Umpire Simulator Game

[Barbara Fillmore]

Inaddition to the gameplay in the demo, the full release of the game will have a Story mode to let you master Umpiring at all levels! You will start in the amateur leagues and work your way to umpiring in the championship.

Hi, I am a young umpire looking to have a fun way to keep my skills in check when I am bored and/or wanting a statistical way to see my calls. As a base point, this is an amazing game to do so. There are a few points of interest I have found that would make the experience more diverse and enjoyable, as well as some personal requests for the experience. I also understand this is an indie flash game so updates will take time. But overall, amazing.

- I hope the camera view can be improved. Specifically a height adjustor. I tend to sit my eyes just above the top of the box, for personal reasons, this addition would help the adjustment for higher and slower pitches. To balance this, maybe having additional players per team with different heights could diversify the strike zone.

- For added challenge, I hope an additional difficulty for faster pitching can be added. I wish to challenge myself and consistently get 90+ percent per side. Since the current difficulty is based on score, and not the pitches, maybe a separate setting as a "Pitch difficulty" with the current setting as a "Score difficulty" could add a multiple to the difficulty selection.

Ex) Score difficulty being hard but speed being normal (current) would have easier pitches to call, but less forgiving where Score being easy and speed being "Major League" could have more challenging calls, but more forgiving. This would make the difficulty have 4 options rather than 2 or 3 with a simple addition.

- I would like to see a toggleable catcher that would not only obscure some view but also add a bit of framing to the pitches for added challenge. Having the glove catching the ball while it is in motion towards the zone. This would add extra details like the squeeze of the glove and the sound of the ball entering the glove. Maybe having separate options for glove only or full catcher.

- I would like to see an addition to the feedback saying how close to the zone the wrong call is, and that influencing the score. I believe the "correct+difficulty" is a reflection of that but at the least see an average incorrect distance in the inning and end of game report would help. Smaller misses should have less effect on integrity and small correct calls should have a the vice-versa effect.

- Maybe an additional integrity meter to show which team you lean towards regarding bad calls. If it gets too far to one side, it can add a multiplier to the negative calls and if it is closer to the middle it could add a small multiplier to positive calls.

Quick nit pick but in the standard mode, the home team was winning and the game didn't end after the away team reached 3 outs. I recommend a quick option pop up asking if the player would like to finish the inning, or end the game depending on preference.

I get all of the comments that talk about making batters swing and all that, which I suspect may be in the works, albeit still far out. Thus, I intend to focus more on QoL and similar smaller-scale improvements that probably are a bit less energy intensive to fix.

- Umpire Range-of-Motion: with the new right-handed batters added, it would be nice to be able to move the umpire to the left side of the plate. I'm not sure what the long-term vision is for umpire positioning, but currently, the umpire motion travels on a fixed line, which works, but I could totally see it being done two-dimensionally where there is some defined plane the umpire is allowed to travel within to allow the player to reach their preferred line-of-sight. This plane could even flip/mirror itself for left and right-handed batters if it ends up asymmetrical.

- Streak Tracker: while the streak multiplier maxes out at 3x (which I think is fine btw, kudos to the points system which isn't too difficult), it would be cool to see real-time what the current correct call streak is, and maybe at the end (or even real-time) have an added metric for longest streak.

- Strike 3 Pitch Location: on strike 3 calls (and I'm assuming ball 4 calls), the pitch location flashes for only a moment, so players aren't able to see where the pitch was before the next batter steps into the box. I'd like to be able to see how close the pitch is when I ring up a batter.

- Pitch Challenge Clarification: on more than one occasion, I've called a pitch a strike, and the pitch was challenged. The replay showed a one-pixel overlap between the baseball and the white border of the strike zone. In previous versions of this game, I seem to recall this same scenario being called a strike, so I'd recommend you look into that and maybe provide a rules section with clarification on what constitutes a ball or strike.

-Difficulty Setting: I didn't notice much of a difference between the two difficulty settings, but I didn't see you really mention it in the v9 update log so I'm just guessing you haven't gotten too deep into it yet.

Current State: The Speed minigame includes fair/foul balls, despite no batter or animation. The Speed minigame also does not allow you to return to the main menu after completing a game. It would also be nice to have a catcher's glove for the minigame, although this does add to the challenge (perhaps make this an option the user can toggle?). I noticed the emphatic ball and strike call still doesn't seem to do much, is it just me? I think maybe there should be a small point boost for a correct emphatic call (10-20%), but a large point loss (30-50%) for an incorrect emphatic call. Love the check swings and foul balls, so awesome implementation of that feature. Would be cool to have the check swing feature something the batter challenges like another commenter said. Would also be nice to view your final pitch breakdown against each team, so that I can see how I expanded the strike zone for my team and tightened it up for the other team.

Future Plans: Not sure what the full game plans are, but it would be cool to have different teams offer you different rewards (bribes, money, XP, etc.) for calling the game a certain way. Some examples I can think of are 1. # of strikeouts in a game, 2. blocked challenges, or 3 # of wrong calls in their favor. I could see this being implemented as a message from a coach of one of the teams prior to the game, offering you a mini-goal that you can achieve regardless of who wins. This way, you can still have the team you want win while still making the other coach happy. And then maybe you can have an "opposing coach trust meter" that changes after each game based on how your calls are towards them, and if it gets too low, you may be investigated by the league. Also, we're all looking forward to doubles, triples, and home runs. I think the transparency aspect is fun as far as hit chance goes, so it would be cool to either be able to see the chances of different hits, or maybe even have this unlockable as you progress your umpire skills. For example, a new umpire would not be able to see the hit chances, but you could unlock different umpiring features as you go, such as the strike zone box displays and player (both home and away could be unlockable) quality stats. Once again, these are just some ideas to keep your creative juices flowing!

this is great! would love batters actually swinging, both for checked swings + so the batters can get hits and i don't have to the naked gun them on base every time. i'd also love to see my final accuracy on screen after finishing the game. big fan of what you have already tho, good job and keep it up B )

Would also love check-swing calls, even as a home plate ump you can still make a few judgments of egregious swing motions from behind the plate

In fact, I think that should be the challenged, since they are actually contested in MLB, unlike balls and strikes which are final, and you know, MORE conducive to be manipulated (as in the goal of this game)

(Also would love the Pat Moberg mode of just pursuing accuracy instead of being a secretly corrupt ump)

This absolutely rules. Big fan, gonna play this lots. A list of things I would love to see:

Harder levels where the pitches are faster and move more

Left handed batters and pitchers

Batters to actually swing so the game isn't just about walks and strikeouts

Big fan of what you have so far keep it up

After another playthrough, I think adding one final screen at the end where you can see a chart of every pitch and your total accuracy is the biggest thing. Another change I thought of was a third camera that's moved slightly further back and with a catcher's model in the way, cause right now I think both views are just slightly too good. Finally, I would adjust the pitches themselves, as right now, they basically are all the same speed which really makes the game easier, not having to adjust to fastballs is big

Umpire Simulator gives you the MLB umpire experience, tough calls at 75-105 mph. You'll be watching fastballs, curveballs, and sliders trying to make the right call. Not actually a sitting simulator because you will have to make calls. Use up to call a strike down to call a ball or click the buttons to make the calls. Compatible with mouse, keyboard, or gamepads.

I was just looking on google for MLB Umpire tests/quizzes (because I am thinking about an MLB umpire as a career) so this great to test myself. I was not expecting anything fancy but didn't expect to find something like this. When it first loaded it didn't look like anything special but it was really good. Similar to what larrymeesh said, I suggest you add the pitcher have a glove, the batter have a bat. I also recommend you try and make a background what resembles a MLB stadium and add dirt, grass and fielders. (I understand this will be hard so something basic along these lines will do. Also make the information box a bit smaller. Otherwise this is amazing.

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