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Goals for the new match simulator

Rasmus Rønn Nielsen, The Dudes 13 June 2012, 10:59

As you might know, we're in full swing working on a new match simulator for Virtual Manager. 2-3 weeks ago, I wrote a blog post detailing why we're focusing on this.

Before we started working on the project, we set up a list of goals. I'd like to share these goals with you now.

Interesting, exciting and realistic football

Our current match simulator is OK. But you can't find many people who'd say it is exciting and interesting. Our new match simulator must be able to show football that is interesting and entertaining to watch. Besides making the players more "football intelligent" we must focus on adding a lot of details, like 1-2 passes, throw-ins, real wing play with crosses and so on.

To make the matches more interesting we also need to calculate and show the ball in three dimensions instead of two (which is the case with the current simulator). Among other things, this'll make crosses and long shots more exciting.

Pretty graphics

It must look good. End of discussion. We humans enjoy pretty things. This applies to games as well. In the current simulator players look like curling stones. In the new one, they must look like real players. Additionally, the players clothes must have the colors of their team instead of just red and blue (as it is the case with the current simulator). Last but not least, hair color and skin colors must be expressed visually.

It would also be nice if the pitch and its surroundings reflected the club's actual stadium facilities.

Challenging and interesting tactical options

The new match simulator must facilitate new interesting tactical options. You must be able to define what your team should do in specific situations. For example, you must be able to say "Change to formation C if we're trailing with more than 1 goal and there's less than 30 minutes left".

You should also be able to set takers of free kicks, corner kicks and penalty kicks.

We're sure this will make the tactics part of Virtual Manager much more fun.

National matches

The new simulator must be able to handle national matches and in the longer term, national tournaments (for example the Euro).

Scaleable and dynamic

We must focus on making the simulator scaleable and dynamic. The goal is to make it easier to change and add crazy and fun ideas down the road.

Summary

If you put all these things together its pretty clear what we're trying to do: We want it to more fun to plan, analyze and watch football matches in Virtual Manager. This is a handful, and it will take some time to complete.

We've been working on it for quite some time now, and it looks promising. However, we cannot yet say when we're done (so please don't ask :P). I hope I'll be able to show you a video showing off the match simulator next week. But for now, you'll have to settle for this little screenshot :)

The new match simulator

(what is seen in the screenshot is just a small part of the screen, the real match simulator will use the full width of the website)

Oh, and please cross your fingers for the Danish national team tonight, we're going to need it :D