Monday, December 26, 2016

Fighting Eleven #12: Results

I wrote an egregious amount of code in the last five days. Not very efficient, or pretty, but boy, there's a lot of it now.

When I'm not getting constant requests for service and a long list I have to complete every day, I make fast progress.

The recruiting module consists of two parts: identify/generate/display recruits, and the recruiting battle.

When recruits are generated, show a player card with the following information:
*Name
Hometown
*Height
*Weight
*Star rating
*Yardage rating
Passive ability
Active ability

The items with an * are complete, with one small hiccup that I'm asking Garret about. I can generate recruits at all positions and they have appropriate names (from an enormous sample), and appropriate heights and weights. The star rating is based on the program rating and reflects accurate historical recruiting patterns for the last ten years.

I've decided that going a hundred miles deep on a minor detail is okay. That's just how I work, and I'm going to stop worrying about it. Inefficient, but satisfying. And it's very satisfying to know that name, height, weight, and star rating are entirely authentic.

Hometown is going to be complicated. The model I'm going to use has basically three areas: home state, adjoining states, and beyond. Programs need to have recruits interested in their program in a geographically accurate manner. I've done a ton of research on this, but it's still in process, so I'm going to shelve that for now and get some less complex things done.

I realized two things that seem like important refinements of the design.

First, I had previously conceived of the game with a pre-defined deck, with (on offense), 2 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, and 1 K.

That doesn't make sense, though, because it limits the development of team personalities through the deck.

Now, except for being required to have 1 QB and 1 K, users can go to town. Want to have a pass-crazy offense? Well, get 4 WR and ignore the running back position, if you want to.

This will also make the AI decks have much more personality, because each team has a "program style" that determines how it will play, and the decks will reflect that.

Much better.

Second, I had originally thought that each yard would have both Offensive and Defensive yardages.

That's kind of stupid, really.

Offensive positions will have offensive yardage only. Defensive positions will have a defensive yardage only. When you're on offense, you play offensive cards, and vice versa.

Duh.

On a play, you can either choose to play the yardage on the card or activate the card's special ability (if it has one), which puts you into a kind of rock-paper-scissors situation where every special ability has a counter that can be played by the other player.

Eli came up with a new name, because "Fighting Eleven" was never going to make it. So the new name is "Fourth and Goal College Football". Or something like that.

Also it was 50F today. I actually see green spots in the yard.

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