StreetSoccer the Boardgame for iPhone: Developer Preview

Corne van Morsel's board game StreetSoccer was published by Cwali in 2002 and has had a strong following ever since. Two players compete as coachs of street soccer teams and whoever scores the most goals after 25 turns each wins the game.

A die role at the beginning of the turn decides how many movement points a player has available for that turn. A player piece can only move horizontally and vertically at the cost of one movement point per field. Once the piece reaches the ball, his movement stops and the rest of the movement has to be spent moving the ball. The ball can travel in any direction, including diagonally, again at the cost of one movement point per field. However, the ball can only change its direction once in mid-flight and only by 45 degrees. Every time a player piece reaches the ball or vice versa, the player earns one additional movement point. By careful positioning of the player pieces, the ball can be passed between them to greatly extend the range of the ball.

There are however some problems... of course! Only one player piece is allowed to move in a turn, so movement points cannot be spent to move multiple pieces. Also, a player piece has to stop once it reaches the ball, so shooting a ball from an outside position can mean that one has to sacrifice another turn get the player back into a good position.

New players assume that StreetSoccer is a game of luck due to the randomness of the die role. But watch a master of this game play and you will see that strategy and tactics in positioning your players is far more important than the die! The full rules can be found here.

Since Alex is a bit of a boardgame adict in remorse, one of the first ideas when starting developing for the iPhone SDK was to do all the boardgames he loved. And StreetSoccer was definitely at the top of the list. Luckily, Alex and Corne had loosely know each other for a while and so talks began of doing an iPhone version together. But doing a game properly - and both were sure to do it properly or not do it at all - requires a lot of time. So plans were made and post-poned as life came in the way of great plans. It took another talk at the Essen game fair 2010 and the experience Alex had gained doing Monkey Dash to finally light the first spark.

Prototype V0.6.4: Smooth 2D to 3D transition

StreetSoccer for iPhone is still in development but hopefully the info on this site and in our blog will shorten the wait for you. It currently looks like a first release will happen June of 2012. The game play, graphics engine, Game Center online multiplayer and a challenging computer opponent are already done. In fact, we have been playtesting against the computer for months now. So mostly it will depend on replacing all the prototype 3D graphics.

The initial version will be a complete and stable product but we simply do not have a chance to get everything we want into it in time. So the basic idea is to launch at a reduced price featuring both single and multiplayer support but without things like tournament play and official ranking servers. This also gives you a chance to give us feedback and tell us what you would like to see the most for the next update. With every major update, we'll adjust the price to the new feature set until we reach the full price. So the earlier you get in into StreetSoccer for iPhone, the more you get a chance to participate and the less you are gonna pay for it.

• Complete official rule set with added suggestions from Corne himself
• Custom Graphics Engine and Animation Subsystem
• Fluid 2D/3D view: While the camera can rotate around the playing field, hard core gamers will love the fact that the camera locks into a top-down, 2D-like view if it is rotated upwards. This will give you the best of both worlds: Nice graphics and perfect overview.
• OpenAL-support for sound
• Pass-and-Play: Play against the AI or a friends on one device.
• Multiple computer opponents: A lot of time has gone into making those as tough as we can make them while keeping computation time low.
• Game Center support for 2 player online action, includes chat system
• Review, import and export of played matches for later analysis
• Tap-to-pass: A player/ball can be moved by tapping to its target position and the app will do the routing. However, since clever passing is an essential element of the game, the routing will not "optimize" your move. You still got to pick which players to pass to and which not.
• Universal release: Graphics have been adapted for both iPhone and iPad, including iPhone retina display support.
• Runs even on a first gen iPod Touch!
• Play-by-mail: Play against a friend my sending moves back and forth. One can even play against friends that don't own the app.
• Achievements
• Customizable player names and numbers

• Most of the 3D graphic assets are still from the prototype and have to be replaced for the completed version
• Reliability improvements for Game Center sessions on instable networks
• Career mode
• Background music and sound

Here is a list of ideas of what we want to do for future releases. If and when we will get to do them will largely depend on your feedback!

• Tournament servers
• ELO points
• Customizable team shirts
• ...

Did we forget something? Let us know!