Talk Fantasy Football

While going through my website I like to find out where people are coming from and this site is one of them. When I came here I read a few articles which are both negative and positive about the my game (bloody football). I will attempt to answer a few questions and respond to a few comments, please note that I cannot remember who wrote what as I read a few

what my game is -> I studied computer programming last year and had to do a project, I love BB (I still have the original red set) but found that version 3 wasn't to my liking. I also could not find anyone in my local area to play with so I decided to make my own computer version. It started as a management based program but I also needed to have an 'on field part' in order to pass my project, the game also had to be finished by early December which explains why not everything was implemented. As one reader noted 'programmers may have their hearts in the right place but they simply don't have the time', this is excactly right -> I can't spend the time I want on this project because of a little thing called 'life'.
Beleive it or not when you are doing something like this for free then outside influences have a MAJOR influence, if someone writes to me and says "your work sucks" then it is possible that I will give up on it and leave it for 1-3 months (if it happens to others I don't know).
Why some criticism is way off the mark -> Criticism is the best method of working out how you are doing and what parts of the game need to be changed or tweaked, but when I receive criticism that my game 'sucks because it isn't 3D' then that achieves nothing, I am a one man band who does all my own graphics, sounds, programming, Alpha testing and marketing. How do I compete with profesional development houses? I can't so I don't try.

Where the game is heading -> I admit that the in game options are very limited at the moment and some people have criticised the field play aspect of the game, I take the full blame for that because I never sat down and worked out what I wanted to achieve with the game, looking back I wish I had kept it to a simple management style game, just like the soccer team management games which I enjoy playing (and beleive it or not, I don't enjoy soccer, but you can't find management style games for any other sport). In England there are 6 soccer management style games that are fully supported (I got this information from one developers web site who admited that all 6 games were doing very well).
Currently I am working on the management part of the game and trying very hard to finish all that up, but I can't simply dump the on-field play side of things (as some people enjoy it).

A Clone -> I admit I play BB, I admit I have the game, the books etc I also admit to having payed full price for the computer game in the early 90's. I don't want to start a flame war here but I will admit, it was the worst, PROFESSIONALLY MADE, game I have ever played. I make a big deal of "professionally made" because obviously there are some freeware and shareware game that have been disasters. If someone wishes to e-mail me and discuss why I didn't like it then fine, but that's my opinion. Obviously I have to keep my game removed from BB for copyright and trademark reasons.
As for the name of 'Bloody Football'? Try thinking of a good name - now put it into 'google' and see how many games out there already have it I went through about 15 names of the game before I settled on its current title, and even then the game has been coded so I can change the name if I have too.

What I am trying to achieve -> Get a job, simple as that. IT jobs are down in my area but expected to bounce back soon. And what happens when I get a job? This project stops, and I mean stop. It has already taken 18 months out of my life and the returns have been minimal. You try handling criticism from idiots who expect you to have a game that is better than Diablo 2, Quake 3 and Starcraft combined... and they want it for FREE!

What the game has done -> It has been downloaded 10,000 times and yet the feedback has been poor. The vast majority of feedback I find on Bulletin Boards like these, and yet when someone publically says what a great game it is they don't bother to send me an e-mail saying the same thing! If you work for free NOTHING gives you more satisfaction than someone sending you a message congratulating you, in fact my production triples for about 2 days after a good compliment.
The major problem with the internet is the anonymous part, where 12 year old boys use abusive language - They don't say "your game suffers because of x, y and z", they say "you stink and I r**ted your sister while you were programming this". They even hide their e-mail address, so how can I tell them I don't have a sister

What I would like -> Honest feedback. That's all. If you play the game and don't like something then simply tell me, the odds are very good that if there is a part of the game that you don't enjoy then others wont either.

Ah .... finally found the thread that discussed it.

viewtopic.php?t=1500

and only one negative posts was written and it was mine, so I guess this is my thrown gauntlet to pick up.

Okay, my review:

1) I don't like the fact that players could only move 1 square each turn. I would have like my speed to allow more.
2) No matter how much I read the rules, I could not figure out how to throw a block at a given player that was very frustrating.
3) I really wanted to be able to use the mouse for movement ... click player ... click target square.
4) Since each player can only move 1 square, I found it very easy to create stone wall defenses or better yet ... break away scoring. Its very easy to count squares when the opposition only gets 1 square of movement per a turn.
5) While I could change the stats of my players, I had no idea what the result of all my changes was to the game. I didn't feel like my speedy agile players did anything special.
6) When my players got ejected for agressive blocking I had zero idea where they went or the rules for them coming back into the game.
7) I would like to remention that the 1 square movement really didn't make me enjoy the game. 4 turns of waiting to hit someone didn't bring the level of excitement I desired.

I think thats the basics of why I said I didn't like it ... sorry that I used the word suck in my orginal post.

I assist Ronald Lokers in writing the Play-By-eMail program that a bunch of members of TBB have used at some point. This is a free program also written in Ronald's and I's spare time like your program. So my comments were based on comparison to the quality of the PBeM program and SkiJunkie's Java program ... I apologize if these mental comparisons where unfair to your efforts. Note ... no comments about graphics from me. The PBeM program doesn't use graphics so I don't care what the graphics were like ... unlike some of the members here.

Anyway there are my two cents regarding my comment on the board. I think you need to re-read some of the threads though as they related to Bloody Bowl and Blood Bowl Alive not your game. I think the comments on Bloody Football were very very minimal on this board ... in fact I think mine was the only one on the entire board from someone who had tried it.

I played your game for about 2 hours ... so I did try to give it more than a cursory glance.

Galak

Actually yours was the only post in this forum board, but I was actually refering to several other Bulletin Boards and review sites ->
http://download.com.com/3000-2115-10133495.html
http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2115-10133495.html
for examples of criticism that achieves nothing. My apologies Galak if you thought I was having a go at you, your comments were fair.

As for your criticisms, they are very valid ->
1) Something I have to fix, unfortunatley it won't be soon
2) The rules are unclear in areas I agree, but I need to know where.
PS When you block you automatically block the person with the ball.
3) One of the first feedback I received mentioned this, it is being done for next version.
4) Fair comment
5) Fair comment, update of rules needed
6) Something that was supposed to be fixed but obviously not
7) I made the game to be enjoyed, if you don't enjoy the game for that reason then you're right and I'm wrong

I find all of your comments valid and that is what I was asking for in my original post, again I apologise if you thought I was having a go at you. PS 'suck' doesn't bother me, you should read some of the (anonymous) e-mails I receive

Okay quick reply here:

If someone went on a board and just wrote:
"By the way I tried the PBeM program and it sucked" ... well I'd be asking the same questions that you did ... so I definitely took no offense ... actually you were quite polite about it.

I was actually a little chagrined to see that the negative post on your game here was mine. I give you major credit for trying to develop a game in your spare time ... I understand that completely. My 3 year old's bath time is usually when I sneak in a few lines of code.

Anyway, glad to see you here. ....

Galak