Ashes Cricket described - part 4

[MattW]

Beam Software also made some of the worst games on the NES.

 

[mattk]

A Con? Maybe. When you look at the Big Ant guys vs. the Trickstar/505 guys there's a gulf between the passion behind the two projects. I've sensed that for quite some time...

Agreed. I followed AFL Live from announcement to release and the passion of Ross and his team was amazing. I knew from 2010 the same commitment would go into the cricket game. When Ross signed up to Planet Cricket last year I knew what the forum was in for

I don't mean to talk myself up but I backed the Big Ant horse over Ashes 13 right from the very start. Admittedly I had no idea the gulf in quality would be so huge but I knew that Big Ant would deliver the goods!*

*unless the game turns out to be a bust

 

[barmyarmy]

I haven't played the game but I've now had the chance to watch a few gameplay videos and you can't go more than 3 seconds without an obvious and horrendous looking bug.
In May 505 demoed the game in front of 50 cricket and gaming journalists. None of us, even without being able to see the screen perfectly saw anything like the tripe that is on youtube.
We would have noticed; it would have been impossible not to. What the hell happened between May and now? Did they forget to save the code and have to start again from scratch? My impression which I think is recorded faithfully here is that it wasn't going to be a brilliant game but it looked in good enough shape then for a June release (obviously we didn't know fully then about the console problems).
There is no way a room full of cricket people would have failed to notice 22 runs being taken off a delivery, teleporting balls, players walking round and round in circles or insane runouts. I'm totally baffled as to what happened here.

@Ross - when did see the game and were these bugs obvious then in your opinion?

 

[MattW]

It's simple - code for a demonstration - make sure that enough of the game works to be shown off.

The fact remains, they didn't let anyone touch the game at either Lord's or the demonstrations for journalists in Melbourne. That makes it suspicious and means no one who 'saw' it has a real idea of the state of the game.

 

[barmyarmy]

Does enough of the game work to demo it? Not the impression I got from watching the vids that you made.

 

[blockerdave]

Does enough of the game work to demo it? Not the impression I got from watching the vids that you made.

perhaps they just animated certain sequences and pretended to play it? then the game engine/ai has to do nothing, and you just talk about whatever is being shown while your fellow shill pretends to play. they are showing an animation sequence, not a game.

this is probably what they were doing with 505 all along... if 505 saw this at any of the milestones along the way i am convinced they'd have killed it stone dead.

 

[MattW]

Does enough of the game work to demo it?

You can get good runs occasionally, just stick to hitting along the ground straight to fielders and take only easy runs.

If you bowl mediocre balls that helps.

 

[Skater]

If you think about the event at Lord's you realise what was going on. It was a closed event for invited people only, no one was allowed to record what they saw, no one was able to play the game and I remember Colin saying he wasn't sitting close enough to get a decent view, so it was kept at a distance.

To me that says 'we're not confident in this game'.

Contrast that to Don Bradman Cricket and members of the public were free to get up close and personal, to actually play the game, in a shop. Recording devices were welcome. I've even seen a video on YouTube of some guys who were turned away from the shop because their cameras were a little too professional but were then invited by Ross to the Big Ant office to play it there.

 

[BigAntStudios]

perhaps they just animated certain sequences and pretended to play it? then the game engine/ai has to do nothing, and you just talk about whatever is being shown while your fellow shill pretends to play. they are showing an animation sequence, not a game.

this is probably what they were doing with 505 all along... if 505 saw this at any of the milestones along the way i am convinced they'd have killed it stone dead.

Chief worked for 505 and was in Melbourne.

 

[blockerdave]

Chief worked for 505 and was in Melbourne.

wow, ok. bloody hell... then i simply cannot get my head round it at all.

 

[BigAntStudios]

@Ross - when did see the game and were these bugs obvious then in your opinion?

Just checked my Calendar, PAX VIP Reception Thursday 18 July 2013.

Room full of game dev's - they couldn't get away with anything, we all have perfectly working BS meters.... they left asap.

 

[79cricket]

wow, ok. bloody hell... then i simply cannot get my head round it at all.

I hope one day someone who worked for the late and great() Trickstar can tell us all the news we would love to hear. PS Ross if you do hire a couple of there good programmers maybe a first order of the day is to spill the beans on this f--k up of a game.

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Just checked my Calendar, PAX VIP Reception Thursday 18 July 2013.

Room full of game dev's - they couldn't get away with anything, we all have perfectly working BS meters.... they left asap.

No improvements in the four months from that date, what were they doing, wait holidays and drinking a lot of beer.

 

[Biggs]

perhaps they just animated certain sequences and pretended to play it?

That's actually a really good theory. It would explain how the press gathering couldn't see it, but Ross and the other industry members called bullshit because they would have HAD to "play" it in front of them.

Ross, did you see any of the weird fielding stuff happening? Or the "ball just disappears" stuff? I'm assuming you saw one or other of those things which falls into the category of 'you wouldn't have believed me if I told you' type conversations?

 

[blockerdave]

That's actually a really good theory. It would explain how the press gathering couldn't see it, but Ross and the other industry members called bullshit because they would have HAD to "play" it in front of them.

Ross, did you see any of the weird fielding stuff happening? Or the "ball just disappears" stuff? I'm assuming you saw one or other of those things which falls into the category of 'you wouldn't have believed me if I told you' type conversations?

It's the only thing i can think of, because quite clearly you cannot play this game long without seeing something... Like the ball just disappearing once it passes the wicket. Something severely fishy went on, and it's a pity we will never know the half of it. When the Americans and Japanese are already taking the piss out of it, you know it's a classic of the genre.

 

[BigAntStudios]

At this point it is only representatives of Trickstar/505 that could now pull the curtain back and expose the what the Wizard was projecting at Lords...

No doubt Barmy and all in attendance at Lords were had, "it's a swindle"*



*TM Malcom McLaren