Help with deciding; Extreme Ball

Game Development
#1

Not sure if this should go here or would be better suited somewhere else. Anyways…

I’ve been working on a sports game for the last few days and getting fairly close to being ready to release a demo. I would like to get opinions on this rough cover I started. Also, game portion is already sitting at roughly 21,000+ words and I still have the second half of the Divisional Game and the State Championship game to write. I also have to work on some social interactions, because most of them are just the choice to talk to NPCs and not much dialogue. With the selection right now.

So… My original plan was to have the full game go into your pro years (15 year) which would include 3 to 4 years in college. But with the Freshmen year of high school already going to hit 25,000+(?) words, that would put the high school years at roughly 100,000 words… So I thought about splitting it up into, Extreme Ball: High School Years, Extreme Ball: College Years, and Extreme Ball: Pro Years. With the possible option to coach during the college years and pro years. Thoughts?

The grey squiggly lines are going to be the skin and colored in, and the ref letters on the ball will be colored in as well. Should I add grass? Color in the ball? Let me know whatcha think! I know it isn’t the best artwork but I wanted to give the demo a cover.

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#2

I think it would be wise to start small. While I think it would be awesome to have a massive, several hundreds of thousands of words sports game, I also think that isn’t feasible for a first game. I would say start small with just the high school story, you’re more likely to actually finish. Good luck!

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#3

One thing to bear in mind is that subsequent high school years will be shorter, as the intro and some characters are established freshman year. Also, I don’t know if 8 non-pro years is really a good idea, but without reading it that’s a mild concern. After all, there may be things in school that are really focused, which would be an interesting twist, balancing studies and sports and personal development.

My recommendation would be to combine high school and college into one game, pro career as the sequel. I would be interested in reading the WIP.

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#4

I have a couple of different games in the works, I jump around :rofl: I already released a P.I. demo. Thanks for the feedback. I knew it would a massive game but after looking at what I have already, I was like wait a minute… Even if I skimp a little for some of the next couple of years it still would be close to 100K word count. I already have the big plots points planned out for high school. I’m trying to keep it from feeling repetitive also…

@kckolbe
I have some key events for a couple of the high school years, I took out the working on academics, since most games in school settings do that, so fortunately you won’t have to worry about flunking and I won’t have to worry about coding it either :rofl:
You will have the option to declare yourself for the Pro draft after you complete your Junior year. Your actions off the field will effect aspects (infamy) so it could have a negative impact. I also have to work on more of the social interactions. If I can do it right there will be opportunities for break ups and “side pieces.” The skill development will progressively get slower, you can develop a couple of stats your high school years, but then you will only be able to develop one skill at a time.

@AChubbyBlackCat :rofl: I’m am one of those authors lol I try to make my games as less linear as possible, I started my first game as a tie in to my book series and with how I am doing it There’s two different starts for chapter 2.

I’m also still working on cleaning up my sloppy coding abilities, I’m a story teller first. But I love to give readers completely different paths. I mean with this one, you can already experience a career ending injury,

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#5

Adding onto what @Jackpot1776 said… it’s common to hear from authors that a scene that they thought would be only say… 500 words has now become 5,000 due to varying pathways based on stats, prior decisions, or flavor choices. :rofl:

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#6

my wip that was supposed to be 50k words but just the intro was 30k :joy:

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#7

Do you have a demo of your WIP?

#8

https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/the-realm-of-steel-hp-closed/86092?u=jackpot1776

Here you go! Currently on an indefinite hiatus due to scope creep. I might revisit later, but I’m working on a new game now.

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#9

I feel ya :rofl: like I said I jump around from one project to another. If one bogs me down I work on something else for a little bit.

If you want to check out my other one it’s
https://dashingdon.com/go/7434

I have one similar to yours also, just from the sounds of the description, working title so far is Fate of An Empire, but it’s based in an alternate world, during a Roman Empire Era. I have it set up to where you pick your social role, from ruler to slave. Well it’s nowhere near ready for a demo yet either.

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