Hi guys,

I'm currently looking for a game with similar gameplay to NHL games minus the sports theme.

Anyone has seen any similar game?

The closest I've seen (and its a long stretch) was the Majesty series, but it was lacking the management aspect where you'd draft rookies, train them, etc.

I'm not exactly sure I understand what you are looking for -

I agree, its hard to understand from the very few details I've given out.

I'm referring to 'Be a GM' mode in NHL's most recent titles.

As you might know, when competing in a match, you only control a single guy at any given time, with the rest of your team responding to an AI you have some control over, but mostly sticking to their duties depending on their position (left winger, center, right winger, left D, right D and goalie) and role (dangler, sniper, etc).

When you are out of the games, you perform trades, choose how to focus the training of your current players, and be on the lookout for your yearly drafts.

While I'm really stoked by the entire gameplay experience it offers, I'm a bit turned off by the hockey theme nowadays. I'm looking for an interesting twist on this idea that works differently.

but maybe take a look at some 'Mount and Blade' combat videos on YouTube

I've been a supporter of these titles since the early days (got the original game back when they were selling their alpha for 10$). I see how that could relate, but a few things make it very different in my opinion:

- You always control the same guy (your hero) and can't switch between team mates

- Your hero is strong, your team mates are canon fodder

- The 1st person view rather than bird's eye

- The AI: your units behave like a pack, and while you can issue some types of orders, it really falls short of the complexity of nhl. Part of the issue here is that the only goal is to kill one another, rather than attempting to reach an actual objective (scoring goals by diverting the goalie's attention and bypassing the D-men).

- As you mentionned, lack of drafting. Well, you can actually draft men from villages you are friendly with, but peasants don't really have starting stats.

- Scope of the team: since this is an 'army's game' and that you will play with armies of perhaps 100 people, the game wasn't built in a way where you have meaningful control over their progression. They will level up, and give you generally two choices you can choose from (footman or archer?) but it really lacks the depth of nhl in that regard. A game with a smaller scope in terms of how many units you control at once would have more design space to work with such finer details. In NHL, you can have your sniper train his accuracy, shooting speed, skating speed, puck control, etc.

Thanks for pointing it out though (I hadn't realized how similar it was).

It sounds kinda like Game Dev Story

It is a management game allright, but it doesn't look/feel like Game Dev Story though I reckon the human resource management is still present (especially the skill development part). On the other hand, your impact on a person's development is very limited...

It also seems a bit like a Fire Emblem or FF Tactics type game

I guess I should point out that NHL games are real-time. They are, in fact, a real time tactic type of game in their own way. I haven't seen many other similar implementations of such a gameplay aside in sportsgames.

That said, if there's any hybrid (tactic game vs sportgame realtime tactics) I'm all ears.

Crusader Kings 2 has an aspect like that. Mixed in with Dynasty management. I'm not sure if its pure enough. You also have to deal with combat. Well, not technically, you could eschew it if you wanted. And the event system is helpful since you can make choices about your guys. You search around the game for good marriages and try to breed good congenital traits to your dynasty and used education to get good traits for your kids.

Crusader Kings 2 has an aspect like that

The Crusader King series uses an approach that has much less to do with training and more to do with lineage and political decision. If you play it hard, chances are you or your heirs will inherit 'injuries' (being 'stressed' for example) and each of these keywords will have a static effect on your stats. I see how you feel this is loosely linked to the nhl be a GM mode, but its really a loooong stretch there.

You search around the game for good marriages and try to breed good congenital traits to your dynasty and used education to get good traits for your kids.

When you put it that way, it is true, but it does play very differently in-game. And making a suitable heir is more hit and miss. Besides, when faced with a tangible political decision, you'll often take the one that benefits you the most (generally immediately) through riches and whatnot. You can always switch political regime to get a better heir later on afterall. In other words, that aspect of the gameplay is definitely not as core as it would be in nhl.

Looked like a total of maybe 15 games various people consider to be RTTs, with the total War series accounting for about a third of them.

It's quite true. The Total War series somehow comes a bit closer (and further) from what I'm looking for. But I'm affraid this is mostly an un-explored genre (which is precisely why I'm looking for more info before setting my idea up).

One of the things I've seen which is also a long stretch, is digital card games with crafting mechanics such as D.O.T. and others. In these games, you need to merge different cards to control the growth of your card pool. You level them up in various ways and make them specialized. The gameplay itself, while very far from a sportsgame, is generally automated and AI plays it out for you.

Part of my current project involves an aspect of developing characters for the economic and combat simulations. Its extremely difficult to find games close enough to evaluate for ideas and almost no one wants to discuss design theory. So I suspect your chances of finding anything really similar are quite low.

Unless you wanna go from hockey to football or baseball or soccer or something.

Quite evidently so.

What I chose to do is research sports history and underlying principles. I've based my researches on football (instead of hockey) and have investigated the original rulesets and involvement during the middle ages and see how this can intersect with various other gameplays.

I'm finding more and more interesting tidbits of information, but the big part of it will still be how to render this onscreen in a non-chaotic form of game.

At this stage, I think I've found a way for players to easily understand what its about and easily get the hang of it, but I want simple controls and UI to accompany this and that will be a headbanger :)