BoxRec

Hello, I have been reading forum awhile. I have started to get interested in boxing about 6 years back but never boxed myself. I am a programmer. Currently I decided to make a strategy boxing computer game. It is going to be a strategy game so you have no control over fighter, but you are like a trainer that gives the fighter instructions. Can you boxing gurus help?

So far I have:
Stay on outside (work jab and keep distance good for boxers with reach advantage)
Get inside (better for shorted boxers with good power and great uppercut)
Hold on the inside (for boxers that are not good inside)
Double up on the jab - (what is that for?)
Hook the jab - (what is that for?)
Jump on opponent from openning bell - (like Brewster vs Golata)
Conserve energy
Counterpunch (good against any unpolished boxer, especially the one comming in with wide shots)
Cut of the ring
Go to the body
Go for KO (head hunt)

Since I am no boxer and I never even trained I know you must know tons more. Can you write them here with little explanation as to what the strategy is used for?

Thanks. Its my second attempt to code a game. The first one was way too ambitios and I never finished it.

Hold on the inside (for boxers that are not good inside) - I'd say this was more fo fighters good on the inside.

Double up on the jab - (what is that for?) - To nullify speed and good counterpunchers

Hook the jab - (what is that for?) - Any fighter who you see a feint jab work against, or has their right hand marginally low.

Another one you can add maybe is "sitting in the pocket". Where a fighter stays at mid range and slips, rolls, and blocks incoming punches, and catches the opponent with his own hard shots.

Uppercut - A very useful tool against come forward fighters who come in low.

lesov wrote: Hook the jab - (what is that for?)

I think you mean 'Hook off the jab'.... Most boxers will instinctively block the jab with the right hand, whoch exposes the head a bit.

So if you jab and quickly follow with a hook, you will likely catch the opponent.


It is a hard combination to pull off though as it is awkward, and you have to move your body quickly forward before you throw a quick hook.

You have to be quick otherwise the hand will come back...


Hope that is helpful,

thank you for your suggestions. Keep them coming if you can think of anything else.

speak to James Mcdonell he used to rent games out of blockbuster and reckons he can programme games. (in seriousness he has some useful thoughts on such matters andsome experience of programming.)

Go and have a look at a game on the internet called http://www.vivi.com, they already have a pretty good system in place there which you can adapt.

I take it it's not a real-time game you are aiming for but a variation of the various 'play by mail' games where you create and train a fighter and submit a strategy for each bout.

I worked on something similar with a friend and tried to have it so the fight happened real time based on all the parameters, very very hard to balance out.

I would suggest on the whole keeping it relatively simple. Despite was J says I know nothing about programming, I was a designer, purely conceptual stuff.

Bruce (the guy that runs the site JM posted) is a top bloke and would likely just send you the code if you were trying to make a game that was significantly different, was going to be free, and were willing to link back to his site when it was all done. Bruce's game minimises luck and maximises stategy, and you have to get your head around some (pretty basic) coding to get on. It's as much about understanding the code as understanding boxing. I believe a couple of (aborted) attempts to build on Bruce's code and build a more instictive, less maths based game have already been tried.

Quite true, devising the strategies of boxing aren't that hard, it's making them work and balancing them so that you don't end up with one way of winning all the time.

vivi.com has been modified over several years and so is thoroughly tested.

I've never played Vivi.com but i used to play http://www.boxinggame.com years ago when i had lots more time on my hands.

It worked in the same way. Study the fight reports from your opponents last fights and weigh up his advantages/disadvantages relative to your fighter then run sparring bouts to see how the fight might play out and fine tune your fightplan.

Fun but time consuming. There were lots of fighters who played and it got very hard quite quickly. Don't know how it's evolved.

I'd often wished they was a way to see the fights play out like King of the Ring arcade style or something.

Here's a long shot. Does anyone remember ZX Spectrum's Boxing Manager. Because this had strategy plus visual fights, but as you can imagine the quality was just shy of abysmal.

That's why when I tried to do mine we tried to do it real time, so we could then tie it in to a graphical client, but it was so hard to get the balance right. You'd get fighters who would knock everyone out with one punch all the time or people who just couldn't be knocked out at all. Gave up in the end.

I've never played theboxinggame, but the guy that wrote vivi wrote TBG and then flogged it to the bloke that runs it now (who is apparently a proper tosser). I wouldn't bother going to TBG for help - it's a pay-to-play thing now, the guy that runs it now is (allegedly) a bit of a knob, and it's basically the beta version of vivi, which is run for free.

Gotta be worth asking Bruce if you can develop his code. He may well say no, but he's not going to wig out on you - he's too sound a bloke.

thats a sweet game, I may try to play it. But I was not thinking of multiplayer game. More like CM football, but for boxing. So it would be mostly single player against computer

As a kid growing up in the late 1970s-1980s I used to play a game called Title Bout. You can buy it off ebay. There's usually someone selling it (usually from the states). Of course there are always fighters you feel are underrated or overrated. You get an old timers set and a modern set. I think I had 1979, 1981 and 1986...

I even used to write reports on the fights and me and a friend made our own copy of The Ring... Bloody hell, i'll have to get in the loft and dig it out...

Yeah, I remember Title bout. It was a good game. I was like 10-12 years and played all day.

There's a computer version of title bout now, developed by a guy called Jim Trunzo.

Is it safe to purchase from that site and get it sent from the US to UK do you think?

whoops they got a download...my laptop would probably bugger it up though....

should be fine.

I downloaded it... I had a few issues and they sorted it out, seemed like a good bunch.

let us know how your game goes.

James Mc, seems liek a shame the game you were involved in didn't work out. Although in terms of boxing discussion thsoe games always cause mroe arguments than they settle...

I finally got some time last few months to work on a game.
You can find a working fight simulator at
http://www.box2glory.com/

There is not much there yet, all you can do is sim the fights. I put in Tyson and Ali in there so far. Or you can create your own fighter. I would recommend Firefox browser.

I am now working for AI because the game will support both AI controlled and human players. Depending on the time I will have between school, family and work the full alpha version is still months away. But at least some of you may be nice enough to help me debug or give feedback for the fight sim. After all it is the heart of the game.

Also, I am using boxrec encyclopedia images for boxers without asking anyone here. The encyclopedia images are perfect size and content in my opinion. I hope its ok. Hope someone will let me know if it is not allowed.
The game is going to be free and I hate these commercials on the web game sites which take away from environment(i will not have such things), so its not like I am using these pictures for profit. Should be fine , right?

Thanks for feedback.

http://www.etapout.com


Fairly popular mma text based game.

lesov wrote:I finally got some time last few months to work on a game.
You can find a working fight simulator at
http://www.box2glory.com/

There is not much there yet, all you can do is sim the fights. I put in Tyson and Ali in there so far. Or you can create your own fighter. I would recommend Firefox browser.

I am now working for AI because the game will support both AI controlled and human players. Depending on the time I will have between school, family and work the full alpha version is still months away. But at least some of you may be nice enough to help me debug or give feedback for the fight sim. After all it is the heart of the game.

Also, I am using boxrec encyclopedia images for boxers without asking anyone here. The encyclopedia images are perfect size and content in my opinion. I hope its ok. Hope someone will let me know if it is not allowed.
The game is going to be free and I hate these commercials on the web game sites which take away from environment(i will not have such things), so its not like I am using these pictures for profit. Should be fine , right?

Thanks for feedback.

better interface than vivi (you seems to use their engine) !!!

great work

mickeybeard wrote:I've never played theboxinggame, but the guy that wrote vivi wrote TBG and then flogged it to the bloke that runs it now (who is apparently a proper tosser). I wouldn't bother going to TBG for help - it's a pay-to-play thing now, the guy that runs it now is (allegedly) a bit of a knob, and it's basically the beta version of vivi, which is run for free.

Gotta be worth asking Bruce if you can develop his code. He may well say no, but he's not going to wig out on you - he's too sound a bloke.

Yup Aaron (the guy who runs TBG) is a tw@t, whereas Bruce Cota is a legend. Aaron actually STOLE Bruce's EKO code in order to run TBG.

Bruce's site has always been free because he's a top bloke.

http://www.vivi.com (aka WeBL) is a great game, very addictive. I recommend it to everyone

lankester wrote:
better interface than vivi (you seems to use their engine) !!!

great work

Yes, I played vivi as someone suggested this to me on this very thread awhile back. I am building on the top of their engine. At least how it is described on their site. I never had any of their code. I have already changed it an added more things to it so I know it will need time to balance out once it out. vivi engine is very balanced after 5 years so any changes I made to it probably unbalanced it.

But box2glory is going to be very different from vivi with ai control boxers in addition to human controlled ones, contracts, coaches, scouts, home advantage, money that mean something, etc. Like Football Manager for boxing.

I am keeping a development blog at box2glory.blogspot.com