BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY
An Interview with Doug Whatley, creator of Microprose's Ultimate Football '95
My PC gaming passion has long been flight simulators. My office is littered
with versions that have come and gone. My first priority in a simulator is
artificial intelligence(AI), followed by game modeling and then graphics. To
say I am particular about my 'simming' would be an understatement. It takes a
lot to 'wow' me when it comes to AI, playability and graphics.
My first look at Ultimate Football 95' from Microprose not only satisfied the
'wow' factor but the program is proving to have the AI to back it up. From
the opening screen shot sequence I had the feeling that Ultimate Football 95'
was something special.
The program is graphically appealing and has an easy
to use interface followed by some very dynamic artificial intelligence. It is
easy to see that there is a lot more to this simulation than meets the eye.
There is great sound that includes those obnoxious crowd horns blasting
intermittently along with the heart pounding chants of "defense, defense"
rising from the crowd as you try and stop your opponent at the five yard
line. The grunts of the players as they smash into each other also adds a lot
to the reality level of play.
Lead designer and programmer, Doug Whatley and the Ultimate Football 95'
design team have put together an excellent product that utilizes a single
player mode, multi-player network play, modem play and DVDN modem play(data
and voice transfer over the same telephone line requiring a special modem) .
There are options to build your own leagues, fully editable playbooks,
real-time action, player control modes, coach's mode and a host of other
configurable features. Ultimate Football 95' was designed with not only the
PC simmer' but the also the Fantasy League sports enthusiast in mind. Fantasy
League football has become very popular throughout the country.
To create a sports simulator with this much depth and so many options takes
not only a creative team but a master-mind with a specific vision. Doug
Whatley is one of those creative minds who can bring vision to reality
utilizing PC technology and a lot of imagination.
Doug is a pleasant fellow with a passion for realism and artificial
intelligence. Ultimate Football 95's detail is no accident and is the result
of three years of game development and testing. Doug Whatley's game designing
career spans many years when he began designing board war games and since he
was a programmer he eventually brought his passion for games to the PC. Doug
did a lot of shareware work back in the Apple II days and he finally made his
breakthrough when her wrote the software for America On-Line, which was
obviously no small programming feat.
Doug Whatley has been at Microprose for five years and has worked on other
games but has been primarily working on football games for the last few
years. He was on the team that designed Microprose's Pacific Air War. The
same 3D engine that drives PAW also works for Ultimate Football 95'.
I recently spoke with Doug and had the opportunity to ask him about his work
on Ultimate Football at Microprose.
McT-Obviously, there is somethin
g special about the wide variety of the
choices of play but I am most intrigued by the modem options, especially the
DVDN ability.
D.W.-That is by far the most fun way to play it, especially if you can get a
phone with a speaker phone so you can sit there and shout at your opponent.
McT-Ultimate Football 95' seems to have a lot to offer the PC gamer as well
as the football fan. Everyone is a football fan aren't they?
D.W.-Yes I believe their citizenship is revoked if they aren't, ha, ha.
McT-Obviously, the creation of this simulator is a team effort but can you
give us an idea of how that team developed this product?
D.W.-Ultimate Football has evolved from several versions of the game and that
is how we came up with so many levels of play. It began three years ago when
we did a game called Coach's Club Football, which was more of an
action-arcade type of play but with a realistic simulation of football. We
thought we did that one pretty well and it was a lot of fun to play.
McT-Where did it evolve from there?
D.W.-Ultimate Football was developed then we added more of the league
options, play depth and play design to really go for the hard-core people.
McT-What about the final version of the game, how did you arrive at Ultimate
Football 95'?
D.W.-We spent the summer just playing the game and we tried to fine tune
every little detail we could.
McT-I have noticed that the computerized teams play very similar to their
real-life counterparts. Obviously the play-books offer the artificial
intelligence some reflection of the real-thing how is that done?
D.W.-We designed the AI in a manner that wasn't at a high-level, we didn't
say, "if you run this way against this defense, this is going to be the
result". We didn't say, "if you're the cornerback and you're five yards off
the line this is how you react. " Instead, we developed each individual
player's AI and the turned them loose.
McT-And what is the result?
D.W.-We spent a lot time fine tuning that so once you get the players
reacting like that the plays just happen like they really do. Sometimes it
even amazes me when I see them do something I didn't expect them to deal
with.
McT-Ultimate Football has the look and feel of a real live football game and
I can sit back and put it on auto-play and watch the computer play. It is
like watching an actual football game. Was that part of the design?
D.W.-An amazing number of people just put the computer on auto-play and watch
the game. I think a lot of new computer users who are still a little afraid
of the computer enjoy doing that because it sort of bridges the gap for them.
They are used to watching football on TV and they can start something on
their computer that they can kind-of control.
McT-I notice that the interface allows players to download fantasy league
information from Prodigy or Franchise Football League BBS. How do you see the
future of the Fantasy League and PC game play?
D.W.-We have placed a lot of advertisements through the FFL side of things in
distributed flyers. We have made a concerted effort to draw people to the
program who aren't necessarily computer people and we do want to get those
folks involved in the game.
McT-How have you gone about attracting those non-computer users?
D.W.-We have set the game up in various locations and allowed people to play
but it usually doesn't turn out well because we can't get them off the
computer once they start.
McT-Is Ultimate Football going to be a cross-platform game or will it
strictly remain on the PC?
D.W.-In the future it will be moving cross-platform. This year it will
remain strictly for the PC but we've already got plans for doing many
different platforms next year.
McT-It is taken you three years to get to this point so I guess it is safe to
assume that this is the engine that will be used to build the other platforms
in the future including the Fantasy Football interface, what else is planned?
D.W.-We are going to use the simulation as the base. Some of the other
changes that will be made include a Windows 95 version. We want to simplify
things even more so that players can really get into the game.
McT-Since Fantasy Football is tied to the 17 weeks of the season what are the
plans for this aspect of the game?
D.W.-We want to add more schedule editors so they can enhance their
schedules, we want to increase the fantasy play so that it goes beyond the
football season. We want to expand on that by using historical players and
teams.
McT-I noticed that the year selection goes back to 1993 now. Are you going
to expand on that so players can play against some of the great teams of the
past?
D.W.-Currently we've worked up playbook's of all of the winning Superbowl
teams through the years and now we are working on the losing Superbowl teams.
I would really like to do playbook's that are based on the era's of football.
So that the Packer's have their own playbook and really play like the
Packer's did at the end of the 60's.
McT-I really enjoy the 3-D graphic detail of the simulation, can you tell me
a little bit about the design of that part of the game?
D.W.-We wanted the user's to be able to see the details on the uniforms, we
wanted the logos on the helmets, accurate striping on the pants so we had to
go with a very large size of sprite to get that. It also means that you can
zoom in fairly close to the players and they still look good. Although, it is
memory intensive it adds to the dimension of the game-play.
McT-I noticed that the players' movements were incredibly realistic. How was
that created?
D.W.-Our animators did a really good job. We stood there and yelled at them
until the animation's were realistic (insert smile here). Our lead animator
has now been on the project and all the football games for three years. Three
years ago he knew nothing about football and I kept buying him football
books, telling him, "this is how they do it".
McT-How did he react to that?
D.W.-We eventually took him outside of the building and showed him, this is
how you tackle and this is how you block and so on. We've been doing this
for three years and now he is an expert on football. He was the one running
the Fantasy Football League draft the other night! We've morphed him into a
football fanatic.
McT-Doug, do you have a football background?
D.W.-Well, I have a sports background, my dad was a basketball coach and I
grew up in Texas where football was 'the game.' I played everything in high
school, football and basketball but unfortunately I was too slow and awkward
to continue any longer than that but I've been a fan forever.
McT-We all have that secret "wannabe" feeling and Ultimate Football really
enticed mine. Especially when I could here the crowd chanting
'defense-defense' in the background. I think that you've really captured that
feeling for all of us "wannabe" football players that will now know a little
of the feeling of standing under the center waiting for the snap while the
crowd goes nuts.
D.W.-That is the kind of feedback we like to hear.
Dan was certainly gracious and I would like to thank him for taking the time
to offer a little
insight into the development of Ultimate Football 95'. I
would also like to thank Paula Scarfone for making it possible (even if she
is a Pittsburgh Steeler fan).
It was nice to find out that game designer's are a lot like the rest us with
one big exception, their ability to make fantasy a reality. I am certain that
they possess magical powers!
Copyright (c) 1995 Mike McTaggart for InfoMedia. All rights reserved worldwide.
Copyright © 1995 infoMedia.
All rights reserved worldwide
The program is graphically appealing and has an easy
to use interface followed by some very dynamic artificial intelligence. It is
easy to see that there is a lot more to this simulation than meets the eye.
There is great sound that includes those obnoxious crowd horns blasting
intermittently along with the heart pounding chants of "defense, defense"
rising from the crowd as you try and stop your opponent at the five yard
line. The grunts of the players as they smash into each other also adds a lot
to the reality level of play.
