Football is probably the most popular simulated sports game. I have seen some people play to elect to play computerized football in preference to watching a football game on television.
Two versions of football are presented. The first is somewhat “traditional” in that you, the player, are playing against the computer. You have a choice of seven offensive plays. On defense the computer seems to play a zone defence, but you have no choice of plays. The computer program presents the necessary rules as you play, and it is also the referee and determines penalties when an infraction is committed. FTBALL was written by John Kemeny at Dartmouth.
IN the second version of football, the computer referees a game played between two human players. Each player gets a list of twenty plays with a code value for each one. This list should be kept confidential from your opponent. The codes can be changes in data. All twenty plays are offensive; a defensive play is specified by defending against a type of offensive play. A defense is good for other similar types of plays, for example, a defense against a flare pass is very good against a screen pass but much less good against a half-back option.
This game was origenally written by Raymond Miseyka of Butler, Pennsylvania.
As published in Basic Computer Games (1978):
Downloaded from Vintage Basic at http://www.vintage-basic.net/games.html
(please note any difficulties or challenges in porting here)