Game Company Redesigns Chess

Last week, "Hasbro Gaming" redesigned Monopoly in order to get some free publicity. They added a T-Rex, a penguin, and a rubber ducky.

This caused us at Sports Mogul to think: "Hey, we
could use some free publicityare good at redesigning games!"

So, as a public service to the world, we've decided to bring the game of chess into the 21st century. With the help of the internet.

Step 1. We asked the internet to name their least favorite chess piece. The results:

Rank	Least Favorite Piece	Votes	Percent
11	The Knight	652,510	3.16%
10	The "Horsie"	998,602	4.50%
9	The Rook	1,257,993	6.65%
8	The Unicorn	1,400,590	7.98%
7	The Pawn	2,042,532	9.66%
6	Ringo	2,272,338	10.91%
5	Charmander	2,654,760	12.10%
4	The Queen	2,996,974	14.10%
3	The King	3,110,278	17.09%
2	Fluttershy	4,110,707	22.56%
1	The Bishop	4,169,452	22.70%

Kickstarter and Feature Creep

Kickstarter

An example of feature creep (by James Provost)

The current buzz in game dev circles is about the Double Fine Adventure launched on Kickstarter 18 months ago.

To make a long story short:
1) Development team goes on Kickstarter to raise $400K
2) No stretch goals were specified.
3) They raised more than $3.3 million.
4) Nine months after the "Estimated delivery" date, there is no game.
5) Uproar has ensued.

Baseball Mogul 2014: Fixing The Game (Part 2 of 2)

As mentioned last week, we have been reworking the General Manager AI so that computer-controlled teams are much more intelligent when it comes to trades and roster management. This also means that the computer-controlled teams won't have to "cheat" on high difficulty levels just to provide a challenge. But the other weakness that gets abused is the player rating system.

Player Ratings

One solution to the problem of accurate player ratings is to make them less accurate. This works, but leads to some really dumb results, like your scouts telling you that Ubaldo Jiminez has a "95" Control rating.

The other option is to simply turn ratings off. Baseball Mogul lets you do this, and it's actually a good option in my opinion. After all, the game is much more realistic when you turn off the ability to see player ratings. Nobody in Major League Baseball has a crystal ball regarding player abilities. You can't just give your scouts more money and magically gain access to the "true" ability level of every player in baseball. If a GM could view the Strat-O-Matic cards for every single player in his organization, the job of talent assessment would be pretty boring.

Strat-O-Matic Cards

The One-Ton Offensive Line?

The NFL is getting out of hand. You can't play on the line of scrimmage unless you top 350 pounds. It's making the game less fun to watch and less fun to play. And leading to more injuries. But the worst part is that high school kids around the country think they need to weigh that much for a shot at playing in Division I in college -- and to have ANY shot at playing in the pros. And the sad fact is that they are right.

Dickey's "Angry Knuckleball" Added To Baseball Mogul 2013

Photo by MG_4618 on Flickr (Creative Commons license)

Thanks to R.A. Dickey's recent success, we're adding a 3rd type of knuckleball to Baseball Mogul.

The game already had a "Knuckleball" and "Slow Knuckler" as options (Wakefield throws both of these). We also of course have a knuckle curve, but that isn't actually a knuckleball. With Dickey having a Cy Young season throwing what some have called a "Power Knuckleball", we're taking a close look at the physics behind this pitch and adding it to the game.

Windows Screen Resolutions (and Operating Systems)

Baseball Mogul 2013 in a 640x480 window

Just an update for game designers and web designers, since it can be hard to find all of this information in one place. The following is a list of the most popular screen resolutions for Windows machines:

Resolution	Share	Width	Height	Ratio	Type
1366x768	20.8%	1366	768	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1024x768	17.5%	1024	768	1.33	Video (4:3)
1280x800	12.1%	1280	800	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
1280x1024	7.0%	1280	1024	1.25	Video (5:4)
1440x900	6.4%	1440	900	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
1920x1080	5.6%	1920	1080	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1600x900	4.1%	1600	900	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1680x1050	3.6%	1680	1050	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
768x1024	2.4%	768	1024	0.75	Vertical (3:4)
1360x768	2.4%	1360	768	1.77	Widescreen (16:9)
1024x600	2.2%	1024	600	1.71	Widescreen (5:3)
1280x720	1.6%	1280	720	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1280x768	1.5%	1280	768	1.67	Widescreen (5:3)
1152x864	1.4%	1152	864	1.33	Video (4:3)
1920x1200	1.1%	1920	1200	1.60	Widescreen (8:5)
800x600	0.9%	800	600	1.33	Video (4:3)
1280x960	0.7%	1280	960	1.33	Video (4:3)
1093x614	0.6%	1093	614	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
2560x1440	0.4%	2560	1440	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
1311x737	0.4%	1311	737	1.78	Widescreen (16:9)
Other	7.5%

Some facts to take away:

• "1024 x 768" is no longer the most common screen resolution.
• About 96% of Windows machines have a width of 1024 pixels or more.
• About 75% of Windows machines have a width of 1200 pixels or more.
• About 65% of screens are now "widescreen". That is, they have an aspect ratio closer to the new High Definition format (16:9) than the old Low Definition format (4:3). 
• A significant share of monitors (probably 3-5%) are being used vertically.

And here's the operating system breakdown (among Windows machines):

	Windows 7	Windows Vista	Windows XP
Game Players	69.6%	12.6%	17.8%
Classrooms	62.8%	4.9%	32.3%
Installed Base	50.6%	11.3%	38.1%
Average	61.0%	9.6%	29.4%

Baseball Mogul's Simulation Engine

If you're a fan of the Baseball Mogul series, you might be wondering why, after 17 years, I chose this year to fully rewrite the simulation engine.

Well, first, some history:

Kickstarter Project

Just a quick plug for a very cool project I'm working on with some friends (for October, when the weather is great and my brain isn't knee-deep in baseball code). Live-action gaming is one of the world's most maligned hobbies. But my experience is that getting out into the woods with other people and killing zombies in the middle of the night is a lot less dorky than sitting at home alone playing World of Warcraft. Please pass this link along to anyone who might be interested (in New England, or willing to drive). Game World Character Creation Weapons Sign Up (on Kickstarter) Role Models (a very funny movie)

Baseball Mogul 2013: Under The Hood, Part 1

When I first wrote Baseball Mogul, it simulated each game by simulating the result of each plate appearance. This isn't unusual. This is how Strat-O-Matic works. This is how other computer games work. This is even the method I used when writing my very first baseball simulation, using paper and dice, back in 1976.

But the thing is, baseball isn't played with paper and dice. It's played inside televisions. And the game on television isn't determined by comparing player stats and generating a random number. It's determined pitch-by-pitch. Each pitch has a velocity, a spin direction (and magnitude), and the location where it crosses the plate.

Photo by Wall Street Journal

So, for Baseball Mogul 2013, I rewrote the entire simulation engine to calculate:

1. The velocity and path of each pitch (similar to that recorded by PITCHf/x).
2. The timing and velocity of the bat swing.
3. The plane of the bat swing (and the location of its sweet spot).
4. The angle and velocity of the hit that results from the above.

Fixing Overtime In The NFL (Revisited)

We already have a great solution to the problem of the coin flip in overtime games. Nevertheless, it has been almost four years, and we're still stuck with the old system.

After the Vikings-Saints NFC Championship game (and the Colts' failed attempt to go 16-0) the argument for this change to the rules is even more compelling. If this rule had been implemented, both the Saints and the Colts would have still had something to play for in the last month of the season.

To summarize, we have two major problems:

1) The coin-flip winner has an unfair advantage in overtime.

2) Teams like the 13-0 Saints and 14-0 Colts have no incentive to win after they have clinched the top playoff spot (making any of these late-season games utterly unwatchable).

The solution is elegantly simple: automatically award the "coin flip" to the home team.

In addition to eliminating the coin flip, there are a number of other positive effects:

1) This increases the importance of home field advantage in the playoffs.

If a team like the Colts go 14-2, they get an edge if a playoff game goes to overtime (just as the home team in baseball has a strategic advantage).

2) We now know who the "home team" is in the Super Bowl. And it matters. 

This would have been pivotal this season: the Colts and Saints would continue to play hard, knowing that if they met in the Super Bowl, home-field advantage would be determined by their regular-season record. Instead, we got five unwatchable games by two teams that had nothing to play for.

3) It adds drama to the final minutes of a game, and clarifies strategy for coaches.

If you're the away team, and you're up against a good offense, you want to play for the win, not the tie, in any last-minute play calls. You go for two if you have the chance. And you go for the touchdown instead of the field goal on 4th down. More excitement, and less overtime (which tends to run into the next game, which doesn't make most football fans happy).

4) It increases attendance.

As the NFL becomes more fun to watch on TV, ticket sales are suffering. Giving the home team a bigger advantage increases the likelihood that a home-team fan will have a great experience at the stadium (by getting to see his or her team win).

Over-Active Game Design

Photo by Bari D

It's not surprising that everybody wants to be a game designer. What's bad is that everyone thinks they can be a good game designer.

Probably the most telling aspect of bad game design is "over-active" game design: the desire to "improve" games by adding complexity.

The media response to tonight's All Star Game is a perfect example of over-active game design. Some suggestions I've heard on T.V. and radio:

How You Can Fix The Wild Card!

It's been almost ten years since we came up with the right way to fix the current wild card system.

Fixing Overtime In The NFL

Every year there's a clamor to "fix" overtime in the NFL. The complaint is that the results of a crucial game (especially a playoff game) can often be "decided by a coin flip".

The most popular idea is to adopt something like the NCAA, where each team is guaranteed a chance to score. I've also heard the idea to get rid of "sudden death" and play overtime periods until one team ends the game with the lead, much like in the NBA. I've even heard that field goals should be outlawed in overtime.

All of these ideas are horrible.

How To Turn Anything Into An Incomplete Pass

Here's the rule I've learned after years of instant replay in the NFL:

By throwing that red flag, you can turn ANYTHING into an incomplete pass.

Brady fumbles. Belichick goes to his sock and pulls out the challenge flag. Incomplete pass.

Polamalu intercepts. Dungy grasps at straws desperately. Incomplete pass.

I've seen this happen more than once. The two examples I just mentioned are the most absurd. But completions and interceptions get overruled all the time for one simple reason. Using today's NFL rules, a complete pass frequently LOOKS like an incomplete pass when viewed in slow motion.

Shift everything down to 1/8 speed and the refs see the tiniest movements of the ball in the receiver's hands. They say he was "bobbling it" and never established control. A perfectly good completion in real-time can look like a turbulent froth of primordial ooze when viewed under the microscope.

I play ultimate frisbee whenever I can. It's a lot like football in that your job is to catch the "ball" before it hits the ground. It's a classic American game of of "People vs. Gravity". Like the NFL, some ultimate players make some AMAZING catches: laying out for a disc that's about to hit the grass or go out of bounds. These feats of athleticism should be rewarded, regardless of weather the disc grazed a blade of grass as the player was finishing his catch.

For the NFL, I say "loosen up the completion rules". If it looks like a completion in real-time, it probably was a completion. Give these guys credit for the outstanding plays they are making, and play on!