Jon Hare is of course the creator of Sensible Soccer who we managed to catch up with earlier in the year. As soon as we found out about his exciting new venture Sociable Soccer, we simply had to find out more. The kickstarter has begun and we urge you to check it out (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/towerstudios/sociable-soccer). Thankfully, Jon has spared more of his precious time to chat to us again – enjoy!
Hello Jon! We’re pleased to introduce our readers to your new project “Sociable Soccer”, in a nutshell tell us what it’s all about and what aspects of Sensi (if any) are in it?
Well it is the first game in what we hope what will be a brand new football game franchise (i.e. we want to make lots of these). It will feature fast fluid gameplay, a variety of camera angles and control configurations including those similar to Sensible Soccer, FIFA and PES. It will have loads of game modes for single players and local multiplayer (up to 8 people playing in competitions on one machine), there will be friendlies, 30 preset competitions like leagues, cups and tournaments from around the world and DIY tournaments where you can design your own. There will also be a big focus on online multiplayer where you can play representing your club, your country or your clan in a series of never ending ladder leagues (this is the new bit).
How do you hope to make this new footy game as sociable as possible (Adrian apologises for the pun…)?
Well, there are two sociable elements. Firstly there is local multiplayer which was the main driver for SWOS players and also still is for PES and FIFA players. Then there is online multiplayer where you fight together with fans of your own club and country against fans of rival clubs and countries to take your team up the league to glory. Also, the clan leagues offer a great basis of comradery within the game
What features will set it apart from its competitors?
Silky smooth, ultra-fast gameplay, online leagues where you work together with fans of your club to beat the fans of other clubs, metagame of advancing the career of your player avatar as he gets signed up to play for your club and country in the online ladder leagues
Sensi was a landmark title in how it used pressure on just the one button to exact any move you wished on the football pitch. How does the control system in Sociable Soccer compare?
We will be supporting the one button system like Sensi for Amiga, the two button system for Sensi on Mega Drive and the multi-button system like FIFA and PES. We will also support 360 directional and 8 directional control on joypads plus touch screen, keyboard and mouse control on PC.. so the whole shebang.
We’re predicting it to be a huge hit. Are there are any other games from your back catalogue you would like to see re-made into its next spiritual successor?
Mega lo Mania, Cannon Fodder, Wizkid are the main three.
We’ve been digging and Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll sounded like an ambitious and original title, one we’d love to get our hands on. Can you tell our readers the original inspiration for the game and why it was never released to the public?
Wow that is a long answer. Myself and Chris Yates first designed it way back in 1985 as a joke game about a lead singer in a band with 7 different drug habits that all needed feeding… It evolved into a point and click adventure signed with Warner for $1million in 1995. The game was great fun to make and had an amazing soundtrack and some pretty out there art, but the programing was a bit broken. Warner sold to GT software, a bible belt company that didn’t like the 18+ content of the game so, after a bit of a standoff they gave it back to us to resell. The problem was the programing was utterly broken, so we couldn’t resell it.
If you could travel back in time and work on any video game, which would you have loved to be involved in?
I think maybe Space Invaders – the first real breakthrough game into the public consciousness.
We’ve started our own IndieDev project (www.skylinegame.co.uk) – if you could give us and all other aspiring developers one piece of advice what would it be?
My advice is to design something within your own capabilities and available time. Most people new to game development under estimate the amount of effort that everything takes,
The hardest part of making games is finishing them and ideas on their own are worth nothing, so make the plan achievable, see it through to the end and polish as you go (great advice – Ed).
If you could have Christmas dinner with any videogame character who would you choose and what would be the dinner of choice?
I would like to eat turkey with cranberry sauce for Christmas dinner and my guest would be Yoshi because I have a daughter that would love to meet him.
Thanks Jon and all the best for Sociable Soccer!
Cheers!
That Kickstarter link once again https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/towerstudios/sociable-soccer
Dylan and Adrian