Monday, December 30, 2013

Gridiron Solitaire #87: Submission This Week!

I played as many games as I could while in Shreveport (lots of time in the car coming and going), and this happened in a playoff game.

It's 24 all, late in the 4th quarter. I throw an interception with 2:30 left. Columbus goes in and scores to go up 31-24. I only have 1:10 to go 80 yards, but I throw a 60-yard pass on the last play of regulation to tie the score at 31.

I win the toss to start overtime, have a 4th and 4 at the Explorers 42, and go for it. I gain 4 yards, but on 4th down, that triggers a measurement. I'm an inch short, and the ball goes over to Columbus on downs. Incredibly, though, they only gain 8 yards on 3 plays (thanks to good playcalling on my part and an excellent run of cards), then punt. They punt down to my 8-yard line, and on the second play, I throw an interception at the 16.

I'm dead.

The Explorers immediately try to kick a field goal (which is correct, if they're inside a certain distance, because NFL kickers are 95%+ accurate from that range, and I could theoretically keep hitting the Big Play button defense until I ran out of presses, hoping to cause a turnover). So it's the right call, but--they miss it. Unbelievable!

I drive down to the 18 and try a 35-yard field goal. Right down the middle. Game over.

That's the kind of game I hope you have when you play Gridiron Solitaire. You'll also have blowouts, and every kind of game in-between.

Eli won the Gridiron Bowl last night in a game where he was shouting on every other play, then scored with 10 seconds left to win. I had the best time just listening to him.

I played roughly 20 games while I was gone, and I found one bug. In a tie with more than three teams for a playoff spot, I automatically have the human player make the playoffs. It would take a book to explain how four or five-way ties are resolved in the real NFL, and nobody wants to miss the playoffs because of obscure tiebreaker rules that almost no one understands. I thought it was more fair (and more fun) to have the human player advance in those situations.

However, I finished one season in a five-way tie for first, and I didn't make the playoffs. So I've got to fix that. There was also one bug with the crowd loop reported, and I just fixed that.

Once that's done, I'm going to build a release candidate, play it hard tomorrow, and then that's it. I'm sure there are some problems I haven't found, but man, I've tried.


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