v1.04 The Big Game Update

Whew, after 3 and a half months I'm happy to finally release The Big Game Update to Sunday Rivals! Seriously, this was only supposed to take a few weeks, but I got excited and kept adding new stuff and now we got a bunch of fun things to play with!

This update is focused on improving the end to end presentation of the gameday experience, so we start off now with a proper intro cinematic:

Plus a look at both team's lineups and their OVR ratings:

And what I still believe to be the best video game coin toss ever:

Now something I'm really excited for yall to get your hands on is the all-new Gameday Rivals system, which randomly picks 3 players from each team and boosts their OVR's before the game! You'll want to keep an eye out for these guys too cause they're bound to make some big plays happen!

Halftime gets some love, starting with a fun scene that shows off each team's leading performer:

And a running feed of all the latest nonsense from the folks following along at home via social media:

Now, if these new refs here don't blow the game for you (which they can't, cause there's no penalties):

You'll get to bask in a sweet victory cinematic:

And enjoy an interview with the Player of the Game and our new field reporter, Veronika Kay!

There's actually a few more really cool things in this update too, but I'm not going to spoil the surprise, I'll let you discover them on your own (assuming you're good enough, of course...)

This update has been a blast to put together and I hope all these new, shiny things help make Sunday Rivals even more enjoyable for years to come! Let me know what you think of the update and as always, thanks for playing!

PRESENTATION

• Added pregame team matchup cinematics

• Added lineups cinematic

• Added Gameday Rivals cinematic

• Added coin toss cinematic

• Added impact players cinematic

• Added halftime and post game social media feed

• Added post game cinematics

• Added Player of the Game interview

• Added contextual shutter screens for quarters, downs, and kickoffs

• Added new background and title art for player highlight cinematics

• Added special colors to denote Gameday Rivals in the HUD and UI

• Added HUD callouts for top offensive and defensive players during play preview

• Defensive HUD displays stats of last tackler

• Defensive HUD defaults to top defensive player in coaching mode

• Added positions to player stats screen, moved LB4 next to other LBs

• Added intro and post game music

ART

• Added referees

• Added Veronika Kay

• Added cameramen and camera flashes

• Improved cubemap coverage across entire field

• Added banners for team slogan and the stadium's name

• Added environment art for championship game

• Added a colored stripe at the 50 yard line

• Added mustaches to some chain gang members

• Improved shadow resolution during cutscenes

GAMEPLAY

• Gameday Rivals get a single game, scaled OVR boost based on their position

• Gameday Rivals have an increased chance of making an impact play

• Touchbacks are whistled immediately once a kicked ball hits a wall

• Before the snap, players can cycle backwards through defenders again

SEASON MODE

• Rebalanced wins and losses to have a larger impact than point differential when determining ranking

• GM conversations now recognize the playoffs and the end of the season

• Title screen after advancing to the championship shows the name of the championship game

• Title screen after winning the championship recognizes the win

• Rebalanced player of the game recognition in sim games to match played games

BUGS

• Fixed a bug where the game and stadium clock weren't displaying the same time

• Fixed a bug where the Player of the Week summary wouldn't display the name of the next playoff round correctly

• Fixed a bug where the defensive awards weren't being calculated correctly

• Fixed a bug where a linebacker's scouting report would display incorrectly

• Fixed multiple spelling errors in scouting reports