Real Tennis
A Game For Xbox 360
Created by D_987
Section I
The game will be designed to be played through Xbox Lives new streamed content section (an upcoming example of this section will be the 1 vs 100 game soon to be released in certain countries). This section allows a large number of players to steam games and join matches ? the player would stream the content at the same time as other players all across the world.. When there are grand slams taking place in the real world (these occur 4 times a year) the streamed content would become available ? Xbox live then connects to dedicated servers; finds inputted information regarding upcoming matches, stats and the latest graphical code for each player and allows gamers to participate in their own tournaments as well as a Grand slam mode (see section 4). Players would play the matches as they take place in the real world; earning themselves achievement points, a world ranking and a ?true-skill? level by playing against other users streaming the content using real-world fixtures. The game itself is an arcade styled tennis sim that would allow players to play-out real-life matches via this streamed content. The game would be fully licensed, a feature that could be payed through branding and advertisements in-game.
Section II
As stated the gameplay style is based around a fast paced arcady style yet it should not be unlike real-tennis. The player controls their avatar via a number of third-person view points. The core gameplay mechanics will feature realistic ball physics and contain somewhat realistic players, although the graphical limitations of the service are unknown at this time.
The player will have four main style of shots available for them to use. The shots will increase power if the player holds down the button for a longer time period, but at a risk, for if they hold the button down to long they may hit the ball out of play and lose the point. The players four shots are assigned to the standard button configuration as detailed below, however this configuration will be completely customizable:
Start Pause ? Available only three times during the match ? see interface for further details.
A ? Top Spin shot
B ? Back Spin shot
Y ? Lob shot
X ? Slice shot
RT ? Power shot
LT ? Drop Shot
Top Spin ? A shot the player uses to arch the ball over the net; the chance of the ball landing inside the court are high, but the ball will not move at a very high speed.
Back Spin ? A shot the player uses to, again, arch the ball over the net, except this shot forces the ball to slow down when it lands ? the opposing player could use this to their advantage via a power shot, but the balls spin may also force their player off-balance. The ball moves at a normal speed until it bounces at which time it slows dramatically and bounces straight in the air.
Lob Shot ? A shot the player uses to get height on the ball, this shot could be used as a defensive maneuver or to hit the ball out of reach of a player that is close to the net. The shot itself is slow, but gets a large amount of height often landing in the final quarter of the court itself. However, the shot could be smashed (an overhead power shot) back by the opposing player if the shot is not timed well.
Slice shot ? This shot moves rather close to the net, and may occasionally hit the net ? it bounces the ball low on the ground making it hard to reach ? to balance out this shot it should only be used as an attacking shot in the half of the players court closest to the net, else the ball will certainly be smashable or will hit the net.
Power shot ? An powerful shot that, if the player holds the trigger down for the appropriate time length, will unleash a fast and usually accurate shot. Also known as a ?winner?. This shot would either hit the net or go out of bounds if the shot is not timed withing a bar at the top of the screen (see section? for more details).
Lob Shot ? A weak shot that will only just land over the net; this shot would again be timed and if held for to long or to little would place the ball out of bounds. If held correctly it produces a low shot that is very difficult to reach.
Section III
The shot bar. The shot bar is a gameplay feature used with the Power shot and Lob shot mechanics. It will feature a bright red circle inside a square ? inside said square will also be a stationary yellow square (found in the middle of the square). The circle will move side to side and when the player lets go of the trigger will initiate the shot. The more of the circle inside the yellow square, the more accurate and powerful the shot is. View Section II for further information on the types of shots available to each player.
The objective of the game is to beat the opposing player by scoring more points than them following the rules of tennis (that can be found at this link: http://westlake.k12.oh.us/hilliard/whspe/tennis/tennis_rules.htm)
In this streamed arcade-styled game, the player that wins is the first to win a single set (first to six games, or if both players are on 6 games, 7) If both players do reach 6 games and there is no clear winner (for the player must win the set by leading by 2 games) then a tiebreak takes place ? the rules of which can be found at the link below: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/rules_and_equipment/4223560.stm
Planned interface:
The gamer receives a game invitation via the Xbox live streamed game network ? when they accept the title screen appears.
The screen shows the logos of the four grand slams available for play in the game (US Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Australian Open). The text ?Real Tennis? in the font ?Rockwell extra bold? would appear in front of the four images. The background of the title screen should be a plain white colour. The player is then prompted through flashing text to press start ? the text is in orange; font ?Rockwell? and displays ?Press start to play?.
When the player presses start they are taken to the main menu. The menu reads the following options:
Play Grand Slam match
Play tournament match
Practice
Settings
Return to Dashboard.
Grand Slam ? This mode pits two online players against one another in an online match ? first to a set wins. The players characters are randomly selected from a list of real-world matches being played in that tournament in the round they are playing. This mode affects leaderboard rankings and true skill system ranks (used to match up players). If a player leaves a match in this mode early they forfeit and their opponent wins.
Tournament match ? This mode allows players to create matches against their friends and can be played at any time. The match options are selected from a menu; the information for which is given below.
Tournament type → Knock-out / Round Robin
Number of sets → 1/2/3/4/5
Number of games per set ---> 1/2/3/4/5/6
Court ? Hard/Grass/Clay/Carpet
Tie break ---> On/Off
The players are then automatically sent invites as their tournament plays out ? if a player refuses to accept an invitation within 5 minutes they automatically lose that match.
Practice ? This mode is simply a match against the computer the same menu used for tournament is apply except the tournament type option is replaced with a Computer level ?> Easy/Medium/Hard
option.
Settings ? The player can customize certain options in this setting, from the menu structure detailed on the document titled settings.
