Footy Domain

About Footy Domain

Another exciting AFL footy season has drawn to a close and this year the Footy Domain website has incorporated some useful additions.

The Lost In Footy game is - and probably will always be - an evolving project. It's functioning well and includes all of the features I was originally hoping for. It has required some precise work including the shape and perspective of the field. The field positions were drawn onto the field programmatically. The players and the ball move accurately. I hope to get "The Chief" involved in the action. I'm working on improving the appearance of the players and the ball (done) and also creating some special effects such as victory celebrations including close-up camera shots.

Let me warn you that if you are thinking of taking on a similar project it's not as easy as it looks. This is way more complex than a goal kicking game or a regular player-management game.

Designing the Lost In Footy match ball in 3ds Max, with lights and camera visible.

The footballs needed for a realistic simulation. You'll also need software smart enough to display them in the right place and the right size at the right time.

Using Gimp to change the perspective of the playing field.

Programming a player to face the ball in Lost In Footy.

A small sample of the logic to process a shot at goal in Lost In Footy.

I took a break from Lost In Footy to create an arcade-style game that I have called Footy Bash. It's just intended to be a bit of fun and I was surprised that I was able to get it up and running as quickly as I did. The Chief also features in this game and although he appears to be fairly laconic or casual like some footy players he is surprisingly effective and destructive. If you can score over 300 you're doing very well.

Helping The Chief shoot targets in Footy Bash.

Creating the Footy Sudoku game was an achievement I'm proud of. The way that it solves a Sudoku game is clever and uses some rare programming methods such as recursion and cloning. You might notice that I reused the Footy Sudoku page layout for Footy Bash.

Solving a sudoku game recursively in Footy Sudoku.

Before I make any more progress on Lost In Footy I'm hoping to churn out another game which is a sort of cross between footy and air hockey featuring the Lost In space robot and The Chief. Your job will be to score and to prevent The Chief from scoring. Once again I have to try to deal with Internet Explorer's poor support for alpha transparency. Heaps of time wasted in Photoshop.

I have a special interest in the subject of consciousness and I like to think that I have managed to duplicate some aspects of human consciousness in the behaviour patterns of the robots in Lost In Footy such as an instinctive choice of what to do with the ball first, followed by a more methodical, well thought-out decision. Fortunately the game has been written in such a way that it can be improved upon. Extensions can be plugged in without much effort. If you don't like it yet, check back later.

Am I a hero for doing this stuff? Don't be silly - I'm a freakin' legend !

I hope you enjoy the off season. Good luck to your team in 2012.

Please press Like if you enjoy any of the games.

- D J Wray

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