News – 3rd May 2020
An update to the 2020 lists (version 3.01) is now available
Some of the updates include:
- Health bar for players when playing a game
- New Fantasy score stat
- Improved midfield stats
- Smarter AI defensive aggression strategies
- In game check for updates
News – 11th April 2020
2020 will end up being the season that never was but at least you can now run through it yourself and see what might have been.
I have tested the game myself but I have kept this as a beta version for now. Just be aware, as you play the game there may still be some issues.
If you do come across anything or have any other comments then please email footy_fanatic_pc@hotmail.com.
Archive news – 3rd July 2019
Yes, after 10 years, I have finally released another version of Footy Fanatic. If you just want to try it out then you can jump to the download page, otherwise, you can continue reading to see how it came about and why you should probably keep any expectations low.
It started with me doing an old tech clean out at the start of the year. I came across some old dusty hard drives that to my surprise contained the source code of Footy Fanatic. As I started to look through the old files I got a nice reminiscing feeling and was curious to see if I could get it to recompile. I had to dig up a very old copy of VB6 (what I programmed the game in) and then went to run it. Of course it didn't work the first time, but with a few tweaks here and there to my surprise I could revive it to where I'd abruptly stopped due to burn out in early 2009. That was over 10 years ago, and I wrote the first line of code for Footy Fanatic over 20 years ago so it's safe to say it's showing some signs of ageing now. For starters, the game was originally designed to run on an 1024x768 monitor, basically half of what most screen resolutions are these days so there is A LOT of empty real estate when you fire up the game. And one thing we know about the AFL is they like to make changes to the rules so things like free agency, nominating ruckmen, bye rounds, list management, oh - and two whole new teams!, as well as a host of other changes have came about since I stopped working on the game.
So the aim for now was basically just to get the game working again, get the Suns and Giants in, updated lists and at least make that available. In that respect, it's not really a new version, more just laying a foundation.
Going forward with any updates the aim would make as many hidden in-game settings public which would hopefully allow the game to be modified and improved by anyone.
So hopefully there's a few people out there who can get some enjoyment revisiting playing Footy Fanatic, or there's some first time users that can look past the very dodgy graphics and find some enjoyment in playing the game as well.