Cricket Captain 2015 release date, feature list and trailer

[Donners]

I didn't mention fielders, only keepers.

I didn't say you did, I said it's not very useful for keepers, and even less so for fielders.

[Donners]

Compare that to the other "cricket game" on the market, Cricket Coach. Quite frankly, it is an abomination of a game. Fine, you get an editor, and you get associate nations. The novelty wears off very quickly. That's if the game hasn't crashed after 5 minutes of game play. The match engine is shoddy and not accurate either. Quite frankly, I'd rather spend my money on a brick wall to smash my face into than play that game.

Ah, Cricket Coach. I was consulted about features in the first edition of the game by someone involved in the game who knew me from the Sports Interactive forums. When it came out, and I posted a negative comment about how bug-riddled it was, that person then started abusing and harassing me for quite some time thereafter. I'll never buy that game on principle now.

I've followed this series for a long time - hell, I bought Australian Cricket Captain back in the day - and I'm glad to see it's still going.

Unfortunately, the last two editions of Cricket Captain which I've bought - 2012 and 2014 - have had problems which caused the game world to break down. I was really disappointed with 2012, which had dreadful ODI/T20 simulation and player generation. 2014 improved that, but in my game at least there was a bug which made spinners disappear over time. With a new version out, I doubt fixing that will be a priority.

I'm reluctant to buy another version and risk encountering something similar.

[DaveK93]

Ah, Cricket Coach. I was consulted about features in the first edition of the game by someone involved in the game who knew me from the Sports Interactive forums. When it came out, and I posted a negative comment about how bug-riddled it was, that person then started abusing and harassing me for quite some time thereafter. I'll never buy that game on principle now.

I've followed this series for a long time - hell, I bought Australian Cricket Captain back in the day - and I'm glad to see it's still going.

Unfortunately, the last two editions of Cricket Captain which I've bought - 2012 and 2014 - have had problems which caused the game world to break down. I was really disappointed with 2012, which had dreadful ODI/T20 simulation and player generation. 2014 improved that, but in my game at least there was a bug which made spinners disappear over time. With a new version out, I doubt fixing that will be a priority.

I'm reluctant to buy another version and risk encountering something similar.

That's odd, I never had an issue on my file with a lack of spinners. Admittedly, I'm not a great user of spinners, I prefer part time with a strong pace attack, but I found a couple of very good tweakers during my file.

[GrahamB]

Ah, Cricket Coach. I was consulted about features in the first edition of the game by someone involved in the game who knew me from the Sports Interactive forums. When it came out, and I posted a negative comment about how bug-riddled it was, that person then started abusing and harassing me for quite some time thereafter. I'll never buy that game on principle now.

I've followed this series for a long time - hell, I bought Australian Cricket Captain back in the day - and I'm glad to see it's still going.

Unfortunately, the last two editions of Cricket Captain which I've bought - 2012 and 2014 - have had problems which caused the game world to break down. I was really disappointed with 2012, which had dreadful ODI/T20 simulation and player generation. 2014 improved that, but in my game at least there was a bug which made spinners disappear over time. With a new version out, I doubt fixing that will be a priority.

I'm reluctant to buy another version and risk encountering something similar.

The match engine has been completely rewritten and the game is a big improvement on previous versions. How things pan out after 20 odd seasons, I don't know.

[muhammad saad]

So you guys have 3 domestic competitions now so why not give the user a template based on these 3 to create a custom competition for any of the Test playing nation say if we can use Aus domestic competitions template to create Pak domestic competition with 5 teams (user should be prompted to name these teams) then the CPU will distribute around 24 players to these 5 teams ,rest of the pak players will become free agent then you can play the game normally, it will save you guys a fortune purchasing rights for different domestic competitions.

[rodaz7]

Enjoying playing the new game some great developments in this version. A few ideas I have that I think could add something further be interesting to hear if other players/developers agree for future updates/releases?

Player traits-particularly for bowlers as away from the speed they bowl there is very little to determine any difference between the strengths of different seamers, and therefore how to use them in a game. As with batters who have leg side/short bowling etc, could seamers have new ball/old ball preference, reverse swing specialist, swing bowler, allowing players as captain to select appropriate bowlers to bowl in cloudy conditions, later in an innings, to break partnerships etc.

Gameplay-adding a bit more variety to batting shots, particularly the way batsmen get out. I only generally see batters getting out caught behind/in the slips when playing extravagant attacking shots. The majority of wickets like this would be from defensive shots, although this wouldn't effect outcomes should be a fairly addition to add some realism. The new graphics are great but on my system has made the highlight more 'jumpy', less smooth. Not sure if this is my oldish computer or if others have experienced this?

Reviews-A few more bad decisions from umpires would be frustrating but again realistic. And to add the 2 reviews per innings for players to use if they feel they have been hard done by. Would be very hard to judge caught behind as you cannot see the detail but you have a strong idea of LBW's so would be great to have some more control in this area.

Transfers/loans-Ability to buy a player out of contract at the end of a season, rare in cricket I know but would add a bit more flexibility to squad building. Similarly allowing 1 season long loan at the start of each season and one short term loan during a season to cover injuries would be great.

Youth development-although I enjoy football manager I agree with other comments that ICC should not be trying to copy the formula. However probably my favourite element of that game is developing youth players to take a place in the first team. Rather than have 3/4 youth players available at the end of the season, could you view a full youth team squad intake from age 16, track their averages through academy and 2nd XI games and tie down the promising players to contracts. Tied in with this could be a separate youth coaching allocation where you can develop key skills of youngsters with potential. Promising first team players could then be played in the odd 1st XV game to gain experience as they grow up to try them out.

Great work on the game, would be great to hear anyone's thoughts and feedback!

[Chris Child]

So you guys have 3 domestic competitions now so why not give the user a template based on these 3 to create a custom competition for any of the Test playing nation say if we can use Aus domestic competitions template to create Pak domestic competition with 5 teams (user should be prompted to name these teams) then the CPU will distribute around 24 players to these 5 teams ,rest of the pak players will become free agent then you can play the game normally, it will save you guys a fortune purchasing rights for different domestic competitions.

Adding an extra league has been a massive programming effort this year, but we have set things up so that it will be easier to add more leagues in the future. It has to be coded though, so not something we could give users access to as you suggest above. Hopefully we'll have more leagues in next year and it won't be an issue.

[sasnoz]

I can't understand people wanting more leagues, 3 is surely enough.

[Chris Child]

I can't understand people wanting more leagues, 3 is surely enough.

Not if your from, say, SA or NZ. We will be adding leagues next year, but it's not something we can bolt onto the current game.

[markkkkk]

Not if your from, say, SA or NZ. We will be adding leagues next year, but it's not something we can bolt onto the current game.

This is what I want to hear! I havent brought the game but if SA domestic will be in next years game then I'll happily support this game!

[citizenerased]

So I'm guessing another week and a half for you to work through the Mac versions bugs and another two weeks or so after that for Apple to approve it on their app store.

[m_man]

I'm enjoying the 2015 version of the game after a gap from the series. My only request for future additions to this game or the next would be to have a system like Cricket Coach does where it has a pop up when a batsman hits a milestone score or gets out and it shows how it has affected his average and stuff like that. It is just a nice way to see how well a player is doing. The same info pops up for a bowler when they take a wicket to show how many wickets they've got and what their average is.

Other than that I think Cricket Captain blows Coach out the water in terms of UI and with coaching and everything.

[Lanky]

I'm enjoying the 2015 version of the game after a gap from the series. My only request for future additions to this game or the next would be to have a system like Cricket Coach does where it has a pop up when a batsman hits a milestone score or gets out and it shows how it has affected his average and stuff like that. It is just a nice way to see how well a player is doing. The same info pops up for a bowler when they take a wicket to show how many wickets they've got and what their average is.

Other than that I think Cricket Captain blows Coach out the water in terms of UI and with coaching and everything.

I wouldn't enjoy that at all, would make the game very stop/start. Maybe for 100,200,300 and a 5 wicket haul.

[dkadeekal]

Just quoting some negative feedback from Steam that you guys can ponder on and hopefully work out:

"I still feel like the series is a little lazy, especially when compared with sports management simulators where there is more competition - e.g. Football Manager. A few small changes could make this series so much better.

One major failing is that it is impossible to be sacked or to move counties or countries once you have started a game. I think it would be great if the Board of your team (domestic or international) set seasonal goals and would review your position based on your attainment of the goals."

"Everything else remains the same as previous versions and this new release follows the same path of them updating stats whilst keeping the gameplay and interface identical to previous versions. You can also now play the Indian FC league too.

If you already own a recent version of cricket captain then this new version is little more than a database update. "

"Highlights look even worse than before, interface is designed for tablet use and is not intuitive for pc (the 2013 one was but they keep making it worse to focus on tablets). No real new features. Keep playing an older edition."



I hope these are looked in to among the mostly positive reviews as well. Kudos to the team

DK

[Dick Van Dykes Disco Dog]

Just quoting some negative feedback from Steam that you guys can ponder on and hopefully work out:

"I still feel like the series is a little lazy, especially when compared with sports management simulators where there is more competition - e.g. Football Manager. A few small changes could make this series so much better.

One major failing is that it is impossible to be sacked or to move counties or countries once you have started a game. I think it would be great if the Board of your team (domestic or international) set seasonal goals and would review your position based on your attainment of the goals."

"Everything else remains the same as previous versions and this new release follows the same path of them updating stats whilst keeping the gameplay and interface identical to previous versions. You can also now play the Indian FC league too.

If you already own a recent version of cricket captain then this new version is little more than a database update. "

"Highlights look even worse than before, interface is designed for tablet use and is not intuitive for pc (the 2013 one was but they keep making it worse to focus on tablets). No real new features. Keep playing an older edition."



I hope these are looked in to among the mostly positive reviews as well. Kudos to the team

DK

That sort of feedback always makes me chuckle .... This isn't FM .. nor would the majority of us ever want it to be !!