Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
It's just not the same kind of game that Football Pro is. I got Jim really mad at me once (in the OOTP fora no less) when I opined that after 20 years of it being a one-man show development-wise that maybe some of the code wasn't laid out super well and that could have been an issue with multiple people taking it on. He insisted that that wasn't the case and people remarked about how well-structured it was (which, if I'm being honest, rigid code that won't allow you to write in extra stuff into it easily is also an issue, especially when one of the things you'd be doing to update it is to lift and shift it into a new UI). I'll be honest, the inability to self-assess issues is a much, much bigger issue when it comes to software development than a little bit of spaghetti code.
I thought it was an interesting game circa 2005. I thought Football Pro scratched a different itch - Pro was much more about writing up plays and, even if you used a bunch of pre-set plays to ensure that the running game worked, etc. (this only due to the fact that the game was by then 6 years dead), you were still doing the coach's job of choosing a playbook and calling plays. FOF always did its best as a football GM simulator.
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I got the impression that Jim and OOTPD had the code rewritten between 2018 and 2020. Currently, FOF9 has a very similar navigation to OOTP and FHM, albeit with a very basic GUI. This change would not have been possible without the help of OOTPD and the rewritten code. It's a shame they backed out and left the project because I believe the core mechanics developed by Jim are incredible. The game lacks the graphical representation, customization and some quality of life functionality of OOTP and FHM. I haven't tried FPS Football, but I think FOF covers the coach's job very well by allowing you to create your own playbook from scratch as well as call every single play during a game.