One season turned into fifty

Well, I finally reached the end of a whole season. After spending so much time on the players and the individual pieces of the simulation, getting from the opening game to a championship felt pretty damn good. There’s a lot still wrong with it, but there is an actual season to look back through now.

The next question was whether the same dynasty could keep going. A longer test made it through fifty seasons and 14,250 games across the league, with saves and reloads between years. That run used a separate test program outside the game interface, and I had to stop and deal with problems along the way. Some computer teams got themselves into salary-cap trouble; the test program made roster cuts and found affordable replacements so the run could continue. I’m pleased it reached the end, but there’s still a full playthrough to do through the actual menus.

Those extra years made the less glamorous problems much harder to ignore. Old rosters, game records and biographies all take up space. I’ve added compressed archives so the history can stay available without loading every detail whenever I open a screen. Computer clubs also need to leave enough money for the rest of their draft, rather than spending themselves into a corner on one player. Turns out the computer needs a budget too.

The finances are still getting another pass. A salary cap, money in the bank and next season’s bills all affect what I can afford, and the screens need to make those differences obvious. Private leagues have some groundwork in place too, but reconnecting and playing across devices still need testing. For now, I want the ordinary decisions in one franchise to be comfortable to make. Fifty seasons won’t be much fun if I’m fighting the menus through all of them.