Brainstorm for a project: Thorn EMI Soccer Hack

[snicklin]

All,

 

It's more of a dream rather than something that I would do personally but I had a thought for a project and wondered what you all thought about it? Perhaps it is a project that could belong to a lot of people at once?

 

First up, take a look at Thorn EMI Soccer

 

It used to load quite quickly back in the day off cassette and I would presume (but not know) that it doesn't use that much memory except for the screen memory.

 

It looks like the closest thing that we have on the Atari 8-bit to Sensible Soccer, albeit a horizontal scroller.

 

The thought that I had was, "If someone could hack this and add a few improvements to the way that it plays the beautiful game, this could be a very good game". The graphical work has been done and doesn't need much amending.

 

But imagine if the following improvements were added:

1) Not just kicking the ball forward, but intelligence could be used to decide where to kick the ball.

2) Throw-ins (which are kick-ins on this) brought players of the same team closer to the line so that they can be passed to.

3) A keeper who doesn't allow the ball to just idly trickle past him.

4) A ball that when kicked initially goes quick and then slows down.

5) Players move closer to the goal when a corner is taken.

6) The team on the left takes the kick-off from the line in the centre of the circle and not slightly to the left (unlike the right team who use it correctly).

7) Goalies wear a different coloured kit.

8 ) Adverts at the top which uses some nice DLI's and has varying adverts as per the modern advertising "boards". Perhaps scrolling text could be added to them also?

9) Put some of those angled adverts on the grass near the goals.

 

It'd all depend on spare CPU time I guess. I know that there a lot of other improvements that could be added but may be more difficult to implement. i.e. heading the ball, real throw-ins, goalkeeper diving animations, goalkeepers running up the field for last minute corners etc etc.

 

I'd just like to discuss on here about what you think is possible / not possible, whether it is a feasible project for many people to work on, how it would be best to analyse the existing code and so forth.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Steve

Edited November 27, 2015 by snicklin

[snicklin]

Other possible (and simple) improvements could be:

* A timer which shows the seconds as well as the minutes.

* Use a different font for the text.

* Improve the menu screen at the start aesthetically.

* Have two players in the centre circle for a kick-off.

* Add corner flags and those little circles on the grass that they have

* Optimise the graphics drawing.

[Wrathchild]

Comparing the C64 and Atari versions of "Kick Off" you have to cry

And the "Match Day" 1 or 2 sprites wouldn't be possible either (and the game looks slow on y/t).

 

Using graphics like the ones here might suit for replacing the Thorn EMI Soccer graphics.

But perhaps building a vertical (or 8-way) scrolling game from the off would be nicer?

The new graphics may well lend themselves to either a soft-sprite library (as Popmilo is working on) or a multiplexed h/w sprite engine.

This would permit a pitch with quick and simple drawing for the white lines and the background is the grass which could even be enhanced with DLIs swapping dark to light.

If missiles used the 3rd colour then they may make 'quick' vertical lines, saving some rendering time and Gr.7 used as only horizontal lines need to be drawn if players are h/w sprites.

If Gr.15 and s/w sprites are used instead then double buffering could be employed. Quick erases on the hidden screen can be used - just where the players were rather than erase the whole screen.

[snicklin]

I was initially shying away from the thought of rewriting all of the graphics because I felt that if they were rewritten completely, we'd just end up with a new game altogether and may be easier to just write a new game from scratch. I'd prefer vertical scrolling however.

 

I'd like to keep it to the small players, like Sensible Soccer. The games that use the larger players just don't seem to work.

 

I don't think that the Atari 8-bit really has any decent football games. Fantastic Soccer wasn't really that fantastic. Kick-Off is over-rated. I like this game the best although it doesn't really play like a real game.

[popmilo]

One mentioned earlier is a good example:

"Graeme Souness International Soccer"

 

Shows how playable game can be even with sprites only couple pixels wide.

 

Soft sprites wouldn't be a problem. Question is how many colors do we need for footy game ? Is 4 colors enough ?

Multiplexer could work for something like player clothes for example, even the possible flicker wouldn't matter much if sprite of player that is under control is kept at high priority as that's where player is watching most of the time.

 

Hmm... I guess one team's clothes could be black and other white ? That would solve all color problems

 

 

[snicklin]

One mentioned earlier is a good example:

"Graeme Souness International Soccer"

 

This looks pretty good for an 8-bit game. The one thing that I am not keen on though is that you can't see the whole playfield horizontally whilst scrolling up and down. 4 colours appears to be enough for Thorn EMI so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Perhaps the goalkeepers could me sprite based though.

 

I think that with a game like this, the CPU time should be on drawing the players and working out where to kick the ball rather than multiplexing to add additional colours.

[snicklin]

*could be sprite based though

 

Essentially, I'd love to see a game on the Atari which is really playable. Some attempts are just so unplayable yet they have good graphics.

[popmilo]

*could be sprite based though

 

Essentially, I'd love to see a game on the Atari which is really playable. Some attempts are just so unplayable yet they have good graphics.

Yeah, ISS pro like gameplay would be awesome, even with 4 colors

[Mclaneinc]

Wow, you guys don't want a lot, do you

 

A Sensible Soccer on the 8bit would be awesome....SS is still one of my favourite games on the Amiga along with another of their games, Cannon Fodder which I also feel could be sort of ported to the 8bit..

[snicklin]

I seriously can't see why Sensible Soccer wouldn't be possible. Perhaps it might not have a CPU that plays so well and it'd have to stick to small graphics, but something similar could be possible. ISS perhaps not...

 

As for Cannon Fodder, I've thought about that game before... I think that the backgrounds are way too elaborate. It'd be hard to do it justice.

[Mclaneinc]

I still think the backgrounds could be Commando style and still work for a Cannon Fodder port.

 

As for Sensible, I've played it on all the systems its been released on, I have to admit its the Amiga version I prefer but all are good for their own reasons, an 8 bit version would be ace..

 

Obviously though, to an idiot like me that is an easy request but I'd seriously love the REAL devs here to give thought to if they think it would be viable?

[snicklin]

Hmm, I think that perhaps a game which is inspired by Cannon Fodder could be created, but I wouldn't give it the name "Cannon Fodder". Water and different levels of land may have to be removed to make it feasible. Commando is a good example, have that while controlling 3 or 4 soldiers is possible.

 

As for getting the devs talking, yes, that'd be great. I'm not saying anyone has to do this (that's not my style), but I'm putting the idea out there for others to consider. Everyone has too many projects on anyway, but I just want to get people thinking about this, put it on the radar.

 

I spent some time yesterday considering the logic of player movements, there's quite a bit to it actually.

 

I'd have the game process each player 1 by 1, getting them to "think" like individuals. It's going to be difficult to write down my thoughts, but I'll try to explain...

 

* It'll depend on if you're in possession or not.

* When defending (or not part of an attacking move), am I out of position?

* When attacking (not in personal possession of the ball), can I move into space without being offside?

* When the ball is in the air, where will it be in the air when at head height? And where would it land?

* Who is the closest player? They should be computer controlled.

* When passing (this is key to SS's success), pass to the player closest to the direction that the joystick is pressed, even if it isn't precisely lined up.

* Should the goalkeeper rush out?

 

Aagh, so many things to consider. And there'll be many more also. I guess that if CPU time is scarce, some of these will need to be prioritised.

 

I loved the Amiga version by the way. Such a great version.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmm, I think that perhaps a game which is inspired by Cannon Fodder could be created, but I wouldn't give it the name "Cannon Fodder". Water and different levels of land may have to be removed to make it feasible. Commando is a good example, have that while controlling 3 or 4 soldiers is possible.

 

Hmmm,

 

makes me think of "Force of Four": http://a8.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=4029

or here as a single file: http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/index.php?dl=190

 

Maybe enhance it a bit (more/different enemies, tanks, buildings, etc.)

[popmilo]

Agreed with both Cannon Fodder and Soccer as possible on A8.

4+1 color and small sprites is perfectly good for both. Something like Commando color scheme (green, brown, black, yellow and blue) is good even for lakes, rivers, hills etc...

 

As Snicklin wrote, the real challenge is controlling all objects in the game. Soldiers, players, balls, grenades... One by one should work. Even if animation is not so fluent it would still be good as individual objects would move at their own speed.

 

ps. Cannon Fodder type game is exactly what I was thinking about for my Agd project. Once that kind of scrolling background with sprite engine is done these types of games should be much easier to make (even Football is just a shooting game without bullets ).

[snicklin]

even Football is just a shooting game without bullets

 

... never thought of it like this!

[snicklin]

As Snicklin wrote, the real challenge is controlling all objects in the game. Soldiers, players, balls, grenades... One by one should work. Even if animation is not so fluent it would still be good as individual objects would move at their own speed.

 

There could be a lot of little tricks that could be applied. For example, all on-screen players could be moved one pixel at a time, but those off screen could be processed half as often but have them moving 2 pixels at a time.

 

With Cannon Fodder, I've always thought that you'd need some pretty good path routines, so if a player bumps into a tree on the the way to getting somewhere, they'll side-step it and walk around.

[popmilo]

With Cannon Fodder, I've always thought that you'd need some pretty good path routines, so if a player bumps into a tree on the the way to getting somewhere, they'll side-step it and walk around.

That's not actually that hard... I have routines I wrote back in 90s for Dune like rts on C64. Worked pretty well and fast enough. Calculating path between any two points on a grid of 40x25 took less than a frame and as you only need it when 'destination' is changed it can be spread over multiple frames so it doesn't influence game much.