Re: Sociable Soccer - Jon Hare's new football game is on KICKSTARTER!

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8 years 4 months ago #131426 by atchoo
Maybe, but it sounds to me like they have to reduce their ambitions, too.
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8 years 4 months ago #131427 by higgipoker
I really do hope they just concentrate on the gameplay. After 98 and 2006, you have to say this is Hare s last chance. Is he capable of designing a great 3D footy game?

If it s as fun to play as original Sensi, all the other modes and features will follow.
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8 years 4 months ago #131428 by steviebwoy78
I absolutely agree with you Paul, I think the gameplay footage looks really promising, so I m pretty confident that it ll be good. I hope they don t sign up to a publisher in a way, as publishers are what cost SS06 if you ask me. If you look at the actual gameplay of SS06 - yes, I know it wasn t Sensi - but it was a decent football game. It was just riddled with bugs that the publishers didn t give them time to fix.

Another factor to bear in mind nowadays, is that once the game is released that isn t the end of the story like it was 9 years ago. SS06 would ve been patched to within an inch of it s life if it d been released on the Xbox 360.

With this is mind, I m confident Jon can do a really good job. Watching this space with interest.

Edit: Co-op not being included is a blow, though!
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8 years 4 months ago #131429 by steviebwoy78
Some quotes from the Kickstarter comments page. Obviously, it s a bit jumbled but hopefully it s worth adding here.

Hi guys, we just sent out a message to all of you letting you know that while development continues, this campaign is going to be closing within the next 12 hours. Sociable Soccer will be released through traditional publishing channels in due course and we ll be posting regular updates on our Facebook page and PlayStation Blog. We thank you for your continuing support, we couldn t make this game without such a strong community.
We re currently in the office and are happy to answer any and all questions posted here tonight.
Jon Team

We re going to have the publishers fight over this one in Battle Royale style and see who s the last one standing. ;)
More seriously though, we ll post an update on that when the time is right.

Having a complete career mode and transfer market is something we d love to do eventually, but just like with Sensible Soccer and SWOS, that s more like an extension from the base game and we d rather get the game out to everyone sooner.

Exact platform and release date announcements will come at a later date, but we do think PS4 is quite an ideal platform for Sociable Soccer. We wouldn t keep posting on the PlayStation Blog if this wasn t the case.

The spec remains the same for now. You may even find more platforms in the mix, but still wouldn t hold my breath for an Amiga port as much as we d love one.

That letter swapping thing looks a bit risky from a legal standpoint. Still, players and teams will be editable in Sociable Soccer and we won t be responsible for what you do with it, either. :)

Too early to say; it s simple from a technical standpoint but console vendors generally do their best to stop anyone from downloading data directly into their systems.

While it s too early to tell what the final price point will be when going through a publisher, they will certainly bring in more resources both for development and visibility and can result in an even better game you d have received through Kickstarter. This could be a win for everyone.

Rights ownership is a key element for sure, but at the same time there s so much more we can do with Sociable Soccer from analog controls to online multiplayer. We want to build this into the next great game in the dynasty, not just rehash what was already a perfect game for its time.

It s a tough season for anyone to get their voice out with all the big games coming out, and we didn t really have a channel into the community that we could have used to let everyone know. We re sure plenty of people will first learn about the campaign the moment it closes. Thank you for your support. :)

We re not going to let any money men ruin this for you guys.
No cloaks or daggers here either, the reason everything was so quiet we were just neck deep in development. In hindsight we should have spent more time chatting with backers, consider this a lesson learned. :)

Re sexy net physics - We did spend a good while watching Football Kingdom footage on repeat, that s all we ll say on that topic for the moment. ;)

Co-op would be a slightly different game from what Sensi was and what Sociable Soccer is growing into. The reason it plays so tight is that the rules that govern player selection, tackling and passing between team members are clear and easy to learn and you re essentially controlling the whole team by yourself. As soon as you introduce a human co-op player into the mix there s really no telling how it should play. We ll explore this but we really can t promise anything, it s an unsolved puzzle.

Yes, we re using Unity. Cross platform support becomes easier to a point, but porting the game is not the most challenging part of the process, getting the gameplay right is. There s really no magic bullet that works for this, so we just keep iterating at the office until 5 or 6 AM, crash for a few hours and repeat on the next day. :)

We actually thought of that streaker too, good old Sensible Software style humour. ;) Adding stuff for customization can be fun but it d be a shame to drive people away from the game just because they hate micro-payments.

Cheers, it s hard to explain to newcomers what is so different in a game that is fundamentally so different from the soccer simulators.

We ve been occasionally breaking away from developing Sociable Soccer to have matches SWOS matches in the office running in DOSBox, this way we can validate we re reaching the right levels of fun.

We ll be monitoring all the channels, you can write to us on Facebook and Twitter. There s also a Reddit page we ll get around to eventually, could make it easier to host discussion. We expect to have entertaining match commentary, but it s too early to go into detail on player stats.

Depending on publisher the order of publishing and releasing versions for different platforms could be affected, but this remains to be seen. Some publishers like to play the cards close to their chest and only announce things when they re ready, we d love to tell you exactly when things are coming out and for which platform.

We re glad to have your support, Kickstarter or not. We believe the biggest single reason for Rocket League s success is that it s actually a very entertaining game. However, if Sony (or any other platform owner) wants to do a deal where a lot of people get access to the game we re always happy to at least entertain the idea.

Feedback is always welcome, through all of the channels. We re going to take in a lot of feedback and run lots of playtests, and over here Jon is the Ultimate Authority in what goes into the game and what gets cut. :) No worries about the weather... winter is coming.

It s past 5 am so we ll retire for a few hours; if anyone wonders why the campaign is still open when the picture says it s closed, that s just because we wanted to update some things, post new assets and basically make everything a bit better first.
The campaign might have lived fast and died young, but we want it to leave behind a good-looking corpse.

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8 years 4 months ago #131430 by higgipoker
Nice to have all in one place, cheers stevie.
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8 years 4 months ago - 8 years 4 months ago #131432 by steviebwoy78
My guess is that they ll go for PC and PS4 at this point, and they ll consider the XB1 if they get a publisher. Total speculation on my part, but it seems that way based on some of the comments above. The PS4 seems like a natural fit for indie games these days - much as I hate to admit it as I have an Xbox One. Ah well, another reason to get a PS4!

I don t know about the online stuff, Jon clearly really wants to innovate with this title, but I wonder whether the KS campaign has brought him back down to earth a tiny bit. It could be that we ll be looking at a more offline-focused game this time around, with the online stuff and career modes to follow in Sociable Soccer v2.0.

Again, total speculation on my part.
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8 years 4 months ago #131433 by steviebwoy78
What I never really understand, is if Jon needed £300k to get the game made, what is he gonna do now? Do people take out loans for game development and hope that the final game will help pay it off? I m probably a bit naive here, but how do developers fund game development without a publisher/investor?
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8 years 4 months ago - 8 years 4 months ago #131436 by Retrieving

What I never really understand, is if Jon needed £300k to get the game made, what is he gonna do now? Do people take out loans for game development and hope that the final game will help pay it off? I m probably a bit naive here, but how do developers fund game development without a publisher/investor?


It s entirely possible that he s had a publisher lined up for this since the very beginning and the Kickstarter was a just a way to test the waters, pretty common occurrence nowadays among developers;

that d at least explain the unreasonable funding goal and the half-assed, rushed-out campaign, but then again he went to great lengths to explain that 300k ain t shit when you re producing a multi-platform game (which might very well be true) so who knows.


I don t know about the online stuff, Jon clearly really wants to innovate with this title,


Not sure what he chose to innovate, exactly, though; as per the EuroGamer interview, he unironically thinks New Star Soccer (have a look: www.metacritic.com/game/ios/new-star-soccer/trailers/4178844 ) is the only game, in recent years, that brought something new to the table as far as football games go (and he s certainly not talking about gameplay). Feels like I m taking crazy pills here.

Clan battles and avatar-related RPG elements are neat concepts but... who gives a shit? I m playing a soccer game, not a facebook app, I personally couldn t care less about this stuff and both the KS and the Eurogamer interview made it sound like it s the most prominent feature (and they picked those over a Career Mode), not sure what to make of it, whatever floats their boat I guess.

I may lack the kind of vision he has but it just sounds like he s trying to shoehorn a bunch of ham-fisted social media-like features nobody asked for in the game to me, just because he thinks they re gonna make the game successful among casual gamers and football fans and it all feels a bit disjointed, especially when the game is supposed to be the spiritual successors to Microprose Soccer and SWOS.

EDIT: is there a way to modify comments on the KS page?
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8 years 4 months ago #131438 by atilla
Jon Hare Interview... Paul interviews Jon Hare creator of Sensible Soccer to discuss Jon’s new Kickstarter Sociable Soccer as well as some of Jon’s earlier work.

www.maximumpowerup.com/episode-14-jon-hare-interview/
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8 years 4 months ago - 8 years 4 months ago #131450 by St.Vitus
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