I like what you are doing with the controls. Hook shot from the post position? Maybe at short distance you do a bounce pass, being harder to intercept.
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Here's the latest update.

http://www.mediafire.com/?n4fka49v8msae80

- Players are now highlighted depending on which is under joystick control. A side effect is now the ball is in multi color mode, so the sprite now needs to be tidied up.

- The ball pass speed is increased

- Sprite priority display ordering has been implemented

- it is possible to miss shots (need to adjust factors that influence this). Take a few outside shots and you'll eventually end up with some misses


I'm thinking about working on AI next (both offensive player with the ball and defensive), and the ability to control the movements of your team mate (effectively play calling) in either offense or defense.

In GBA, you can select from a number of defensive and offensive setups, but this can only be changed during end-to-end transition of play. RIght now I'm only planning on this being a half court game and I like the idea of adjusting 'plays' at any time.

The best idea at the moment I have is using double taps in various directions to direct your team mate (eg up/up means head straight to the basket, upleft/upleft is low post on left key side etc). What they do after staying a few seconds at their destination I haven't thought of (maybe run between their last 2 positions?). I'm not sure either how to apply this in defense, but maybe it could be used to switch between man-to-man or various zone defenses.

As far as general defensive or player offensive AI, I'm not really sure at all. I'd like something similar to One On One (where the defender basically positions themself between you and the ring) - how easy that is to achieve I haven't thought about. The offensive player AI is good too, but again I haven't really thought how to mimic that.

Good job!

I'm glad that project is moving forward...

About AI - tough call...
I guess simple rules would work the best...

Here's a new update!

http://www.mediafire.com/?2raqg3pzgd2pna2

Things seem to be going ok so far, just slow.

Main things are:

- Start of defensive AI (eg shot blocking, man-to-man)

- Player with ball can 'direct' their team mate to position - double tap in any of the 8 directions and player will change their position between locations (allowing you to setup a post or clear out)

- Improved passing - it is faster, can only be intercepted if defender actually attempts a steal - this will also encourage a passing game

- Player rotation animation between direction changes.

There are a few other improvements here and there but nothing notable - Enjoy!

The Mediafire link is an assembly file, not sure if you meant that.

oops

Didn't mean that -
correct link ....

http://www.mediafire.com/?2raqg3pzgd2pna2

Congratulations - you've seen the crappy source code!

Looking good.

That double-move joypad control seems to work well...

It kinda feels intuitive

I know it is not a priority but some background details would be nice.
Green background makes players hard to see....
I guess some grey colors like these would be better:

The most recent version is getting quite impressive - with the passing and the blocking functions it's starting to have more depth and sport-feel to it. Keep up the good work.

Happy New Year!

1 Player: http://www.mediafire.com/?lk71ai64qlcsbug
2 Player: http://www.mediafire.com/?ld7cf1obr0mphny

It's been a while since the last update - progress has been a little slow.
Anyhow, I've got the following additions going:

1) start of court graphics, including 3 point line/shots working with the score board and shot clock

2) backcourt highlight for team that needs to clear ball

3) out of court violation and 'losers' possession after a goal is scored

4) An experiment with a 1 handed dunk player pose. At the moment, even if you shoot a jump shot the player will make this pose. I'm thinking I might have the standard jump shot pose as before and if you change joy position mid shot, a dunk pose will be made. What I'd like to do is have some sort of incentive for the player to do this (ie gain energy back faster if you complete a dunk this way - if you stuff it up, lose energy faster)

5) It is now possible to have two players on the same team - just haven't uploaded that configuration here.

6) I've been experimenting with the idea of player energy (similar to Dr J vs Larry Bird). Although not visible here, I can adjust player jump heights and speed. I need to do some more testing whether this is the way to go with player attributes of have something like GBA where you can set individual attributes for each of your players.
I will probably have the concept of a fitness level, where the more steals and jumps you attempt, your attributes decrease, so you should at least then be more encouraged to pass to your team mate.

I've uploaded a 1 player and 2 player version - both work in MCC if you have it!

Also if you play the one player game, the CPU doesn't have AI to clear the ball. You also need to reset the game if the CPU gets to ring and starts jumping (you can't get it off them!) - I've still got to implement their shooting AI.

Feedback is greatly appreciated - especially on the two player mode. I tried that recently and I think it is starting to have a good balance between arcade and simulation feel. It's faster than Dr J and Larry Bird (which I wanted), but also retains strategic elements for posting the player with the ball, and the defender risking aggressive steals and potentially opening up the lane for a drive.

Hey, that is nice progress!

Tried it with two joysticks, and had lots of fun trying to fight between left and right side of my brain

Gotta find labrat to test it with...

Otherwise looking good!

Really great work! I used to play Commodore's International Basketball a lot as a kid. I like how the player actually turns and doesn't just magically flip through 180 degrees.

rob
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IMHO this is a breath of fresh air in the c64 game development.. i will keep an eye on it.

Thanks very much for the feedback as it does give me incentive to keep pushing on. Basketball games tend to have a limited appeal and I can understand why!

There's still a number of key features and improvements I'm aiming to make, but I think the core game play is just about there apart from some refinements.

I've actually been surprised at how much I have been able to put in so far without pushing the memory limits, and only lately having to keep an eye on how close to cycle limits it is coming (even there I still have room to move and refine).

Also out of interest, what's the general verdict on the sprite design? I have some ideas on refinements, but an alternative I have come up with is much more arcade-like, almost comical....




The interesting thing when trying the game with them is the players feel slower to control, just because of the visual difference in width - weird!

The new design looks better but maybe seems too small for a basketball player. Have you thought about using 2 sprites per player?

I really like this game, and I enjoyed to be able to play 2-player game. Keep it up!

New design looks better, I like those chubby, sturdy players - looks much more like players on our neighborhood court

Less black on arms imho.

ps. Don't think you should go for two sprites per player... would complicate things a lot. Better finish game and leave that idea for a follow up game

I'm going to work on the new sprite designs and see how they turn out - I find it's also easier to see what's happening with them against any detail in the background graphics.

About the suggestion of 2 sprites per player ... I decided early on that I wanted to simplify things as much as possible (and avoiding multiplexing was one of the criteria), so as to make sure I'd have half a chance at completing this ... if I wasn't able to get the code for calculating the ball path to the ring, this project would have stopped long ago at that point!

That being said, I wasn't too sure how having small sprite players would go for the gameplay (ie too difficult to make accurate dunks and steals), but I'm really happy with it so far. I have tried expanded sprites and it's definitely not an improvement!

If anything majorly different, I considered the idea of 3 on 3 (with option to play any sort of variation to number of players), however this requires an entire rethink of player controls. I've got more than enough ideas that I want to try and implement here anyway, so will keep pushing on!

I wasn't thinking about sprite multiplexing when i said the idea of 2 sprites per player instead i was thinking on use 2 sprites per player (2x4 = 8 ) and use chars for the ball.

Now, if i'm not mistaken you use only 5 sprites (4 for the players and 1 for the ball), maybe at least you can use the remain 3 sprites to improve color depth of the players, put a referee or something like that.

With the sprites, I am using 1 per player, 1 for the ball, 1 for the shadow. may eventually use 1 for the ring or if not, have some ideas for the 2 left overs.

I'd never actually thought of using chars for the ball (or even shadow), but my guess it would be fairly involved to achieve vs using a sprite. The other problem that comes to mind is priority of display. You might notice that if the the ball is further up the screen (lower y position), it is behind players with a higher y position. When it has a higher y position than a player, it is in front of them.

I know with char graphics you can prioritise display over sprites, however if the current char that has the ball -and potentially the court lines- it would look weird having sections of court appearing over the player!

That being said, chars wouldn't work for the ball, but that problem wouldn't apply to the shadow.

A small update .... just got player energy levels working which really look like they will change the dynamic of play of game (for the better I hope!)

Greetings,
Leigh your game is really slick! good job buddy

This project just screams "PROTOVISION FOUR PLAYER ADAPTOR!!!"
Is this a possibility?

Wow. Very nice. I don't even like basketball and I found myself wanting to play it. lol