Increasing immersion cheaply.

eddyvegasgames · 11-03-2013, 06:37 AM

Here's 3 cheap ideas for the play-by-play part of the game.

1. Make the number colors brighter, like they were in OOTP 8. I went directly from OOTP 8 (gateway drug) to OOTP 14. The first thing I noticed was the data numbers were smaller, and the colors were washed out. Suddenly I noticed I wasn't as excited when my big hitter came to the plate. His stats had been made so small and so dull, I really didn't get the vibe that here comes Mr. Star Hitter. I finally increased the font size and that was better, but the washed out colors still bugged me. So much so, I went back to 8 and looked again to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Here's my point: a guy can look at '17' and go 'wow, that's a big number, almost 20' or he can look at bright blue and know he has a BLUE guy up there. Colors are more direct than numbers. Like, if you have a bad pitcher-hitter matchup and the batter's stats color is reduced from bright green to bright yellow, it hurts so much more to see that. Numbers don't get the job done as viscerally as colors do. (by the way, the tops of the letters get cut off when using any font but standard).

2. Mod the Scoreboard. Even the numbers. Like the outside would be 'scoreboard.png' and the numbers '3.png' etc. The idea being you could make an ivy covered scoreboard, make the numbers weathered and faded, or you could go modern and do LED numbers or little light bulbs. I know thats probably a pain since you need to allow for big numbers, you never can tell how many hits a team will make in a game, and making .png's for all that... Still instead of cheap, I'll call this one 'cheap-ish'.

3. Pump up the sound. Sorry guys, but the sounds are anemic. I mean, they're generally good samples, but playing the game, they sound so wimpy! The pitch!... (plink). Give us a volume control, with the slider all the way to the right being really loud. Run those samples through a compressor, eq, etc. Get them punchy. I already experimented with that a bit, I turned all the sounds up 3db and it's slightly better.

Here's the thing - if we can't get a 2D playing field with little dots running around it, the next best thing is to milk what you have for all it's worth. I think these suggestions will increase immersion for not much work.

-Eddy

11-03-2013, 06:37 AM	#1
eddyvegasgames Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 21	Increasing immersion cheaply. Here's 3 cheap ideas for the play-by-play part of the game. 1. Make the number colors brighter, like they were in OOTP 8. I went directly from OOTP 8 (gateway drug) to OOTP 14. The first thing I noticed was the data numbers were smaller, and the colors were washed out. Suddenly I noticed I wasn't as excited when my big hitter came to the plate. His stats had been made so small and so dull, I really didn't get the vibe that here comes Mr. Star Hitter. I finally increased the font size and that was better, but the washed out colors still bugged me. So much so, I went back to 8 and looked again to make sure I wasn't imagining things. Here's my point: a guy can look at '17' and go 'wow, that's a big number, almost 20' or he can look at bright blue and know he has a BLUE guy up there. Colors are more direct than numbers. Like, if you have a bad pitcher-hitter matchup and the batter's stats color is reduced from bright green to bright yellow, it hurts so much more to see that. Numbers don't get the job done as viscerally as colors do. (by the way, the tops of the letters get cut off when using any font but standard). 2. Mod the Scoreboard. Even the numbers. Like the outside would be 'scoreboard.png' and the numbers '3.png' etc. The idea being you could make an ivy covered scoreboard, make the numbers weathered and faded, or you could go modern and do LED numbers or little light bulbs. I know thats probably a pain since you need to allow for big numbers, you never can tell how many hits a team will make in a game, and making .png's for all that... Still instead of cheap, I'll call this one 'cheap-ish'. 3. Pump up the sound. Sorry guys, but the sounds are anemic. I mean, they're generally good samples, but playing the game, they sound so wimpy! The pitch!... (plink). Give us a volume control, with the slider all the way to the right being really loud. Run those samples through a compressor, eq, etc. Get them punchy. I already experimented with that a bit, I turned all the sounds up 3db and it's slightly better. Here's the thing - if we can't get a 2D playing field with little dots running around it, the next best thing is to milk what you have for all it's worth. I think these suggestions will increase immersion for not much work. -Eddy