Cricket Life 07 Features – Set 2

Gamebience have released the second set of features for their upcoming cricket game, Cricket Life 2007.

Overview of the game : – Sponsorships, game life cycle, Artificial Intelligence

At the start of play, the user’s chosen cricketer from any of the playable countries starts from a fixed bank balance determined by a mathematical equation based on over 10 factors. A top ranking player will have more money in the bank than a fresher.

Sponsorships and contracts

The developers have decided not to give any undue advantage to top ranking players. Hence, at the start of the game, all players will have no contracts signed either for sponsorships or with the boards or counties. However, the sponsorship contracts will appear proportionate to the level of the cricketer. A provincial or state level cricketer may not have that many sponsorship offers compared to an international star. You may choose whether to sign sponsorship contracts individually or to sign an agreement with a sport management firm who take care of your contracts.

The game is set in the year 2006. Selecting a player with a minimum age (say 17) will allow the gamers to play until 2031 world championship, which is the maximum life span the game supports.

Each world championship will see new countries entering the world cricket arena. The game automatically generates who the participants will be, depending upon previous tournament results. Thus, it may be of no surprise if you see Nepal or Hong Kong playing in the world championship in 2023!

Neural network-based Artificial Intelligence: The solution for realistic simulation of cricketers

The Player Evolution system (PES)

Player evolution system (PES) is an artificial neural network-based system that controls how a cricketer evolves over time, given several factors and trends. The system learns over time on how a player plays. As more and more data is gathered from previous tournaments, the system becomes more knowledgeable to predict the future course. Every cricketer is an independent entity in the game that is controlled, simulated and guided by the PES.

The Team Evolution System

Much like its counterpart, PES, this system guides controls and guides each individual international and domestic team in the game. There may be no surprise if Bangladesh wins a world cup in 2027 even if it is an AI-controlled country as the TES is an artificial neural network system.

Intelligent Squad Selection system

Yet another neural network system, this system selects squads and teams for all tournaments and matches (both for user and AI) based on certain factors, patterns and trends defined at the start of the game. As the game advances, the trends change along with the selection factors due to the system getting more data during the game time.

Say, player X gets injured and thus doesn’t get into the squad for all matches in a particular tournament. Whenever the selection process takes place for the next tournament, the player will first be judged whether or not he can get into the squad, by studying the previous trends for that particular player. The system then weighs the performances of the player in similar scenarios in the past and some other factors including ‘team space factor’ – this factor determines whether there is really a need of retaining player X at the cost of dropping other players. A trend and factor comparison is made of the player X to all other players that are to be selected. At this point of time, the gamers should not be surprised if player X gets dropped from the squad (or is retained at the expense of another) that may be due to various reasons that the AI ‘determines’ in real time and not necessarily due to factors that are pre-defined. To summarize, the ISSS selects the team or squad while keeping previous trends and records in mind and based on what future course to take.

The ISSS and the AI as a whole has been tested by supplying data from 2005 to predict major international teams as of April 2006 and it has generated squads to 90% accuracy.

Software Development Kit: Modding experience enhanced

This set contains only one feature that is modder friendly:

The Sponsorship System is editable except few locked sponsor entries that are not editable due to legal reasons.

The graphical side of the game:

The developers are trying to make the game as enjoyable as possible with some exciting features. Whenever possible, every set will contain a section dedicated to describing graphics in the game and some sets in the end of the campaign will also contain some screenshots. For those who have been wondering about the game-play aspect, you will have to wait until the end of the month as the developers will release details about the game-play at the end of all other feature releases.

Graphical Fact of this set: The award ceremony will be in 3D.