Spear Interactive has shared a new development update for Varsity High School Football, offering a closer look at what’s been happening behind the scenes as the team continues to build out the game.
The early images and clips that fans have seen so far were all using basic lighting, but that’s now changing as the team works on improved lighting, shadows and more detailed environments. A new scorebug has been added, showing team names, scores, possession, downs and quarters during gameplay.
On the gameplay side, zone coverage for safeties is now in place and the team is shifting focus to play-specific man coverage logic so defensive backs can recognize when they have deep help and play more aggressively underneath. A fully functional drive event system is also up and running, tracking everything from line of scrimmage and first downs to touchdowns and the 7-on-7 quarterback rush timer.
The team recently finished cleaning all of the quarterback motion capture data and is now turning attention to wide receiver and defensive back animations. With a full-time animator on board, the time it takes to move from motion capture to in-game animations has been cut down dramatically.
Equipment updates are also coming along with new 7-on-7 gear like shorts, t-shirts and soft shell helmets in development. These will be usable in dynasty mode for full 11-man practices and tryouts.
The team also revealed details for the upcoming Winter Playtest. Participants will get an early look at 7-on-7 gameplay, sim-only multiple dynasty seasons, coach schemes and tendencies and a community file-sharing feature where players can create, upload and download custom teams. Patreon signups run from November 14 to December 19 with the playtest scheduled for December 20 through January 4.
Those interested in joining the playtest can sign up and back the project through Patreon. While the full release is planned for Xbox and PlayStation, testing is currently limited to PC on Steam.
