Anyone over the age of 30 may fondly remember Earl Weaver Baseball for Amiga, DOS, and the Apple II. I myself had an Apple IIc and split most of my time between Earl Weaver Baseball and Hardball! during my formative elementary school years. Now we’re hearing that one of Earl Weaver Baseball’s original designers, Eddie Dombrower, is porting the game to the iPhone.
According to an interview with Dombrower on Game Stooge, the game will be called “EWB Baseball” — pronounced “yewb” since Earl Weaver still retains naming rights — and will contain the original game engine, which is owned by Dombrower.
The game will be released with a relatively simplistic design at first and, assuming it makes enough money, will be followed by a more advanced version later. Says Dombrower:
For the first release, I intend to leave them pretty much as you see them in the screen shots. If time allows for the initial release, I’ll begin to add texture mapping to fill in the stands, improve the look of the grass and dirt. The animations are, in my opinion, strong enough for the resolution of this device.
Now, assuming that the game gets some traction and proves to generate some “real” revenue, here’s the second phase of the plan:
- convert the hand-created flat polygon renderings of the field and stadiums to openGL technology (which I can use elsewhere too)
- spend some time re-engineering the “Director” to pick better shots
- provide users with additional options for visual playback using the camera (the engine supports user defined camera positioning, but this was turned off for igiBall)
The “background” behind the stadium uses photos to provide city scapes and mountain scapes, and so on, and I plan to allow users to put their own photos behind the stadiums (currently 2 photos per stadium). That should allow us to, as a community, create the feel of the actual cities these ballparks live in.
Some beefed up graphics would be nice, yes, but it’ll only cost $4.99 and it oughta provide enough nostalgia for anyone who like the original game.
Here’s a shot from the DOS version:
And, of course, the original box. Who could forget the box?
A Baseball Classic Hits iPhone [Game Stooge via Kotaku]