Keeping XOR's NFL Challenge Alive with Something Really Nice!

[tredecimal]

Hi guys, first post here. I loved this game so much as a kid and rediscovered it in the past few months. I've even tried to decompile it and get an idea of how the playbook works so I could write new ones. Unfortunately, my C skills are rather primitivo, but I did get an interesting result:


In one of the playbook files I added an entry in the White offensive set called "QB What", updated what numbers I could make sense of, and then copied the play above it and altered one character. I was trying to break it to see if any of these things could make changes.


After much trial and effort I got a broken version with many corrupted menus and several unuseable plays, but "QB What" was kind of hilarious. The offensive players would do something like a trap or sweep, but the ball would just sort of dance all over the middle of the field like a fumble.


Anyways, it got me to wondering what a better mind (or a less busy one) with programming could do with the playbook. I mean, it's not graphically intensive, it seems like most of the play interactions are deterministic? I've hit up a couple of hacker buddies but it didn't interest them since they didn't play the game as kids or really even like football.

[steelersgg]

How do you install the game? I get an error. I am not that savy on how you install old games on new versions of windows. I would love to get back into this game. In the 90's my roommate and I played this a lot. This is by far the best football game. I was so disappointed when I paid for the premium edition and then it never was created.

[zonecadet]

G'day, I'll try to help. What actual error message are you getting and when do you get it? Does the game launch and you can't access team files? To run the game I use dosbox...

[zonecadet]

G'day, what you achieved sounds promising to me. I have zero programming skills, well I did a little QuickBasic back in the day but still. How did you access the play data? I'd love to see a screen dump of what you were looking at and maybe I could help out with interpreting what the numbers might mean. Myself and another guy (he runs an online NFL Challenge league called the NAXFL - see game replays on youtube) have messed around with the game for years trying to tweak it with limited success. We've been able to alter some of the Curves file to allow slightly more varied results on things such as Runs, Passes and Returns. Most of the Curves are alterable that way EXCEPT the bloody QB Scramble run Curve. That seems to hard-coded into the game such that it never allows a QB to ever run for more than 20yds. Ever. That one I'd love to fix. The .PLS file can be altered as well, in a limited way. You can add extra plays to the White Group and delete plays from the others if you want to. We have created a 1963 AFL/NFL Season and have removed all plays with the WR3 (because teams just didn't have the players to waste one at that position) and likewise the DIME defender. The game works without them fine as long as you put Filler Players in those spots.

[Hammerhunker]

Quote: Originally Posted by steelersgg

How do you install the game? I get an error. I am not that savy on how you install old games on new versions of windows. I would love to get back into this game. In the 90's my roommate and I played this a lot. This is by far the best football game. I was so disappointed when I paid for the premium edition and then it never was created.

I've wondered how much money was received for the premium and where did the money go? I know XOR got some of my nickels and dimes I sure didn't have back in college, the bastards!

[zonecadet]

Quote: Originally Posted by steelersgg

How do you install the game? I get an error. I am not that savy on how you install old games on new versions of windows. I would love to get back into this game. In the 90's my roommate and I played this a lot. This is by far the best football game. I was so disappointed when I paid for the premium edition and then it never was created.

Put all the game files in a folder called, say, Football on whatever drive you like but we'll use c: as the example.

Open DosBox

Enter the following text at the Z:\> prompt -

Mount c c:\

You will now see - "Drive c: is mounted as local directory c:\"

So now you enter the following text at the Z:\> prompt -

C:\

This changes the directory to the C:\ drive

and you now enter -

cd\football

It will now display -

C:\FOOTBALL (with a flashing cursor)

Now enter NFL and the game will launch.

[tredecimal]

@zonecadet-thanks for replying! I'll have to hunt around, I've installed so many different copies of this game that its hard to keep track, but when I do, I'll grab some screenshots. The playbook files you can see in your own install, I believe I used the Sublime editor, some freeware thing where you can see the coding in different text.


by cracky, one day we WILL have a five wide set in NFL XOR!

[zonecadet]

Quote: Originally Posted by tredecimal

@zonecadet-thanks for replying! I'll have to hunt around, I've installed so many different copies of this game that its hard to keep track, but when I do, I'll grab some screenshots. The playbook files you can see in your own install, I believe I used the Sublime editor, some freeware thing where you can see the coding in different text. by cracky, one day we WILL have a five wide set in NFL XOR!

No worries, I'll check out that Sublime thing and have a go too. I tried a hex editor, briefly, but to no avail.....

As for Five Wide, I'd be happy to get 4 out there for Kelly to have his Run and Shoot!! I like to play AI vs AI so it just doesn't go that way, if I played with manual coaching I could call pass plays all day but I refer to run seasons rather than indivdual games...