When PLAYERS INC, the marketing arm of the NFL Players Association, was looking for ideas for their games section on nflplayers.com, they came to us. After having previously produced a very popular game for them ("Run Back the Kick"), they knew they could count on us to come up with some original and exciting games. We put our imaginations to work and came up with a wide range of game concepts ranging in style from the fantastic to the traditional. The two games they chose are an interesting mix of puzzle and action games appealing to a broad variety of players.
In this frenzied puzzle game, the game board is a top-down view of a football field (the gridiron) where a group of three random discs of varying colors, each sporting NFL team logos, drop from the top of the screen onto the field. The player must manipulate the position of the three discs as they drop, with the object of creating columns or rows of three or more like discs. Matching discs disappear causing discs resting on top of them to "crush" down.
Points are awarded for matching discs, and score bonus points for forming "combos" (matches made from discs that crush down). If players can't make a match, the discs stack up at the bottom of the field, and if the field fills up with discs to the point where no more discs can drop, the game is over.
Each successive level (determined by the number of points the player has) increases the difficulty by causing the discs to drop faster onto the playing field. To add even more interest for NFL football fans, each player can choose the NFL division they want to play with and the discs in the game sport the team logos from that division.
In this frenetic action game, the player controls the quarterback as he scrambles around the backfield while being relentlessly pursued by the blitzing defense. The object is to avoid being sacked for a set period of time in order for the receivers to get open down field.
As the quarterback scrambles, he uses up his energy reserve indicated by a red bar on the game interface. If he runs out of energy, he can't run anymore and must stop moving to slowly replenish his energy. Although the defenders move at the same speed as the QB, he is not helpless. By holding down the shift key, the player can put on a burst of speed and escape from tight situations and, if things get really hairy, he can throw a vicious straight arm which stuns a defender freezing him in place for a few seconds. Of course, both of these techniques expend even more energy so they must be used judiciously.
The QB must scramble for the amount of time indicated by a blue bar on the game interface, which increases with each successive level. After the timer runs down, the receivers break into the clear and the QB throws the ball and completes the pass. If the QB is sacked he loses a down, if the player loses all four downs the game is over. Points are awarded for completing the level and for the amount of remaining energy the player has at the end of each level.
Both games also feature a high score list. If the player makes one of the top ten scores, they can enter their three-character initials which are saved to the server along with their score, which then gets displayed at the beginning and end of every game. The scores are encrypted in the game before they are sent to the server to help prevent cheating, and the initials entry features a vulgarity detector to prevent players from entering inappropriate letter combinations.