I have been playing this game fairly often. I think I can say I know the ABC of Powersoccer by heart and that I am one of the few who knows the ins and outs of that fabulous multiplayer adventure (involving soccer/football, for those unaware of the content of the game). One particular thing in the interaction between users has always struck me: the use of the word “s”.
Picture this setting: the game starts, you open a chat with the user and press “hello, good luck and have fun” or as Powersoccer diehards do “hi, gl, hf”. The answer you get is “s”. Nothing more, nothing less. Ok, you think: a user who is unwilling to talk to me. It happens, they don’t all have to be social animals like myself. Then, a missed change. You have the option to see the reply but you don’t want to and press s (or any other button for that matter) to let the game continue. Your opponent types in the game chat “s”, waits, types “s” again, gets angry, types “ssssssssssssssssssssss” (or “s”, “s”, “s”, “s” as can be seen on the screenshot attached: anyone actually thought how much effort that costs: button enter, button s, button enter, button s, button enter, button s… crazy!) and happily sees the game continues.

Two observations of which one open for discussion.
First, how come this user does not press s (not in chat, but in the game first) before he types “s” in the chat? That would be a more logical approach. You press s, you wait for the “s” of your opponent, when it doesn’t come: you type “s” in chat. Like in: hurry up (in most cases there will follow a swear said out loud but as these are respectable pages I will refrain from doing so). But not pressing “s” yourself and then blaming your opponent (who pressed s) for that absence of a reaction, can it get more illogical?

Second, what does this behaviour learn us about some of the users of Powersoccer. Isn’t it rather odd one user wants to dominate the other user by forcing him to skip the replays? Is a user not allowed to watch replays, have a sip of water in the meantime (or a delicious piece of Swedish pie, I am all hooked now since Linda gave me the recipe to her grandma’s pie) and put her/his fingers on the button again? Although we are dealing with a multiplayer game, how far does that element of “multiplayer” stretch? Aren’t some of us deep inside only trying to feed their 100 % waterproof individualistic needs?
Powersoccer is a full blown multiplayer game, as it requires interaction. The fact that player A does not want to see replays and player B does, is only advantageous for user B. If you want to skip replays, you are forced to interact, you are forced to communicate with your opponent. You are forced to type “s” (or “skip” for that matter) and you will get a reply by your opponent. It is human versus human and in the end communication – albeit limited in some cases – always wins. And that, dear readers, is one of the beauties of this game.

Many people, smart people, has always claimed that the simplest solution is always the best solution. Previously I have been cautiously dubious whenever someone has said that to me. However, after my experience with being in the midst of mouse control development for Power Soccer I will cast future hesitancy aside and proudly proclaim: “Simplicity is rocks!”

How did I get to this stage? It all started right after summer when we stumbled upon a Wii and looked at its controls and how it was transferred on to the screen. Shortly after one of our developers, if I remember correctly, finalman (aka Per Larsson, Perl etc) said something in a Skype chat along the lines of “Why don’t we do the Wii thingy for our game but with the mouse”. And the rest is, as they say, history. Okay, so history and some hard thinking, fiddling with tech demos, more internal discussions and brainstorming, conceptualization, user testing and feedback. I am truly amazed with how taking something and breaking it down to it bare essentials, a mouse and left-clicking, made the gameplay, at least for me who has keyboard “issues”, more deep, gave me a feeling of total control and responsiveness.

I also hope that the community will embrace and appreciate the hard work we have put into the mouse control. Until next time nanoo nanoo. Take care!

/Michael

Something just dawned upon me. Call it an epiphany or just the brain catching up with what is actually happening these days when doing our best to take the Power Soccer gameplay to another level. I was searching for words to describe what we are doing and how it will improve. Making it better just sounded flat. So I contemplated, “huuuuuuum”…(it actually sounded more like “whooooosh”).

Now I sit here refreshed and with the realization that we are improving on all aspects. The core and the tempo is the same, which is comforting, since that’s what we all love about Power Soccer. The layer we have added has made the game more dynamic, unexpected and varied. Much more like real soccer. And the mouse control, let me tell you, I am in love. I even loved it before Powdersnow, honest.

Less words, more video? Here’s a gameplay video of me playing with the mouse. Please note that mouse and keyboard will work equally well and you can go back and forth how often you like. Check out the vid:

Gameplay Video Time. Not Hammer Time.

Eager to try it? Soon my friends, really soon.

Michael, the product guy

EDIT: Vimeo made it disappear. Awesome.

I promised you a sneak peek and here it is:

If you for some reason want the youtube link here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-AiUI56WY0&fmt=18

Puss o kram from the PR people

In less than an hour I’ve received nine medals and tried out ten different tracks. So far so good. But the process of getting to the starting line was far from simple. Let me put it like this. My mum couldn’t have downloaded and installed this game. Probably not even my sister, who’s not an entirely idiotic person when it comes to sort-of-techy stuff. Then again, maybe my family isn’t exactly the TrackMania prime target group?

Ok, so using STEAM is not the end of the world. But it’s not common knowledge either. And ok, there was probably another, much easier way, to get hold of TrackMania then the STEAm one… but if so, it’s very well hidden.

It’s not just about the actual gaming experience, the race itself. It’s also about the accessibility.

Still, they’ve definetely done a few things right.

• the tracks are rather short - this in combination with smooth restart/respawn functionality gives you the strength to actually bother trying to improve again and again without wanting to strangle yourself out of boredom
• instant replays after every race (not so funny every time, but they’re easy to escape. litterally.)
• extremely easy-to-grasp-and-use controls
• easy-to-understand menu system
• instant feedback/ratification - “New Personal Record” in a popup window after pretty much each race (this could also, on the contrary, be very annoying for a non newbie who is confident in him/herself)
• very quick loading of tracks

On the downside of things…

• graphics are “dead” - no real feeling in the environment
• extremely complicated, non intuitive, download and installation process
• no obvious social context or community activity next to the game  (ok, so I played single player races… but still - the game didn’t shout “social activites” or “forum” at me…no sir…)

And after I’ve played this game for more than like… 40 minutes I’m sure I will have much more to say about the depth, the gameplay, the physics, the controls, the game modes, the fps rates, the track designs, the cars, the community functionality etc etc etc forever and ever. Is it realistic enough? Challenging enough? Is it good looking enough? Does it provide me with enough variety? You know, all these things that put together decides if this is game for you, or not.

Will play some more tomorrow. Time to hop out of the office.

// L

Just spent half an hour or so in the gameroom at the office, doing some racing in Flatout: Ultimate Carnage and HotWheels. Hilarious. It was my kind of game just like I thought! Very forgiving (you crash and burn, then magically “reset”) and more action than actual racing. Colourful, fast and innovative. Someone said it’s a bit like Micromachines but I’ve never tried that so I couldn’t really say. I raced under the bed, avoided the books, the hammer and saw, jumped over some paperclips, got extra boost and jumped over the desk. Actually a lot more fun than the desert track in Flatout…

I don’t enjoy grinding, or being forced to race the same track over and over again. After one or two attempts I wanna be able to try something else. Give me something new for heaven’s sake! No patience what so ever. Which is a bit interesting, cause I have tons of patience when it comes to un-doing knots or listening to people complaining about sad relationships or whatever. But not when it comes to <bad> repetetive gameplay. Can this be taught? Can I learn how to not get bored out of my brains with doing the same track/level time and time again, avoiding those tiny little edges or lines that makes me fail, forcing me to start all over again?

I honestly don’t think so. But maybe I can find some more games out there that I actually enjoy. Next time I go straight to the kids section…

/ Linda

I went game shopping the other day as I already wrote in the post below. I was looking for some exciting and un-expensive (used) games for either the xbox 360 or the Sony PSP. Besides getting games that the guys on the team might like - Grid for instance - I also bought Burnout (PSP) and - HotWheels (360)! Yes! The most colourful game I’ve laid my eyes on in a long time. I haven’t played it yet, but as we all can guess it seems that you race around playful surroundings (kids rooms basically..?) filled with toys. Racing up and down furniture, through a universe of nothing but fun. I have no idea what the actual story and gameplay is at all like, but I felt like being swept away into a whirlwind of un-seriousness for a minute or two. Taking a closer look at something innovative, totally different from our game, trying to learn from it. Picking up some little pices of crazy solutions and weird ideas.

Sometimes I think we look too much at what people around us are doing. In life and in games. Of course you turn to those you admire for inspiration, you want to look like them, make games or write books like they do. But maybe we’d learn more if we looked in another direction, somewhere we had no intention of going. Instead of making new versions of what is already out there, maybe we could come up with something completely unique?

Or is everything already invented? Have all the great thoughts already come up in someone elses mind?

What games would you like to see on the shelves in the store? Or rather, what elements, what ideas or missions or graphical innovations do you miss?

Give me some great ideas

/ Linda