Speedball 2

Game Play & Game Design
#1

This is for anyone who has played any of the old (or new excluding Speedball tournament) speedball games.

I am re-creating Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe as an online game, with teams made up entirely of players (no ai).

I was wondering whether or not I should keep the standard press button to throw method of shooting, in the direction you are facing, or allow the use of the mouse to aim throws (within a certain degree of facing direction) for better accuracy and teamplay/shooting. It seems to me without it a human controlling only the goalkeeper at all times will be unstoppable, unless of course you resort to piling him with tackles.

Also I have slowed down the moving speed of a player with the ball quite a lot to enable quick catching up and encourage passing.

Or would a mouse shooting/passing system ruin this retro game?

#2

What do you mean no AI?
This would mean you need 18 Players in Multiplayer to make a match.
Unless you have a huge community online, this will fail.
(Imagine 17 players waiting for number 18 who wants to eat a pizza first…)

The own players team-AI was always taking over to move the players back to their position to keep the team
setup organised.
The AI was not very fancy, and can be realized with a statmachine.

What you probably mean is, that the other team can be controlled by a human player.
I would put both options in.

Mousecontrol for throwing might be good. As the original was quite hard to steer. I think that would make it more accessable.

And dont forget the league and economy system, wich made the game so cool to play.

#3

I don’t actually think it would be that hard to create an online community, seeing as its still a popular game, and if this worked well could be very fun (not that I intend to though). But as it is you can just play with less people, you just ready up in the lobby and start, however fun that may or may not be. You’re right though that sounds very simple, so I might consider adding AI for empty slots.

#4

You will not get around inserting AI players anyhow.
So plan them in from the beginning.

Rather think of it as filling in the slots with online players

#5

Little late to plan them from the beginning… closer to the finishing touches atm.

#6

Be careful with the game title btw; there is a commercial Speedball “remake”. It wouldn’t be the first time that people would get crud from using the title of ancient and forgotten games that go as far back as the Commodore Amiga.

#7

How about a screenshot?

Ice cream! Ice cream!

;D

#8

One of my favourite games of all time. Possibly second only to Elite.