So, I finally decided to post this game after originally working on it several months ago. I was busy with other projects (such as
PaintX which is also still in progress) in the meantime and kind of forgot about Vectorball. This week however I picked it up again and worked on a few things.
Vectorball is basically a game similar to soccer, however it is more abstract and with a focus on actual physics. Instead of having buttons to pass or kick the ball, you move in a way to push the ball in the desired direction. Different special abilities make both offense and defense actions more efficient and allow you to create well working teams of up to four players (human or AI) that may include a goal keeper, defenders and attackers, although the pitch is usually small enough to allow players to play wherever they want.
You start out with just one player character who's considerably bad at everything, but through goals and victories he will gain experience, learn new skills and improve attributes such as strength, speed and power. Furthermore playing will unlock a lot of stuff over time - everything from new game modes (most notably playing tournaments or even entire seasons) to items with passive effects to increase your player's performance.
While I'm not working on the game full time, it is quite far in development and there isn't
that much to do anymore. I still won't try to estimate how long it will take, as anything from 4 weeks to a year would be reasonable considering the circumstances and my general tendency to constantly incorporate new ideas on the fly.
However, to give you a better idea I prepared a little list:
Done
-basic Gameplay and Physics
-Controls (Keyboard or Controller)
-Local Multiplayer (up to 4 people on one PC)
-Character Progression
-predefined Challenges, Free Game, Tournaments
-unlockable Items
-basic Visuals
Requires more work
-Visual Effects
-Menu Design
-Character Design (improved face variations)
-Balancing
-Sound/Music
-AI
Not started yet
-Season Mode
-Online Multiplayer
-animated Audience during matches
Most of these things are relatively harmless, but Multiplayer and AI will surely take some time. The AI right now is pretty stupid (albeit effective) and once you understand how it works you can easily beat AI players far more advanced than you. And while the multiplayer mode for a game like this shouldn't be too difficult (really not a lot of data to be sent around), it will be my first time to implement one.
Right now that's all I got - a lot of text, a few screenshots and a video. If people are interested in playing it let me know and I'll upload a playable build soon.
Also, feel free to visit the IndieDB page for more information (well not really yet, but more screenshots for sure):
Thanks a lot for your interest, let me know what you think.