Blood Bowl Manager PC Game

[Cedric]

I am planning on developping a Blood Bowl Manager PC Game similar to the famous Championship Manager Series, but set in the world of Blood Bowl with Blood Bowl instead of football/soccer. For those who do not no Championship Manager, you will be named manager of a BB team : you will be responsible of tactics, transfers, training... Tactic would be much simpler than BB, since you will only be able to choose between a few tactics and play with some parameters. But you won't have control on where goes each player... Games will be simulated by the program and you will have access to game comments only (and maybe later to a 2D representation of the main actions)

What I would like is to have your feedback on this project :
- would you enjoy this game ?
- how do you imagine the tactics part ? I thought of choosing between different tactics (Da Kage, Wide Defense...) and choosing the players for each role (blitzer, thrower, runner...), do you have any (better) ideas ?
- Yet, transfers are very complicated to set in the world of BB, cause of rosters limitations. I thought of setting up a different rule which would take into account players alignment (good, evil...). Does that sound right to you ? Or do you prefer the more static BB system ?
- And if you have any ideas on the subject, do not hesitate emailing me.

Some more information :
- The game will be free (maybe published in GPL)
- The first version would have poor graphics
- I plan to release a first version during summer
- any help for rules or graphics would be appreciated

[Dangerous Dave]

This could be great. However, to appeal to the majority of BB players, I suspect that the tactics will have to be a major part of the game. If simulated, some representation of the game is necessary with the ability to change tactics mid stream. Something like the American Football play books would be good (although I am not advocating an exact replica). Also, some players could e given a job to do such as "take out number 2".

Given the different tactics prevalent within each race, I suspect that this is going to be a difficult task.

Will players be given % rankings in attributes like CM rather than stats such as in "real" BB? Similarly fitness and injuries rather than aging.

Good luck!


Dave

[Moonsong]

Yeah, it should be great. If I remember correctly, someone else on the board was trying something similar a year ago. He had even put online the first screen, but then nothing more came. Keep us informed.

Moonsong

[Moonsong]

Ok, found it! Look here:
http://www.talkbloodbowl.com/phpBB2/vie ... 24&start=0

Moonsong

[Cedric]

Thanks for the old topic Moosong, though the screenshot link is dead

To answer Dave's questions :
- tactics should represent 2/3 of the game (and transfers should be the last 1/3), for a first release. Maybe later, stadium, training, scouts management...
- I'm planning to allow managers to change their tactics during a game, though the "representation" of the game for a first release will be very simple : messages describing the game and an image giving the distance of the ball from end zone. Maybe later a 2D representation of all the game ?
- I don't really know american football tactics, I think I'd rather base tactic on my BB experience. Though if someone knows any good link to american football tactics...
- Each coach will choose his tactics (1 offense and 1 defense) and define roles for his players (thrower, wide receiver...). Specific roles could be interested.
- The attributes of players will be more like CM (with % rankings or /20 like in CM4) than like BB, since BB attributes seems to restrictive to me, idem for injuries and fitness.

I know this is a lot of work, but I have finished my last project (a play-by-email game of some kind of Speedball management) which requires now only some maintenance, and I would like to start a new project. And a BB-CM sounds like a good idea to me.

[tchatter]

An online example that uses ASP is here...

www.hattrick.org

This could be doable with Blood Bowl... and you may find it easier to code??

[Munkey]

Don't know if this will help but here is a link to a play by mail game of American Football. I can't find a link to the rules on the website and I seem to have lost my copy somewhere.

http://www.pbmsports.co.uk/gameplan.htm

Basically the tactics involved selecting specific 'plays' to run in certain situations (eg. first down, about to score, etc.). Don't know if this will translate to Blood Bowl but it might be worth a shot.

[neverdodge]

AS an addicted BB player, and an addicted CM pmayer, i can only find that idea really cool !!

I just think the CM concept seem really hard to adapt to BB, especially the in game strategy part.


Keep the work going, i m really curious about how taht game would be..

[Dangerous Dave]

Just to elaborate further on the tactics side. When I referred to American football play books, I don't mean design 100 plays and call 1. I meant pick a type of turn. Eg

Offense

Roll left
Roll right
Long bomb
Go for the score
Hand off and cover
Run and cage slow
Run and cage fast
Keep ball carrier away from trouble
BeatUp

Defense

Blitz ball carrier
Defend deep
Mark deep threats
All pile in
Foul!
Go for ball and cover
Beat Up


Or something else similar. The idea is to play a turn with an idea without rolling the dice. The players would then try and perform the required moves using their skills and a decent understanding of risk / reward. Sure this requires some AI but it would need that anyway. This makes it turn based rather than "real time" but would make it closer to BB and gives a coach more of an opportunity to manage in-game. Of course the in-game AI would need to use the coaches instruction plus the individual player attributes and try to make a fist of it. Sure would the players always do as they are told? Nah.... but then when has that ever been the case in any sport? [at least that's the programmer's get out!]

Of course this representation is tilted to two 8 turn halves. This could be condensed if required.

A 2d representation of the game would be great. This way you could react to the opponent's turn.



Just trying to help.



Dave

[Dafrenchcoach is Back !]

Neverdodge: so you're a CM fan too? Great! I'm afraid my computer is now out of date, and the last version is really too slow... Anyway, the only way to see A.S.S.E winning the Champions' Cup ... I mean, in the next years

Cedric: It should be great, really. Try to find towbowl tactics website, and try to join the mailing list: I know that some people are working on a IA for blood bowl... Sharing your experiences and skills should help each other

[neverdodge]

Yup DfCiB (;p) i enjoyed a lot playing CM 3

And back to the topic, i think Dave s idea is really good, that game got to turn based, just to be closer to bloodbowl. Great idea dave !!

[Dafrenchcoach is Back !]

you're right, neverdodge, this nickname is more ridiculous than the first one (yeah, it was possible and i did it ). But it's just a temporary pseudo. I guess I will find another one soon... ANyway, I'm too happy to be able to post agaoin( my looong absence had to see with aol)

[Matsu]

Here's a thought - Have a setting for each player be a slider for Carnage vs. Teamwork.

I.E. You could have some players whose only goal is to cause injuries, while others are trying to actually pay attention to the ball.

[Dark Lord (retired)]

So this would be like Small Ball?

[lawquoter]

Somebody had created a game for the pc on the web a while ago. It had a pretty funny intro movie, and you could sort of play a game. It was far from finished (couldn't actually go to a post game, no way to customize the teams or run a long term team, etc.), but it was pretty cool. I guess gw legal got to them or they just got sick of all the programming that had to be done. Still, it was cool. You might look to that for some inspiration.