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Post by josta59 on Jan 8, 2024 15:12:19 GMT -5
Yesterday I woke up keen to create some kind of tabletop football system that could be played solo against an AI. I did some research and looked at the two football board games that I own. After a while I realized that if I'm playing offense using the old All-American Football board game that dates back to 1958 (I have the 1965 edition), I can just shuffle the defense discs and it works pretty well. And if I'm playing defense, I can shuffle the offense discs. It was pretty fun. I won soundly. The real test of this system will be to see if I ever lose to this "AI." If it's too easy, then it's not worth the time and isn't actually a good AI. I'm not sure yet, but I'm hopeful. That's right, I'm hoping to lose. You can learn a lot from losing! The "field" and markers provided in that game don't do a great job of keeping track of things because of the weird perspective, so I used the much better football field from my Avalon Hill Football Strategy game.  My nine-year-old son played against me for the third quarter, and that was even more fun! He picked it up quickly. He described it as being like paper/rock/scissors but with a lot of randomness thrown in. Upon reflection, I think that really is what American football is like for a head coach! My father-in-law was a head coach for years, so I'll have to ask him how accurate that feels. |
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Post by Whiterook on Jan 9, 2024 16:44:43 GMT -5
Cool! I’m curious to see where this goes. I used to play this electronics game my buddy owned back in highschool… I think it was made by Colleco or someone? He got it for Christmas, and U believe his mom got it at Sears. Anyway, it was super simple, but still very challenging to master… what zi got out of that experience is, it was the *feel* of the football experience that made it so much fun for me, so it looks like you’ve got that going for your iteration thusfar!
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Post by mikeh on Jan 14, 2024 16:43:44 GMT -5
Now this looks interesting. I'm a huge football fan! Pro's, college even a nice Saturday afternoon high school game.
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Post by josta59 on Jan 20, 2024 18:09:44 GMT -5
I played again and lost 28-36 in a nail-biter, after having a solid lead in the first half. It was great fun. This is exactly the solo experience I was looking for, so I recommend it.
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Post by Whiterook on Jan 22, 2024 13:32:40 GMT -5
I played again and lost 28-36 in a nail-biter, after having a solid lead in the first half. It was great fun. This is exactly the solo experience I was looking for, so I recommend it. Very cool… so I take it the discs are from the football version of Cadaco's All-Star Baseball. Round disks are put into a round holder with a spinner and the spinner gives you the result of the play….  I definitely like the football field from Avalon Hill “Football Strategy” game much better…  |
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Post by josta59 on Jan 26, 2024 17:53:33 GMT -5
You got it, exactly!
And I'm sure it won't surprise you that I spent every waking moment outside of work yesterday designing a new WARGAME using the mechanics from All-Star Football! I drew up a lot of stats and have an entire game board in my head that I hope to create for all to see here and maybe even help playtest.
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Post by Whiterook on Jan 30, 2024 10:00:30 GMT -5
You got it, exactly! And I'm sure it won't surprise you that I spent every waking moment outside of work yesterday designing a new WARGAME using the mechanics from All-Star Football! I drew up a lot of stats and have an entire game board in my head that I hope to create for all to see here and maybe even help playtest. I’ll playtest with ‘ya!!! …and nope, doesn’t surprise me at all the time you invest in designing games, as I am a bird of the feather  |
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Post by josta59 on Aug 22, 2024 12:31:03 GMT -5
Now I have on my table the classic game Football Strategy by Sports Illustrated and Avalon Hill, 1982 edition (looks like the one Em pasted an image of just above). I wanted to see if it might be as fun to play solo as the All-American Football game I've been playing. And I noticed that the offense always has twenty plays to choose from. Twenty...hey, there are twenty-sided dice...WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE? And there are three different sets of offensive plays, which means I don't have to play against the same team every time.
And furthermore, why didn't the designers suggest using a D20 for solo play? They have a section on solo play, but it requires you to play offense for both sides, which doesn't interest me at all.
This game will definitely be quieter, too. All-American Football uses spinners, and my wife is always wondering what I'm doing that's making that noise!
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Post by Whiterook on Aug 24, 2024 10:08:40 GMT -5
Now I have on my table the classic game Football Strategy by Sports Illustrated and Avalon Hill, 1982 edition (looks like the one Em pasted an image of just above). I wanted to see if it might be as fun to play solo as the All-American Football game I've been playing. And I noticed that the offense always has twenty plays to choose from. Twenty...hey, there are twenty-sided dice...WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE? And there are three different sets of offensive plays, which means I don't have to play against the same team every time. And furthermore, why didn't the designers suggest using a D20 for solo play? They have a section on solo play, but it requires you to play offense for both sides, which doesn't interest me at all. This game will definitely be quieter, too. All-American Football uses spinners, and my wife is always wondering what I'm doing that's making that noise! The D20 is a brilliant idea! Good question on the designers with that…to be honest, I had no idea there were so many kinds of dice until about the 2000s; they just didn’t appear in any of my games beyond a D6, and very occasionally a D10…maybe they weren’t very well up on such things back in ‘82. Funny on your wife wondering what noise you’re making now  …Karen thinks my counter clipping is very noisy, mainly because when I start a session, I go for a couple hours straight, so a lot of clacking! She also marvels at some of my dice towers…I have like four of them now, and one of them is all plastic and loud as heck for such a small one (I did put some adhesive foam bandage material in it but it actually didn’t help much!). On another tangent, it fascinates me the continued appeal of these early sports games… there’s still avid collectors and players of them. Personally, the closest I have is Speed Circuit, the old racing game; though, I did pledge and recieved a hockey game put out in a second edition a year or so ago (Trick Shot). |
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…Karen thinks my counter clipping is very noisy, mainly because when I start a session, I go for a couple hours straight, so a lot of clacking! She also marvels at some of my dice towers…I have like four of them now, and one of them is all plastic and loud as heck for such a small one (I did put some adhesive foam bandage material in it but it actually didn’t help much!).