The end?

I'm sidelining this project, at least for some time.

In the meantime, I'm writing something about football (soccer) games in the rec.sport.soccer newsgroup.

Why 4-4-2 #4

A little thought about football (soccer) tactics, again.

There are two conflicting demands:

• on the one hand, it's better to have many different players that can attack, so the opponent team can't know who mark
• on the other hand, specialized players know their job better

Why Yearly Fantasy Scout

One reason why a reform like Yearly Fantasy Scout would be good.

In Fantasy Scout there probably must be freedom in picking players, because the game lasts so long (forever actually) that nobody could consistently respect deadlines.

Scoring points too is something that, in some sense, has not a precise date, because the development of players is a continuous process.

But there are moments when points are scored and, more generally, comparisons between players can be made (e.g. when you have data about their club football performances, or when the national team managers call up the squads). In these moments, it's better if a straight computation - i.e. one based on a sum or a 1 vs. 1 comparison, not on an average - can be done.

Yearly Fantasy Scout

A reform for Fantasy Scout.

Each year, a scout can pick up to 10 players.

There is a separate scout ranking for each year of pick. The score of a scout is the sum of the points earned by the players he picked in that year.

Then there is a meta-ranking based on the rankings of each year. This meta-ranking is based on: most 1st places; as a tie-breaker, most 2nd places; as a tie-breaker, most 3rd places; and so on.

Why 4-4-2 #3

Another little thought about football (soccer) tactics.

Having just one forward restricts too much the options of attacking tactics: he can only dribble and shoot. Adding another forward enables a lot more options (because they can pass the ball back and forth), so he has a great marginal value.

Round

A never ending fantasy football (soccer).

Teams are composed by 15 players. 7 of these players are locked by the manager (he can change locked players in any moment).

When a new manager enters the game, he compose his team picking unlocked players from other teams (no more than one from each team).

In any moment:

• a manager can pick a free player, unloading a player of his team
• two managers can trade players

The seasonal score of a player is given by the goals he scores in the league multiplied by a factor similar to the one used for European Golden Shoe (if the player scores both in a summer league and in a winter league, only one of them - the one where he scored most goals - is counted).

The seasonal score of a manager is given by the sum of the scores of his best 3 defenders + 4 midfielders + 3 forwards. A seasonal ranking is computed.

SERP-ent

A game about linking things.

Two words are randomly picked. You have to tell a word that links those random words. Then the two random words are submitted as a query in Google. You win if the word you told is included in the snippets of the first 10 Google results.

Psychology

A loose idea for an acting game.

A couple of players have to play one famous dialog (from a play, a novel, a movie) making - by the means of their interpretation - their friends understand the name of another dialog.

All-around Fantasy Scout

A version of Fantasy Scout.

Each year, each scout (i.e. contestant) must:

• pick some under-20 players, up to 10
• select 1 out of the players picked the previous year to permanently represent him

Points are given to players according to their performance in each official competition, be it for club teams or national teams. Data can be taken from sites like zerozerofootball.com (see e.g. the stats of Messi in 2008/09). For each competition, the points scored by a player are given by the following formula:

competition coefficient * ((3 * goals scored by the player) + (1 * points gained by his team in the matches that he played))

The competition coefficient can be computed using a formula similar to the one designed by Marcelo Leme de Arruda to rank club teams.

For each year, a ranking of the players picked in that year - i.e. of the scouts that picked them, since each scout is represented by one player - is computed.

Out of Out of context

An expansion for Out of context.

The players of "Out of Out of context" are referees in "Out of context".

Each OoOoc player stands near Ooc players with a camera. When a OoOoc player is able to take a photo of an Ooc player not staring in front of him:

• the former gains one point
• the latter is eliminated from the Ooc game

At the end of the Ooc game, the OoOoc player with most points wins.

Fantasy Scout thief version

A Fantasy Scout variant.

Add the following rule: any scout A can pick a player C from a scout B without the agreement of B, if A gives B a player D who both is younger and has more points than C.

Fantasy football predictor

A formula to predict football (soccer) players' next performance for fantasy games sakes.

E.g. we want to predict Cristiano Ronaldo's score, who'll play next match away against Liverpool.

Ronaldo's expected score = Ronaldo's average away score * (average score of players away against Liverpool / average score of players away)

Why 4-4-2 #2

Thinking again about tactics, for a football (soccer) simulation.

It's always better to have one more defender between the opponent forwards and the goal.

Why 4-4-2 #1

First step for a football (soccer) simulation.

If there was no offside rule, having one or two players beyond all the opponent defenders, in front of the opponent goalkeeper, has some benefits (as well as some disadvantages!). But the marginal benefit of adding other players in that position is almost null.

Peeping Toms

A version of Peeping Tom suited for more than two players.

The winner of the auction now wins the game if the other players spot no more than the number of people (of the specified kind) that he offered in the auction.

Out of context

Meditation game.

The player who stares at the same point (it can't be a screen with moving images!) for the longest time wins.

Peeping Tom

A game to be played taking a walk on the streets with a friend.

A category of people is decided (e.g. people with red shoes). Then an auction is held: how many people fitting that category will you be able to spot in the next ten minutes? The winner of the auction wins the game if he spots at least the number of people that he offered in the auction, otherwise the other player wins.

Real knowledge #2

A way to implement the real knowledge concept.

The objects in the game (terrains, units, buildings) have no name nor picture: each of them is represented only through a non-meaningful shape and/or color.

You know about the objects using them: e.g. you put a unit on a terrain and you see what happens.

When you understand how an object works and you are able to describe its effects in a mathematical way, you are given the ability to build a new object, and you have again to discover its function.

Not only the shapes and the colors of the objects, but also their effect (at least its exact numerical value) is randomly generated for each game.

Real knowledge

Generic idea for a Civilization-like game.

Get rid of the "knowledge tree". All the knowledge about terrain features and about the effects of the things that the player can build should be acquired by him through the experience of the game.