Souverän Soccer [WIP]

[nikosidis]

Ok We need something new for Souveran Soccer 2 :P
I hope the Keeper will not have the same color as players on the pitch?

[Daytona675x]

@nikosidis
Weeeeelll, right now the keeper has the same color... :-P And you're right, this is something I totally overlooked and which has to be adressed, thanks for pointing at it!
Working on it right now...

[Daytona675x]

@nikosidis
Okay, done, the goal-keepers have a different look now. For simplicity and to save resources they now have the same shirt color as the trousers. I could get away with just one (or two if both keepers are visible at once) extra OR-ing blit here Should do.

[Daytona675x]

New video available

[ Show youtube player ]

Countless stuff has been done since the last progress video. Among all those internal bug-fixes here, engine tuning there, adding of rudimentary alpha player controls and other previously missing things like tackles, fouls, free kicks, penalty kicks, a jumping keeper etc. etc. one more thing is really worth mentioning:

I'm honoured to announce that the famous Triace / Desire made two awesome tunes for the game

So, this video is mostly about listening to those and about watching some dear Amiga friends actually playing the game - also using the serial-link feature - at the Amiga 37 where I spent the passed weekend.

Thanks a lot to all those who checked it out at the event and provided me with lots of valueable feedback, you guys rule

Note: credits may still be subject to change and greetings are incomplete, so don't worry if your name is still missing

Have fun,
Daytona675x

[manossg]

Wow, the game physics/engine and gameplay look absolutely spot on!
The various options are also simply delicious!

[vulture]

It's shaping up great!

[nikosidis]

Fantastic progress!

[Trunchis]

That's some serious progress. It looks amazing!

[utri007]

Looks good!

Just wondering, would more realistic graphic too difficult to get because of low res screen mode? Just wondering why these games looks mostly like Lego games?

[Daytona675x]

@manossg
@vulture
@nikosidis
@Trunchis
@utri007

Thanks guys

@manossg
Regarding gameplay: the current player controls were a quick shot really. Good enough to have something playable for the Amiga37 but still far far away from anything final. And because I ran out of time (of course) the keeper is still very stupid. All this will be addressed during the following weeks. Currently I'm fixing the bugs which showed up at Amiga37, then the whole thing will go to my dear gameplay tuners

@utri007
Lego Well, there just is not enough RAM and blitter budget remaining for more realistic graphics, at least on a stock A1200. Luckily it's not my goal to have a realistic look. Just look at the ball's size compared to the players. That ratio turned out to result in a well overseeable view while fitting equally well into the blitter budget at the same time (interestingly at the Amiga37 nobody complained about lack of overview even if playing on one screen, despite the perspective view). All in all it's going to be an arcade game, which will be tuned for playability not realism.

Anyway, all zooming entities are always shrunk compared to the source graphic, so there's no "pixel-doubling" for the crowd or the players, at the highest zoom level you see the original unzoomed graphics which is just as blocky as everything at 320x256.
One exception: the adboard's text. I'm using a (too) low-res font right now for that one (the same as for the other small texts) but technically it can be higher res on highest zoom level too without any negative impact, I just need to temporarily load and use a higher res font. So right now this is indeed more Lego than it needs to be

Regarding the grass:
it can be more fine-grained, actually even down to one pixel (there's an option in the menus for that) but it just doesn't look good. The current default grass texel size is the visual optimum IMHO, mostly because of two reasons:

- your eye can easily track the motion of those larger texels, so it actually adds to the effect. So, if you focus on such a rather large grass texel at the bottom of the screen and then start moving down the playfield, you can follow that texel for a pretty long time until it starts vanishing in the far distance.

- finer grass results in heavy Moiré effects in the distance, the finer the earlier it begins to look ugly. There's also a mipmap option but while this counters the Moiré effect pretty effectively it also kills details. It simply doesn't look that good.

[d4rk3lf]

This is so cool!
Apart from fantastic graphics and atmosphere, you can clearly see that the gameplay is spot on.

Just out of curiosity:
How hard would be to change the game so it's a side view on the terrain?

[Daytona675x]

@d4rk3lf
Thanks But although it may look different from the [ Show youtube player ], the gameplay is certainly still far away from being spot on.
Changing the view so that it plays from left to right is technically possible but would require lots of changes under the hood. Maybe something for a Souverän 2

[eXeler0]

Sorry for a ”stupid” request, but the dimensions (or rather the ratio between width and height) of the Goal /goalposts look pretty off to me ;-) Is there a gameplay reason for it?

[Daytona675x]

@eXeler0
No stupid request / question at all
Yes, the size of the goals are not correct. If you take the current keeper's size for reference then it should be a bit lower and a little bit wider.

The width of a fully zoomed out goal is limited to 192 pixels right now. It is comparably hard (or comes with undesired sideeffects) to overcome this limitation.
The height however can be easily adjusted, it would be no problem to lower it a bit. I chose the current somewhat unrealistic height for two reasons:

1. it looks nicer. With the current height it laps a bit into the crowd which makes it a bit more vivid.
2. The higher it is the earlier it appears at the bottom, which helps playability.

[thairacerjp]

Hi Daytona675x, I follow you on Facebook and already said how much I appreciate your amazing work and not so many time here so just said keep the good work for this amazing game
and your logo mascot is kick ass !

[Daytona675x]

@thairacerjp
Thanks, mate In contrast to his red compagnon, the green parrot has an orange/yellow pecker in reality though

@all
New wip video #30

Since the Amiga37 event I mostly fixed bugs that popped up during the show. But one new feature has been added too:
The crowd's grand stand has been visually improved by making the (currently) three crowd layers transparent, so that you can see through to the layer behind the other. In previous versions there was a hard vertical seperation.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...yr1OhOssiA0axW

Cheers,
Daytona675x

[Silverstreak]

This is really cool. What sort of a cost does the transparency have?

[Daytona675x]

@Silverstreak
Thanks
Good question. It depends. E.g. if measuring if the ball is on the center-line, then the overall impact compared to the version with the simple crowd sums up to ~19 rasters. If measured if the ball is at the bottom, then it's just maybe ~10 rasters because the crowd is so small. And if measured if the ball is at the top, then the impact is highest of course - but that doesn't matter because drawing the playfield is cheap if at the top.
The effect itself can certainly still be optimized a lot. But I only optimize stuff when I have to

[PARALAX]

I tested the WIP last Saturday in our live stream and I have to say that it's already a small revolution on the Amiga. I don't recall there being any momentary smooth 3D visuals on an unaccelerated A1200. The miniature-like players, the menus and the controls are very reminiscent of a large mixture of the FIFA Soccer games of the late 90s and the model "Sensible World of Soccer". There are still clear weaknesses in playability and especially in the AI, which is particularly noticeable in the goalkeepers. But the game is making great strides and is well on its way to becoming a hit. The sound and especially the title melody are also very atmospheric. I'm already looking forward to the finished product and the review of the final version.

[nikosidis]

For sure a very exiting game that I'm pretty sure will be great