New Star Rising

I’ve been cramming in the hours these past few weeks and NSS4 is finally starting to feel like the finished article. I still have some work to do on the competitions, fixing clashes and so on, and you can’t actually get picked for an international match yet, but soon these issues will just be a distant memory (I hope). I must admit it’s getting a bit stressful trying to do as much as possible before Lucy and I leave Melbourne and continue our travels. We fly to Tasmania for 10 days at the end of May then back to Melbourne before heading for the West Coast. How I’ll be able to work during this time is a concern as I wanted the game to be ready for the European Championship. We’ll see…

Feedback from the beta versions I released has been very positive and I can only say that the gameplay will only get better before the final release. I have already made some improvements on the AI and the ball control feels smoother than it did before. I’m hoping to fix any serious compatibility issues with the next beta which will be the last one before the final game is released.

Most of my time at the moment is being spent on the career side of the game and making sure that it all flows nicely. Things like contract offers, the transfer market and the progression of player skills are all hugely important things that need to be finely balanced in order to appear realistic. I think I’ve mentioned it before but I have dropped the training challenges and have made skill progression something that takes place during match play. In addition to your club fixtures you will be able to take part in two types of training matches; full 11-a-side games in an empty stadium or 5-a-side indoor games. These can be selected from the training screen. Notice the custom orange and black interface. Very Half-Life 2...

The indoor games are great fun allowing you to bounce passes off the walls and it helps to increase abilities without expending too much energy running around a full sized pitch.

The outdoor training matches do allow you to set up freekicks, corners and penalties whenever you like though to enable you to improve your setpiece skill. It’s very satisfying seeing your skills chink up at the bottom of the screen when you pull off a nice pass, shot or tackle.

One other aspect I’ve added recently is Achievements. These work in the same way as the Xbox 360 achievements do, recording your progress as you complete tasks like “Score a hattrick”, “Get a sponsorship deal” and so on. The achievement count is currently at 45 but I hope to take this up to 100 by release day. There will of course be some fiendishly difficult achievements such as “World Cup Top Scorer”.

The financial side of the game is shaping up nicely too. Here you can see the finance screen where you can buy vehicles and property and set how much you want to spend on your friends and family each week to keep them sweet. Notice the sponsors panel. Now you can have up to 11 different sponsors ranging from sports wear to cosmetics. Attaining a boot sponsor unlocks the option to edit your boot colours.


Finally, I can't remember if I've shown you any images of the new horse racing section. Here's a brief shot of a race in action...


So for now it's business as usual for me but that finish line is getting ever nearer. :D

Zero To Hero

It’s kind of crunch time here at New Star Towers as the match engine is just about done and I'm working hard to get the career mode sorted. All that remains for the match engine is some gameplay tuning and ironing out of any bugs that arise between now and release day. I’m hoping to release a public match engine beta very soon (like in the next 24 hours) so stay tuned to the forum!

What I thought I’d do today is write up the game controls and post them here. This will also serve as the in-game help file. Two birds with one stone, see? The controls are very similar to NSS3 with a few enhancements so pay attention. :) Ok, here we go…

It is highly recommended that you use a joypad or joystick with an analogue control stick to play NSS4.

Attack
Control Stick - Run
Button 1 - Pass
Button 2 - Lob
Button 3 - Shoot
Button 4 - Call
Button 5 - Sprint

Defend
Control Stick - Run
Button 1 - Chase
Button 2 - Chase/Slide Tackle
Button 3 - Chase
Button 4 - Chase
Button 5 - Sprint

Goalkeeper
Control Stick - Run
Goalkeepers will dive automatically
Button 4 + Control stick - Organize defensive wall

Auto-Shot
If you tap the shot button or hold it down before you have control of the ball you will shoot automatically towards the goal.
If you centre the control stick before the player kicks the ball he will perform a chipped shot.
If you pull the control stick away from the goal before the player kicks the ball he will perform a low shot.
If you pull the stick to the left or right your player will shoot to that side of the goal.
Auto-shots are not precise. The direction will be affected by the player’s shooting ability.
Auto-shots cannot be curled.

Manual Shot
If you have control of the ball and you hold the shoot button down you will bring up the shot power bar. Release the button to shoot with the desired power.
Manual shots are precise. They will travel in the exact direction you kick the ball.
Manual shots can be curled by pushing the control stick left or right relative to the direction of the ball. The shot can also be lifted by pulling away from the ball or dipped by pushing towards the ball.

Auto-Pass
If you tap the pass button or hold it down before you have control of the ball you will pass automatically towards the teammate highlighted. If no teammate is highlighted a short kick will be played.
Auto-passes are not precise. The direction will be affected by the player’s passing ability.
Auto-passes cannot be curled.

Manual Pass
If you have control of the ball and you hold the pass button down you will bring up the pass power bar. Release the button to pass with the desired power.
Manual shots are precise. They will travel in the exact direction you kick the ball.
Manual passes can be curled.

Auto-Lob
If you tap the lob button or hold it down before you have control of the ball you will play a high pass automatically towards the teammate highlighted. If no teammate is highlighted a short lob kick will be played.
Auto-lobs are not precise. The direction will be affected by the player’s passing ability.
Auto-lobs cannot be curled.

Manual Lob
If you have control of the ball and you hold the lob button down you will bring up the pass power bar. Release the button to play a high pass with the desired power.
Manual shots are precise. They will travel in the exact direction you kick the ball.
Manual passes can be curled.

Chase
If you do not have control of the ball you can automatically chase it by holding any of the kick buttons. If you are holding the kick button when you connect with the ball you will perform an auto-shot or auto-pass depending on the button you are holding. You can also use the call button to chase the ball if you do not wish to kick the ball when you control it.

Slide Tackle
If you do not have control of the ball but you are close to it you can tap the lob button to perform a sliding tackle. The length of the slide is depending on the player’s running speed and his tackling ability.

Sprint
If you hold the sprint button your player will run faster. Notice that there are two bars above your player’s head. The top bar (green) is his overall energy. This depletes as he runs around. The second bar (yellow) is the player’s sprint meter. This depletes rapidly when he is sprinting but will regenerate when he stops sprinting. The speed at which the sprint meter replenishes is dependent on the player’s overall energy.
If you tap the sprint button whilst dribbling your player will knock the ball further ahead than normal. You can also affect the direction of the knock with the control stick.

Player Abilities

Energy
Determines how long a player can run at normal pace and how quickly his sprint tank refills
Stamina
Determines how quickly the player’s energy depletes when running.
Strength
Stronger players can push opponents out of the way
Pace
This determines a player’s maximum top speed
Acceleration
How quickly a player can reach top speed
Control
How well the player can trap the ball
Flair
How much a player can curl the ball
Weak Foot
When a player kicks with his weaker foot only a percentage of his passing or shooting ability is used to determine the accuracy of the kick. His Weak Foot ability determines that percentage.
Positioning
CPU - How quickly they find good positions
HUMAN – A higher positioning ability improves the likelihood of a teammate passing to you

Outfield Player Only

Tackling
How far you can slide and how quickly you recover
Shooting
Affects the accuracy of auto-shots
Passing
Affects the accuracy of auto-passes
Heading
Affects the accuracy of auto-headers. Also jump height and dive length are affected by the heading ability
Crossing
Affects the accuracy of auto-crossing
Dribbling
Determines how closely you dribble the ball
SetPiece
Affects the accuracy of set-piece shots and passes

Goalkeeper Only

Distribution
Affects the accuracy of auto-kicks
Agility
How quickly the keeper recovers from a dive
Aerial
How high or far a keeper can jump or dive
Handling
How well the keeper can hold a shot
Organisation
How well the keeper places the wall
Reflexes
How quickly the keeper responds to close shots
Bravery
How well a keeper can save at an opponents feet

Improving your abilities
New Star Soccer 4 is unlike any other football game (including NSS3) in that your abilities are a reflection of how good YOU are as a player. Manual shots and passes are always 100% accurate in that they travel in the exact direction that you point them with the exact power you choose. Every time you perform a skilful action you will be rewarded with ability points. However, points will NOT be awarded if you perform an auto-pass or an auto-shot, and auto-shots and passes are not 100% accurate.

Physical Abilities
Stamina, Strength, Pace, Acceleration can all be improved through Gym Training.

Technical Abilities
Weak Foot
Make a successful pass or shot with your weak foot
Flair
Curl a successful shot or pass
Control
Centre the control stick before you receive the ball

Tactical Abilities
Positioning
Receive a pass or intercept the ball
Vision
Make a successful long pass

Outfield Player Skill Abilities
Tackling
Perform a successful sliding tackle
Shooting
Shoot on target
Passing
Make a successful pass
Heading
Head the ball
Crossing
Cross the ball
Dribbling
Dribble the ball for an extended period of time
SetPiece
Perform a successful shot or pass from a set-piece

Goalkeeper Skill Abilities
Distribution
Perform a successful pass
Agility
Perform a successful diving save
Aerial
Perform a successful jumping save
Handling
Catch the ball
Organisation
Position the wall correctly
Reflexes
Save a close ranged shot
Bravery
Retrieve the ball whilst the opponent is dribbling

Other Statistics
Potential
Skills are easier to build and maintain while potential is high
Consistency
Reflects your performance ratings during your career
Aggression
Reflects how often you foul opponents
Determination
Reflects how gym training work rate during your career

So that's how it all sits right now. There may be a few changes yet but that depends on your feedback. So I'd better go and get that beta ready!

I can see the peak!

It’s been a while, yes, sorry about that. I have to admit that the game went on hold for about one month while Lucy’s sister and my best friend came out to Australia to see the sights and do a little traveling. Lucy and I have also moved to Melbourne and now have a nice little studio flat in St Kilda with a sea view! Unfortunately we are out of money so Lucy is back to working in The Alfred Hospital (she’s a nurse) and I of course am programming every hour that God sends in the hope that New Star Soccer 4 will be finished before we leave Melbourne in three months, but don’t hold me to that! So what’s new? Well today I have at last some gameplay footage to delight your eyes and get that inner footballing genius within you all excited! These are running much slower than normal game speed but that’s due to the video capture software.

Let’s start with a little goal I scored today. The attacker receives the ball and does well to avoid the slide tackle before knocking the ball wide. As the keeper rushes out the 2nd striker squares the ball to his partner who had continued his run into the box and has a simple tap in. If you look closely you’ll see the goalscorer run off and celebrate with his arms outstreched. The 'aeroplane' is one of four celebrations that you can perform after scoring a goal. The others are sliding on your knees, standing with your arms raised, or doing a funky dance. It should be a nice little reward when you score a goal. Here you go…



This next clip demonstrates a nice little passing move I put together before unleashing a shot that the keeper saves. I should have really taken the ball on and looked for the killer pass, but I wanted to test the keeper. Actually I am really happy with my work this week as the keepers are now very very hard to beat. At the moment all the keepers have 100% stats, so when I implement their skills properly, agility, handling and so on, they won’t be quite so super human. This video also shows how versatile the camera is. As you can see it’s a bird’s eye view of the action and old school gamers that fondly remember Dino Dini’s classic Kick Off can actually play in this view if they wish…



This clip shows the computer controlled team crossing the ball and putting the ball in the back of the net with a diving header. Unfortunately for him it was offside, ha! The Com player also uses the “knock” move which taps the ball further away from you than normal dribbling. The AI still needs a bit of work but overall he’s starting to play a pretty solid game and is quite tough to beat.



Here’s one for you defenders out there. A slide tackle to block the pass then send a defence splitting ball through to the forward who scores. It’s a little to easy to get through the back four at the moment so I’ll be working on tactics a bit this week.



So as you can see the match engine is running nicely and is almost complete. I have a bunch of slight glitches to fix and improvements to make which will hopefully be completed this week, then it is back to the career side of the game to complete a few sections like relationships and newspaper reviews before pulling all the loose strings together for final testing. I’m very pleased with the match engine as I’m really enjoying the matches so these are exciting times for me and I definitely feel as though I’m in the final stretch. Keep an eye on my YouTube page because from now on I'll upload anything that I think you might find interesting.

Moving Pictures

Just a quick update to show you some videos of the NSS4 interface in action. First up is an overview of the main screens...



After loading the game it goes straight into the days fixture list, from there it goes into the home page, then the tournament screen, the club screen, the training screen, the relationship screen, the finance screen, the search screen where we look for goalies with 50+ bravery. We finish up looking at a couple of player detail screens. Don't worry about any blank areas in the interface as these will be filled with vital information by release time.

Next up is a look at the casino games. BlackJack, Roulette and the Slot Machine...



The roulette wheel and the slots run a bit slowly, but that's purely down to the video capture method.

Here you can see the interface customization options. It starts off by selecting some of the pre-set colour schemes but then shows how you can change pretty much any aspect of the game; panels, buttons, text and the background. So whatever your team colours you can change the interface to match.



Finally, this video shows the setting up of a quick match between Arsenal and Aston Villa. I created this mode to make it easy for me to test the match engine without having to load up a career. In a quick match you control the whole team, as is normally the case with other football games and of course Sensational Soccer. I will leave this option in for NSS4 but there won't be any multiplayer or online options. However, I am still considering adding an option to let you control the team directly on the pitch when you become a manager, rather than making you just sit back and watch the CPU take over on match day. One problem with the management part of the game is that it cannot ever aspire to the level of detail and control you are given in other games like Football Manager. So by giving you control of the team it would certainly spice it up a bit and help alleviate the fact that the management options are a little sparse.



Also in the video you can see the team run out onto the pitch (or slide out because there still isn't any animation!) and you see how the camera can be adjusted to your tastes; lengthways, side-on, over-head, close-up, far-out... Something to suit everyone! Actually the camera still needs a little work because I want it to be able to keep both your player and the ball in view at all times (if you choose that option). This would enable you to bring the camera right down to pitch level and really put you in the action. Whether this will work or not though remains to be seen.

Don't worry about the green energy meters above the players heads. I'm currently working on energy consumption and need to see how much each player has left in the tank. It might be quite useful to see these in manager mode though, so there will be an option to turn the energy meters on or off in the final version.

As you will see I've cut the video short of the kick off but that's because I want to get the animation working first. It also saves me something to show you in the next blog. :D

By the way, you can keep track of all the NSS4 videos on the new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/newstargames.

Let it snow

Being English, my mind is telling me that November should be cold, wet and grey. Yet, having moved to Australia it should in fact be the opposite, as it is late Spring here. The funny thing is, it has been grey, wet and almost cold here in Sydney for the past two weeks with rain battering down the dull alleyway outside the balcony which is pretty much my office and thunder disturbing the peace every so often. So maybe it's the confused weather that inspired me to add rain and snow effects to NSS4.

For the rain I've employed a similar method to that of NSS3 whereby I overlay the screen with some transparent tiles which have animated rain drops on them. It's a simple method but when I loaded up NSS3 to remind myself how it looked I realised that it's also rather crude and I needed to improve it for the new version. I set about creating better rain tiles and employed a new system where both the rain image and sound gradually fade-in and out. Thanks to the excellent transparency effects in BlitzMax I'm happy to say it looks great! Check out how muddy, miserable and typically English this screenshot looks...


For the snow I have to thank Klaas of the Blitz forums for some excellent Blitz3D code. I needed to convert it to BlitzMax and adjust it for my purposes, but within a few short hours the winter matches felt like an Alpine Christmas. The snow flakes are rendered in true 3D so it actually falls in the game world, unlike the rain which is a 2D overlay. What I like most about it is the way it whizzes by as the camera tracks the match. Just imagine how snow looks when you're driving through it and you'll get the idea. My one concern is that it will slow down the match action on less powerful PCs, but it's possible to alter the number of flakes rendered so it can be cut down to zero if needs be. I've settled for 100 flakes for now which gives a nice effect without looking too sparse. Anything over 300 actually looks too cluttered.


In another flash of inspiration I realised that if I make the snow flakes multi-coloured it produces quite a nice ticker-tape effect which would be great for Cup final celebration scenes. More on that another time though.

Talking of celebrations, one thing many people have requested is the ability to control your player after scoring a goal. Well, your wish is my command because this is possible in NSS4. I've yet to implement the animations but you can run wherever you want during the moments after a goal whilst your teammates chase after you. The plan is to assign 4 celebration animations to the four main buttons (pass, lob, shoot, call) so you can show off to your adoring fans or maybe even run over and taunt the opposing fans. It's this kind of freedom that I'm perhaps most proud of with regards to the NSS4 match engine. For instance, if you are the setpiece taker then you can position yourself by the ball exactly where you want (within a 5 yard zone) allowing you to angle a run-up or simply stand next to the ball for a standing kick. Once in position you set the strength of the kick with the pass, shoot or lob buttons then as you hold the analogue stick (or direction key) the player runs up and kicks the ball. The great thing about this is you can hold the stick exactly how you want to apply the aftertouch and not worry about running towards the ball as the player does that automatically, making it easy to apply dip, loft or curl to the kick. Needless to say, a quick tap of the pass or lob button will pass the ball to the highlighted teammate. A simple thing yes, but it's shocking to think that Pro Evolution Soccer hasn't managed to get short freekicks right throughout the series.

So that's a little update on the state of the match engine and I really, truly hope (and pray) that by the time I next update the blog that it will have properly animated players, because once that is in then the match engine will be 95% complete. At a guess I would say the the entire project is at around 75% complete. Now that's something to be happy about, whatever the weather! :D

Down Under

I know, I know, it's been a long time but I have a half decent excuse. Lucy and I have relocated down-under and it's been a mad month or so. We are now living in Sydney and after a couple of weeks of being tourists we have moved into a shared house and have settled into a working routine, interspersed with trips to the beach of course. :)

NSS4 is coming along nicely and I have a couple of new screens to show you. The first is the training screen where you can set how much effort you wish to focus on each of your abilities. This will help you increase abilities at a faster rate than usual, but will obviously cost you more energy. I still intend to have training challenges as in NSS3 but with skill levels ranging from 1-100 now I would be impossible (or at least very time consuming for me and pretty boring for the player) to create 100 different challenges for each skill. Exactly how the whole training element will work isn't quite nailed down yet but I will focus on it some more in the future.

As you can see, you can also purchase your performance enhancing drugs, alcohol and energy drink from this screen from the action menu. And as before you can check into the rehab clinic from here, or not if you're anything like Amy Winehouse. (I said, no, no, no.)

Next up is the relationship screen which is very similar to the old version, but with a few minor differences. There will be more options on the action menus than in NSS3 and I hope to include sub-screens which give you more detail on the relationships. For instance, you will be able to pull up a list of all your team mates and see which ones like you and which ones don't. Or you can have a chat with the boss to find out what he is unhappy with, whether it's your match form or your playboy lifestyle. Well, that's the plan at least.

The pictures are just place-holders at the moment and may or may not be the same in the final release. If such a thing as an unofficial image patch comes into existence then it will show an actual picture of the team boss and hopefully real photographs for girlfriends too. In fact you will be able to replace the default images for family and friends with pictures of your own if you so wish.

The more observant among you may notice that there's another new icon on the nav panel - the dollar sign. This will take you to the finances screen where you can see your income/expenses and spend your cash as you wish. It will also show details of existing contracts with sponsors and so on, but this area is only half finished so you'll have to wait a while to see that screen.

The other major news is that I have a chap working on the animations for the players and will hopefully soon have some players running around, kicking, jumping, diving and so on (diving headers, not Ronaldo style cheating - shame on you PES7). So the next blog should be very interesting, only I promise not to take so long this time. :)

Global aspirations

I realise it's been a while since my last post so I'd better have something good for ya. Well, I hope the following pics will prove that I've been working very hard lately. It feels a bit like a battle against the clock at the moment because in 4 weeks time I'll be leaving the small English market town of Bicester and moving to Australia. My girlfriend Lucy and I will be living in Sydney for 3 months, where she'll be working as a nurse and I'll be working on NSS4, then we'll be on the road trying to see as much of Oz, New Zealand and Tasmania as possible. Quite how that will work if NSS4 isn't finished by Christmas I don't know, but hey, it'll be fun finding out.

So then, what have I been working on lately. I'll start with the Search screen, which will be useful when you become a manager in the game. You can search for players by specifying their position, age or value and even add attribute filters to bring up only those players you are interested in.


I've also added a few more player creation screens that allow you to set the specifics of your player such as hair colour, preferred foot and so on. One nice feature is that you will be able to see your alter-ego as you set him up. He will even grow or shrink in size as you edit your height and weight.


Two sections that will of course be making a comeback from NSS3 are the horse racing and the casino. There's still some work to be done on showing the horse race so I'll save screenshots of that for another day, but the stables and betting side of the game are in place. This time around there will be much more interaction with your stable. You'll be able to buy and sell horses and you'll decide when they take part in a race, but you'll have to keep an eye their energy and health as they may fall ill if you overwork them.


Moving on to the casino, I started with the BlackJack game due to a chap called Ragnar Brynjulfsson who allowed me to use some BlitzMax code for free. I had to hack it a bit to fit it to my own needs, but it saved me an awful lot of time re-writing the structure and rules of the game and I particularly liked the way the cards move into position when they are dealt so that stayed in too.


BlackJack was implemented within a day thanks to Ragnar, and so flushed was I with excitement that I decided to tackle the roulette wheel. Unlike NSS3 I didn't want to settle for a simple random number being displayed so I set about simulating a ball being launched into the wheel and coming to rest after a bit of chaotic bouncing. It took a bit longer than BlackJack but I'm pretty chuffed with the results. Not only does the wheel look and behave great but I've also included more betting options as you can see in the screenshot.

With two out of three casino games done nothing was gonna stop me from completing the casino section by adding the fruit machine. This was fairly simple to do, once I'd sourced some fruit images from iStock.com. I still need to improve the background image (budding artists, drop me a line) but the reels spin nicely and as with all the gambling games your bank account is updated, win, lose or draw. A new feature for the fruit machine is the nudges. Basically if you get 2 matching fruits you will be awarded a nudge that you can use or save in later spins. Nudges simply allow you to move a reel on one fruit which allows you to force a win if you can nudge 3 matching fruits.


Had enough screenshots? Well, there's one more to come which shows off the start screen in Spanish. Yes, under the supervision of forum moderator and all round nice guy Fabrizio Gatti, NSS has a large recruitment of translators. If you are interested in translating the game please head over to Fab's thread on the forum. I estimate that the current English file they are working on contains about 90% of the text that will be needed for the interface screens, but the real challenge comes when I start working on the relationship incidents. I plan to create an incident editor soon so that forum members can all add some weird, wonderful and of course mundane incidents that might occur during your career, and all of those incidents will need translating. As it stands we have 13 good guys that will hopefully stick with us through to the end and make NSS4 a truly global game.


Oh, and if you didn't know already, the globe you see there will pinpoint the stadium of your next fixture. Well, so long as the co-ordinates are correct which is not quite the case with Villa Park which appears to reside somewhere out in the Mediterranean!