What began as an effort to create a simple football text sim with an online-play focus is evolving into something bigger. Professional Football Simulator (PFS) lead developer Brooks Piggott recently released a new update to his promising game that enhances the single-player mode and adds other new features. While it is premature to say that PFS will one day overtake Front Office Football as king of American football text sims, PFS definitely has a bright future.

For the uninitiated, FPS is a text sim where players run a football team through single or multiple seasons. Players are in control of team functions such as drafting, free agency and lineups. The game features online multiplayer and single-player modes as well as numerous customization options.

Now, if you have played Front Office Football, you likely already understand what PFS is all about. In a text sim, you do not control the physical action on the field. Instead, you run a team the same way a general manager or coach would, drafting prospects, signing free agents, setting lineups and managing day-to-day team operations. The initial goal of FPS was to make these tasks less daunting to inexperienced text simmers.

"I wanted the game to be simple for everyone to use, whether it was the players playing in a league or a commissioner running the league," said Piggott. "I wanted PFS to be fast and accurate, but also easy to use so that even casual football fans could play the game or join a league without having to know all of the ins and outs of formations, etc."

Online Play and 2-D Graphics

Simplicity does not necessarily mean the game lacks depth, however. PFS tracks all the relevant stats that text simmers demand and provides the tools necessary to use those stats to evaluate personnel and build your team to your liking. The game engine’s speed and accuracy allows players to spend less time simming games and more time playing. Piggott says that the PFS strong-game engine has already made the game a hit with users who form and play in online leagues.

Player progression is easily tracked and monitored.

There are several online leagues using PFS. In addition to the game engine, another draw for online players is customization. PFS makes all the data inside the game available in export files, giving users and mod fans complete control over how their league Web sites look. Advanced users can pull data from the exported game database and use the data to create skins for a completely unique Web site appearance. The game’s active mod community has also created a variety of current and historic roster sets, league setups and logos.

While people do not buy text sims expecting fancy graphics and an abundance of bells and whistles, developers still have to make sure games do not look like Excel spreadsheets. The most recent PFS update added a 2-D virtual field where players can watch the action unfold right in front of their eyes. This feature gives some life to the blocks of text and drop-down menus prevalent in most text sims. It also helps players see exactly what happens on each play so they can adjust personnel and strategy accordingly.

The 2-D virtual field gets players more involved.

"The 2-D play viewer helps make watching the game a bit more involved than just reading a box score," Piggott said. "The game puts all of the players on the field and uses real physical attributes of a player to determine the output of a play."

More Updates Planned

One thing PFS currently lacks is the ability to call your team’s plays during a game. Instead, users set sliders to determine what plays are run during certain situations. Piggott hopes to add play calling in a future version. He also wants to make the single-player career mode more comprehensive and add a feature that would allow users to create custom playbooks.

"I don't anticipate there being a true final version of the game in the near future," Piggott said. "I plan on constantly adding features and enhancements to the game as I am able to finish them. As ideas come in for improvements or new features I'm actively working on them. I plan to continue adding these upgrades and enhancements for free."


To learn more about PFS, visit www.barcodegames.com. Piggott also posts regularly in the site’s forums about progress updates for new features and to gather player feedback. Go to www.barcodegames.com/forum to view the forums.