Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Fighting Eleven #16: Badges and Clusters

Okay, I have a generally working list of clusters and what interests the clusters consist of, and here it is:
THE BOOKWORM (Academics, Library, Scholarship)
GOING TO THE LEAGUE (Coaching, Facilities, Team Ranking)
THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE (Library, Fan Support, Campus Beauty)
THE WALK-ON (Academics, Coaching, Tradition)
BMOC (Playing Time, Fan Support, School Size)
SAFETY SCHOOL (Scholarship, Location, School Size)
THE HISTORIAN (Coaching, Tradition, Conference)
HOMETOWN HERO (Playing Time, Fan Support, Location)
THE RANDOMIZER (all interests rolled randomly)
FAMILY TIES (Legacy, Location, Campus Beauty)
HAPPY TO BE HERE (Conference, Stadium, Team Ranking)
THE ARTISAN (Team Style, Campus Beauty, School Size)
THE FOUNDATION (Library, Facilities, Stadium)
MR. ALL-AROUND (Academics, Tradition, Stadium)
THE BEAST (Facilities, Conference, Team Ranking)
MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY (Scholarship, Playing Time, Team Style)

There are sixteen different clusters, and sixteen different badges. Almost all badges are represented 3 times (there are two exceptions because the Randomizer doesn't have pre-defined interests), and the clusters--as best I could--represent actual personality types.

This is a more substantial list than I had last week, and I think it will work fine until people start playtesting and provide more feedback.

UPDATE (late last night, since I originally wrote the post yesterday)
I now have recruit interests generating along the lines I mentioned last week. Very tidy, and the clusters are working as intended. Still have some code to finish up, but it's clearly working.

The next big piece is going to be cleaning up the team info file, which ranks all teams in a dozen or so categories, so that I can input the data and assign badges based on the rankings. Then I can "score" the recruit's interest based on his interests and the badges available to each school.

I may have this whole piece working within two weeks.

In the long term, one of the crucial bits for the game is going to be creating a dynamic system of rise and fall for all the schools in all the categories. Something that genuinely feels alive, instead of a bunch of canned changes. It's going to be difficult, but it's also the specific kind of thing that I really enjoy working on.

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