Deep Route Almost Ready

For those that remember, I mentioned Deep Route Football back on the old blog.

Well, it's just about ready. It's a career, text based, online-only football sim from the man that made the awesome horse racing sim at www.simulatedsports.com.

Thing is, GameShark can't touch this game with any sized pole because my dad created the playbooks, tested the AI and basically co-designed the game. He's worked on this for well over a year (closer to two). So um...GameShark can't review it. That would be wrong and if I slammed it...well, Christmas would just be plain awkward. But I can blog about it.

That said, the game looks great. Just great. Dad came up this past weekend and sat me down to take the interface for a spin and to watch the AI in action. Dad and Mike Wallace (the brains behind the operation) wanted to ensure that since you cannot actively call plays (this is an online sim game) that the playcalling AI needed to be absolutely top notch. Dad had me pull up a game log of any game I wanted to see how the AI handled everything. After about 20 minutes of watching a few games -- it looked rock solid, calling timeouts as the proper time (even calling one right before the 2-minute warning to take advantage of the free stoppage.)

I could talk a whole lot about the game and what dad has shown me thus far but the website is live and they have ran various beta leagues with great success. People really seem to dig it. I can't wait to play it.

From what I know, there will be two versions: a free play and one that costs a fee (what that fee is, I dunno yet). If you play in the free leagues you can't trade players, set draft parameters or edit your playbook. But you CAN play. I also know that there will be various league set ups that should fit into everyone's schedule. Weekly leagues, nightly leagues, you name it. The game comes with an optional salary cap function as well as other perks. They're trying to make it as user friendly as possible.

I'm really proud of dad for doing this; it was a massive undertaking. And dad's work on the playbooks is just ...insane. They're really, really good and not just because my father created them. He's a former coach so he does have a clue as to what he's doing and he's done a marvelous job with them. I can tell he's happy (and excited) with out it turned out.

Anyway head on over to the site and take a look. The forums are also hopping. There will be a blog league so I can whip Todd on a weekly basis.