I haven’t played The Bigs but from your explanation it sounds interesting. I don’t know how you would embed youtube into Textile (the markup language we use here) but you can certainly link to them.
We decided that we would simplify the pitching mechanic (we refer to them as mechanics, not as minigames :) so that it was playable for the average user, as the more advanced system asks quite a lot of the player. As you mention however, an “advanced pitching” system would make an interesting expansion… I won’t write it into our roadmap just yet but you’ve certainly got me thinking!
Rj
Mechanics, got it, that sounds far better!
It’s difficult to know how a developer might feel about updates, add-ons and premium content, but you guys seem to embrace it, obviously I can’t speak for everyone, but from my perspective I’d be fully on-board.
I think sometimes the more you ask of players, the more they want to give and the more attached to your product they become. Certainly the bowling add-on for the cricket is a big part of my enjoyment – without wanting to be critical, I feel the baseball does lack something with the pitching as it is. It’s still very enjoyable, but it could be even more engaging. As long as you appreciate it’s aiming to be constructive suggestions from my point, then I’ll try and keep you thinking!
I’ll try and get a bigs link for you when I get home, but in the mean-time, have you seen the Com2us baseball homerun game? Their aiming system for batting is very intuitive. If I was top play a game with a combination of your swipe and their aim, I might think it was nearing perfection! (their system is always a “home run” power shot, there’s no subtlety)
Legendary Catch Mechanic for The Bigs (XBOX 360) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOBcZ-LkxA8#t=1m15s
I’d say it occurs once maybe 2 out of 3 innings, and there are different types – the others involve holding down a button for a specific period of time, with a countdown clock, and aligning two axes – this is the first I could find…
Thanks Wykey. Personally, I don’t generally like quick time events like the one shown in the video, they feel too arbitrary to me and break me out of the simulation, harming the suspension of disbelief.
Some challenge that is directly related to the real game would be much better, so aligning the axes or something like that might be more fun.
I completely agree that offering more to the player allows us to also expect more but it is a balance and we need to make sure that we don’t expect too much :)
We love adding updates to our games to keep refining and improving them. It’s best when they are free updates but we obviously have to keep the lights on so some have to be paid extensions (like bowling is in Cricket). An “Advanced Pitching” extension might work quite nicely, especially if we can solve the fielding issue.
Rj
