Operation Sports recently had a chance to interview Brandon Justice, Director of Design for Quick Hit Football. He provided some excellent answers to our questions, so make sure you give it a read and find out what the game is all about.

Operation Sports: For those who aren't in the know, what is Quick Hit Football all about?

Quick Hit: Quick Hit Football is, first and foremost, about bringing something new and different to football video gaming that can be enjoyed by both hardcore football fanatics and casual fans alike.

It's been a while since the market has had a new pigskin franchise, and we're pretty excited to bring a fun, fast, free football experience to people.

For those who haven't had a chance to check it out, Quick Hit is a free-to-play Online Multiplayer Coaching game, which means we're closer in spirit to games like Front Page Football and NFL Head Coach than we are to titles like Madden, NCAA, or the NFL2k series.

At sign up, you’ll create a team, face thousands of other coaches in head-to-head match-ups, gain Fantasy Points, train your players to increase their attributes and unlock special skills that can be used to your advantage in key moments.

It's a real change of pace from traditional, button-mashing football games. We place a premium on strategy and play-calling, not on thumb dexterity.

OS: What is the typical in-game experience like?

QH: Well, as I just mentioned, Quick Hit is a coaching game. That means a typical game will involve three key aspects:

- Play-Calling: Should you give the rock to your star HB, or use him as a decoy via a play action pass? Do you go for it on 4th and Inches or play it safe? Will you bring the house on 3rd down or make the QB drop back against the Dime? It's your call, and with an enormous sea of online opponents, you never know how the opposing sideline will react.

- Clock Management: Do you make use of a punishing ground game to keep the opposing offense off the field? Can you score in a hurry when they have you on the ropes? Can you put together a crucial 2-minute drive to tie it up and force the game into OT? As you see week-in and week-out in the pros, good clock management can be a game changer, and Quick Hit Football is no different.

- Skill Use: Each position in QHF has three distinct classes, such as a Speed, Balance and Possession for a WR, and each class has a unique set of skills that helps separate them from the competition. It's your job as a Coach to decide when and how these skills get unleashed. Will you stuff the offense with a Brick Wall from your star DT? Will you apply Sticky Fingers to your top TE and make the game-winning Grab? Or will the opposing Coach fire off a Home-Run Threat against your special teams unit to break the game wide open? It all depends on how you manage these unique power-ups over the course of the game.

Your job as the Head Coach is to manage all of the aspects above to exploit the match ups you've got on the field.

OS: What separates Quick Hit Football from other titles on the market?

QH: Oh man...where to start...

Despite having a lot in common with games y'all know and love, Quick Hit is more of a sports RPG than an Action game, and it focuses on the strategic elements of football.

So what does that mean? Here's a quick breakdown:

- Strategy, Not Twitch: One of the key differences from other products in the market is that Quick Hit places a premium on football savvy over skill on the sticks. The game features AI and Playbooks from some of the same folks who handled those duties on Madden, NCAA, the 2K series and All Pro Football, and we're really pushing to make this a game where would-be Coaching Gurus can use their knowledge of the sport to their advantage in a big way.

- All About Advancement: Unlike most sports games out there, our RPG roots (our founder, as well as other members of the team hail from MMORPG developers like Turbine and EA) mean we're not tied to traditional notions of player development. The result is a couple of key things:

1) You don't have to watch your star rookie rise to fame only to retire or graduate a few years later and
2) Rather than randomly progressing as they age, players increase their attributes based on where you choose to spend Coaching Points, the game's chief currency.

So how do you earn these points? Well, just like in Fantasy Football, you’ll earn fantasy points for every action your players perform on the field. 6 Points for a TD, 1 point per 10 yards, etc. When you earn enough FP (it varies by level), you’ll increase your Coach Level, which will earn you Coaching Points.

From there, you can spend your Coaching Points wherever you please, which means making your star WR faster or your OLB hit harder are simply a matter of where you put your points. Using them effectively? That's up to you and your coordinators, Coach.

- Online-Only: As a designer of multiple online Franchise and Tournament modes, one of the coolest things about the game to me is the fact that everyone who plays Quick Hit is an online gamer. All you need to get started is an Internet connection and a web browser, and when you couple this level of accessibility with our unique team customization model, you're no longer limited to 32 distinct opponents (or a couple hundred if you're an NCAA fan). The playing field is wide open, and this means that each game is a new challenge.

- Constant Updates: Speaking of the advantages an online game provides, one of the things I personally hated when working on 2K and Madden were all the features we left on the cutting room floor each season. We'd have a ton of ideas and only so much time to develop them before the season hit, and that meant these ideas, and any bugs we found after ship had to wait until the next year for a fix. The thing about Quick Hit Football, though, is that it is a "live" product. We'll be updating this thing multiple times a year both in and out of football season, which means we can respond to issues faster, add features in the off-season, and much more.

- Community is King: Last but not least, this is a football game made by football fans and gamers. We love the sport, and we play the crap out of this game against Coaches just like you because we know the importance of Gamer Feedback. Our goal is to build this game for football fans just like you, and at the end of the day, if you don't love it, we're not happy. We plan to leverage the game's online nature and rapid-update capabilities to the fullest by working with the community to determine feature importance and priority, refine existing features, and more. So, if you're active in the community, you'll be a big part of how and when the feature-set develops.

OS: What kind of options are available to players for online leagues?

QH: Right now, we're very focused on the initial feature set, which means most of the dev team's time is spent building a solid core football engine and balancing the impact of player advancement on the field, so we haven’t built online leagues yet.

That said, we have big plans here going forward. Folks from the team used to play in online leagues with a lot of the guys from the OS forums during our days as developers on the 2K series, and we helped pioneer the genre's first online Franchise mode, so there's no shortage of ideas here.

Will we start with full leagues and tournaments? Will we create a ladder system? Will we re-write the book on online management modes? All of those notions are being tossed around, but ultimately our focus here will likely have a lot to do with what you guys want to see first and what we need to build to get there.

Regardless of where we start, you can bet that we'll do our best as a team to take full advantage of Quick Hit's online roots and the strategic nature of the product.

OS: Is there an offline player vs. cpu mode to play?

QH: There sure is.

We know that not everyone wants to dive right in to multi-player mode and tons of Coaches appreciate the ability to practice their craft without revealing too much of their game to the competition.

With that in mind, we've built a pretty robust Single-Player mode, with 27 distinct teams across 3 difficulties.  The CPU mode lets you challenge some gridiron greats from the past and includes some of the legendary NFL Coaches in the ‘most difficult’ setting.  Single-player lets you face off against teams with unique strengths and weaknesses that will help you figure out how to take advantage of certain match-ups, free of the trash talk and humble pie that can accompany multi-player match-ups.

OS: What do you mean when you say ‘challenging greats from the past?’

QH: Well, for starters, the aforementioned Single-Player mode's toughest difficulty level features top-tier teams led by some of coaching's greatest legends, including Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson, Brian Billick, Dan Reeves and Bill Cowher. As part of our first big update this quarter, we'll be adding another four NFL Coaches, totaling 9 coaches, so it should be a pretty beefy line-up.

In addition to your ability to match wits with some of the game's Coaching greats, we've got some surprises in store for all the football historians out there.

We're all big football fans here at the office, and one of our founder’s (Jeff Anderson) goals was to help the dev team convey that passion through an authentic experience.

To that end, "the Commish" went out and signed a host of players and coaches that represented the pigskin values we hold near and dear, and the team has done some cool things to work these guys into the fabric of the game.

Each CPU team features a unique roster of players who fit their style, including a ton of these Quick Hit Legends. This means you'll line up against guys like Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Ray Lewis and Greg Lloyd. Or maybe you'll be tasked with finding ways to put pressure on Warren Moon or contain the ever-elusive Barry Sanders.

The cool part is this isn't just a talent-crutch for the CPU. Every team in Quick Hit Football, including the one you create, starts with two Legends, hand-picked to fit the coaching style you choose during team customization. Maybe your run-oriented offense features Christian Okoye or Eric Dickerson. Maybe your defense is anchored by a guy like Randy White or Steve Atwater. You'll have to create a team to find out!

We're still adding to our roster of Legends, but with almost 100 signed and more on the way, it definitely adds a cool factor to the game.

OS: How do you achieve balance in the game?

QH: The most successful teams use a combination of ninjas, monkey magic and daily Gatorade baths...kidding, kidding.

On our end, balancing the game is a two-step process that starts with doing our best to ensure that each position knows its job in any given situation. We need to make sure that guys react realistically, both in success and failure.
Stamping out money plays when we find them, and improving the football IQ of our simulator with each new iteration, so that it plays a solid, sensible game of football.

The second step is making sure that as Coaches level up their players, the AI wins and loses based on the talent gap between two players. For example, we want to make sure that a Level 20 WR torches a Level 5 CB, and conversely, we want to see a Level 30 DT abuse a Level 10 OG and blow up plays in the backfield.

For all you Coaches out there, balancing your roster is all about how you spend your Coaching Points relative to the types of things you want to do on the field. Maybe that means a strong defensive line in favor of a weak secondary? Maybe it means a balanced passing attack with no big stars? Maybe it means an awesome offensive line with a middle-of-the-road QB? Ultimately, you have total freedom as a Coach to make those calls.

If there's anything I've learned so far playing the game it’s that there's really no right or wrong way to put it all together. The most successful Coaches are the ones who focus on a unique team structure and clever play calling that accentuates their strengths and hides their weaknesses. In that sense, there's no limit to the number of "good" team templates you can build, so my biggest advice here is to have fun with it and always keep 'em guessing.

OS: Can teams regress?

QH: In a manner of speaking, yes. Players don't age and they don't retire, but the longer the game is on the market, the more the teams around you will grow and adapt to the way the game is being played by the rest of the league.

In the same sense that you see teams reacting to and adopting the "Wildcat"
formation, it's your job as a Coach to keep up with friends and rivals as they coach up their players.

Maybe there's a trend toward passing, and folks start putting a lot of points into QBs and WRs. This means that if you fail to grow your defense at a similar rate, they will take a step back in their ability to cover opposing offenses due to the difference between the guys who mix it up on the field.

Again, though, you can cover up those weaknesses by developing a running team that keeps these explosive offenses off the field, so it's really your call.

OS: Will penalties and onside kicks be eventually added?

QH: As I mentioned before, we're a live game, so things like Penalties and Plays will be a constantly expanding aspect of the game.

One thing to keep in mind is that we're building everything you see in Quick Hit Football from the ground up, so each new play represents new behaviors for the AI, and when you're trying to get the CPU to play good football, there are always some big challenges on the balance front. The next update will feature about 30 new plays, and we expect to blow that number out of the water in the updates to come.

As for penalties, things like pass interference, offsides, and illegal procedure are all in the cards, but again, they come at a cost on the development side. We have to make calls about whether or not we want to improve the way the QB reacts to pressure in the pocket or make the CPU smart enough to do stupid things like jump offsides in anticipation of a pending defensive mismatch.

Determining which ones we do first will come down to what the game needs the most from the perspective of the Dev Team and the folks who play the game, so we'll see how it all shakes out as we progress.

OS: What about matchmaking? What are the plans for that?

QH: Right now, you can hop into the Single or Multiplayer lobby and find an opponent, and these get sorted based on the best match-up to help encourage parody, but this is still a bit trickier than we'd like it to be.

We’ll be working over the next few updates to make it much less complicated. This will come in the form of improvements to the existing system, as well as potential solutions like a ‘quick match’ feature, group game modes like tournaments, and more.

OS: Will milking the clock be limited in the future?

QH: That's a bit of a loaded question, really.

I mean, making use of the play clock is a big part of the strategy behind the game, and even though the game features three minute quarters, both coaches have equal opportunity to use the clock to their advantage.

Sure, it'd be easy for us to reduce the number of ticks on the play clock, but it's a part of the game, and we kind of feel like it's not really our job to force people to use a quick-strike offense or a methodical ball control running game. We really want to leave that to y'all.

That said, the upcoming skills system will definitely push the pace of the game, and we will be exploring alternate modes with customizable game and play clocks as we continue to expand the feature set.

OS: What is in store for the future of Quick Hit Football?

QH: I've hit on this topic a few times over the course of the interview, but to sum it all up, the future of Quick Hit will be about three things:

Improving the existing game
Expanding feature set
Taking advantage of the unique and social nature of our game

We've got a ton of ideas internally and expect many, many more from the community as we continue to grow, so it should be an exciting thing to see how the game changes and matures over the next few season.

If you want to get a jump on helping us figure it all out, hop over to Quick Hit ( HYPERLINK "http://www.quickhit.com" http://www.quickhit.com) and give the game a spin. The guys have really been working hard on building a solid football experience, and we'd love to hear what ya think!  The forums are ready and waiting for your feedback!