level stuff in Unity and always found it really clunky and not fun to learn. Godot on the other hand uses a scripting language that is almost the same as python and the UI and engine concepts are so much easier to grasp for an amateur. And it just runs from a standalone exe that is like 50 Mb! The Godot IDE itself is a Godot application! Amazing tool really.

properlydecent3 years ago

I like the pinball-tennis idea :D I've considered various pinball-mixed-with-other-genres too, there's a lot of fun possibilities when you throw in ball mechanics :P Maybe I can make a prototype of such a concept after this game :)

I'm really not looking forward to making net bulge mechanics, sounds hard :P BUT I agree some effect is needed! How about fireworks/confetti coming from the goal when you score?

Cool that you like Godot, I hear more people being positive about it! I'm coming from C++ so C# is probably better for me; I'm always fighting with Python :P But I guess it really depends where you are coming from and what you are used to :)

pmanacas3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Yeah, by "bulge" was probably the wrong word. I didn't mean it needs proper physics. A shake animation for the whole goal + a nice sound effect is probably good enough and more fitting with the rest of the graphics. Definitely not fireworks or confetti for each goal (that's something that would be fitting when you win the world-cup or something).

Regarding Tennis+OtherMechanics - the Virtua Tennis series had some great mini-games mixing Tennis with many other mechanics along it's various iterations. Question is to find one that is fun for longer than just a "mini-game".

properlydecent3 years ago

Shaky goal + sound sounds like a good idea, I'm on it!

properlydecent3 years ago

I've added some goal shake (may need some tweaking) and a goooooool sample :) see end of this video: https://youtu.be/Fkw6_PVChHQ

pmanacas3 years ago(+1)

The "gooooooal" is perfect! The goal shake is way too much though =) I guess shaking the goals a few pixels backwards and quickly back to position should be enough.

Another small detail I would change would be: the "GOAL FRANCE!" text should only come up when the announcer starts screaming "goooooooooalllllllll" (Because the shout, correctly, only comes a fraction of a second after the ball enters the goal) The text should come in sync with the shout and not in the same frame the goal crosses the line like it is now.

I would also add a second "thwack" sound at the moment the ball hits the net. That way the feeling of scoring is enhanced... like : Shoot > "Thwack" > "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLL" (is like a three step satisfying sequence with its own rythm)

Another bit of polish would be when you shoot and hit the post or very close to the goal, there should be a "AHHHH!" crowd sound.

properlydecent3 years ago

thanks! i'll make the shake a little less extreme and try the thwack->goooal thing :) I don't want to put too much more time in this for now, so I'll leave it at that :P

properlydecent3 years ago

uploaded new version with 1-2 passes, better sidestep dribbles, soundtrack, and some more fixes :)

pmanacas3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Wow, loving the improvements!

The music is awesome, scoring feels much more satisfying with the new effects and the 1-2 is great, really possible to create some fwd movement with the team mates now (and it also creates more chance for opponent counter attack) so I think its a great addition. The sidestep definitely feels better now (previously it didn't really feel worth it to execute as it was quite muted).

You decide if you want to keep going, but I cant help to keep suggesting fixes =)

I actually had a friend over to play some matches, both Vs and Co-Op. Both were really fun!

But specially in co-op we noticed a flaw with the camera. When you are near the side lines the camera is showing a lot of empty space around the pitch instead of keeping the most of the pitch possible in view. This makes it really hard to aim a pass into the box because you cant see your team mates! You could maybe:

not allow the camera to go so much to the side when the ball is near the edges of the pitch
also allow even more zoom out in the camera options

Here is a screenshot of what I mean: https://imgur.com/a/qez397q

properlydecent3 years ago (1 edit)

Thanks! Your suggestions have been most useful, so keep em coming :P

I've made sure the camera was positioned correctly.. on the default zoom level :D I see now I should have updated the code after I added zoom support; the camera should definitely be more towards the center of the pitch when zoomed out :) Thanks for debugging!

Very happy to hear you like the improvements, and that the coop & vs player was enjoyable!

pmanacas3 years ago

I have played a few more vs matches with a 2nd buddy and here's a few more items of feedback:

we both wanted to have the ability to change formation and offense/defense balance mid game, but there is no option for team setup from the pause menu.
the side selection screen is confusing for new players, definitely should be: 1) Select teams 2) press controller to the side of the flag you want to play
on the team selection screen you cannot hold right or left to keep scrolling through the team, you have to press once to cycle each team

I'm trying to setup a 2Vs2 meet up this weekend, lets see if i can gather the people =)

properlydecent3 years ago

hiya! thanks again for your feedback! I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disappoint you on some of them, though;

1. my idea was to have to go with a single tactical setup per game, as a deliberate constraint, so you'd have to deal with your initial choices even if they turn out wrong. (it helps that the games are only 5 minutes long anyway). also, because in PES, it always annoyed me that people kept on making tactical changes during the game, because these pauses take you out of the flow. (it's also kinda hard to build in now even if I wanted to, because of the way I coded it technically)

2. I've looked in to this issue, but the thing is; you are probably playing the cup mode, right? because in that mode, the teams are already selected, so your feedback makes sense; however, in the 'normal' mode, the team selection happens *after* the side selection, because else I have no way of knowing who is to select the teams at all yet! so the lack of flags in world cup mode is because it uses the same menu screen as the normal side selection screen. I could still add the flags/team names to the world cup version, of course, but it's kind of a low prio change because it does take more work than you may expect, for a minor issue :$ (sorry)

3. true, that's a bit of a limitation of my menu code; I think the same thing happens in other selectors. again, point taken, but low prio fix

sorry for not being helpful this time :P I still very much appreciate your feedback, but I need to push through with the steam release (they require tons of images for the library etc :/) and fixing some more game-breaking bugs. I may address some of your points in a later patch!

I've never played with more than 2 players, so I'm very curious if that works right! let me know if you manage to make it happen :)

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