Big news first! I'm busy preparing a demo for Hardcourt Balls! I can't promise any specific date yet but I'm excited to hopefully soon be able to share the game with a broader audience. Stay tuned for more about this! And the best way not to miss any news is to Wishlist if you haven't already!
In the last DevLog, I've briefly talked about Exhibitions & Tournaments, and today I want to expand a little bit more on how they work.
When you start off with a new player character, you will be limited to playing Exhibition matches at first. Specifically, you will have to play - and complete - three Exhibition matches in order to unlock tournament play. You don't have to win them, just play through to the end.
OR - you win an Exhibition match. Winning means an automatic unlock of the Tournament mode!
While you play your chosen player character, who you play against is determined randomly out of a list of approx. 140 AI players. (More about AI players, their stats and AI logic, in the next DevLog!)
Why randomly? During play testing I've found that if given a choice, players would either opt for the most famous opponents, or the weakest ones, thereby often missing out on a lot of the fun that comes from playing that inconvenient left-hander or super-returner or serving ace.
You can opt to have your opponent be played by the AI, or another human player (in hotseat mode). If you choose the latter, however, you will NOT earn any prize money, and the match will not count against your 3 matches target. (This is a temporary solution for now until full online H2H play is supported, hopefully sometime during Early Access.)
Exhibition matches will earn you a little bit of prize money, depending on who you end up playing against. For top players, this could be a few thousand dollars even if you lose, up to $20,000 or more if you win; for unknown players, you may end up with a couple thousand if you win, and even nothing if you lose. Regardless of that, any completed (or won) exhibition match counts against your unlock target.
Once you play 3 Exhibition matches or win one, you unlock access to the tournament mode. Not all tournaments will be available for you to play in, however.
Tournaments come in three tiers. In order to avoid copyright claims ;-) let's just call them Minor Tournaments, Major Tournaments, and Grand Championships. Here is the full breakdown of what's in the game right now:
You can tell what tier a tournament belongs to by looking at the player count. Minor Tournaments feature 32 players, Majors feature 64, and the Championships feature 128.
When you first unlock tournaments, you will have access to the Minor Tournaments only. In order to unlock Major Tournaments, you will have to reach at least the quarter final of a Minor Tournament! And then, in order to unlock the final tier, Grand Championships, you have to reach at least the QF of a Major Tournament.
Tournaments will allow you to earn substantially more prize money much more quickly than Exhibitions. Each tournament has its own prize money distribution (I've actually looked up the prize money distribution for all of the real-world ATP tournaments for guidance), but in general the Minors pay the least, the Majors quite a bit more, and the Championships have the biggest purses.
I won't list all of the tournaments, but to give you an idea, here is one example from each tier:
ADELAIDE (Minor)
Round 1: $7,000
Round 2: $12,000
Quarterfinal: $20,000
Semi-Final: $35,000
Runner Up: $60,000
Champion: $100,000
ROME (Major)
Round 1: $35,000
Round 2: $60,000
Round 3: $103,000
Quarter-Final: $188,000
Semi-Final: $331,000
Runner Up: $597,000
Champion: $1,123,000
NEW YORK (Grand Championship)
Round 1: $110,000
Round 2: $154,000
Round 3: $237,000
Round 4: $400,000
Quarterfinal: $660,000
Semi-Final: $1,260,000
Runner Up: $2,500,000
Champion: $5,000,000
Except for the Champion purse, you don't have to win the match, you only need to reach the corresponding round (and complete the match). Even if you lose the first round in New York, you'll earn a whopping $110k! If you reach the final, you'll earn $2.5M if you lose, and $5M if you win.
Make no mistake, though - achieving this is no small feat. Your starting player will have to play a lot of matches and go through many a coach and improve his skills before he will have a chance against the top 10 AI players! More on that... in the next DevLog!
Thanks for following along! If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the Discussion Board.And if you like what you see so far, don't forget to Wishlist and tell your friends about Hardcourt Balls! It makes a huge difference.