Friday, August 6, 2010

1.2 Materializes

I had to resubmit 1.1 a few days ago because of a bug I found. But again, I hope it comes out soon.

The delay hasn't stopped me from working on version 1.2. It's going to have some pretty awesome and fundamental changes, and ideally it'll be ready to submit right after 1.1 is approved.

For 1.2 I dramatically improved the disc flight physics. Now it flies much more realistically. You can now throw the disc at an angle and have it curve. You can also alter the angle of attack, which means hucks can either be fast, low flying throws, or you can make them sail into the air. Short throws can be either quick, zippy passes, or you can float them into a space.

Sound complicated? Well, yea, it should, because throwing a real frisbee is a complicated process. I want the video game to have all the flight options that a real disc has.

However, I also added optional, simplified controls. A new player can pick them up and play without much practice. An experienced player might even like them if they don't care much about the attack angle or pivoting or throwing hammers.

There's also some AI improvements and a handful of bugfixes.

5 comments:

goteam said...

I enjoy the game a lot and look forward to the updates. I'm glad there is finally an ultimate videogame out there. I also like how you seem pretty dedicated to the project and want to keep making it better. But I do see many ways the game can become better.
I think pulls can be improved for one. In real life pulls go further than 3 quarters of the field. So bigger pulls would make the game more life like. Also on pulls and all other throws. The team gets the disc where it finally lands and not where it first goes out of bounds. If you could possibly fix that it would make the game a little bit more challenging.
Also something I'd like to see is maybe different skilled players or teams. In your game all the teams are equal. In most other sports games, all the teams have different abilities. It would be cool if you gave some teams have bigger hucks but slower speed or great hammers but poor flicks. I think it would make the game more challenging and more fun. It would also be cool if you could make players have different abilties like in real ultimate. You could maybe make the shorts different colors so we now who is a great handler and who is a great cutter.
Also I don't know how hard this would be but better offensive AI would be nice. If I poach the lane it's near impossible for them to get a throw off and they often times stall out. It would be nice if on stall nine they often times would huck it or just get rid of the disc. In real ultimate there really aren't too many stall outs.
I'm sure I have more suggestions I just can't think of them now. I look forward to the next update and future improvements.

Axis said...

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I am very committed to improving the game. My goal from the beginning was to make something that has all of the features of any other sports game. so differing team and player abilities would be cool. It does add a lot of complexity though, so it might be a while before I work it in.

There are a lot of other areas that I'd like to work on first to get it even with other games. A big one is multiplayer.

However, I'll keep adding AI improvements in every release. 1.2 should address poaching to some extent, and it will keep getting better.

Axis said...

I fixed the in-bounds location on errant throws and pulls. Now it follows the rules. Thanks for mentioning it! It will be there in version 1.2

goteam said...

Cool. Well thank for listening to my suggestions.
Also something that would be nice is to have wind. This would make the throwing aspect of the game much more life like and challenging. Reading a huck would also be affected as well.

Axis said...

Yea, I'd love to add wind at some point. Even rain and snow if I can figure out those graphical effects!