One of the things that I hear a lot from coaches playing electric football in a solitaire format is how to avoid bias and favoritism toward one team over another in offensive and defensive play calling
Other the last few weeks long time Electric Football coach and game enthusiast, Chris Albino has been working on creating and developing an app to help solitaire coaches come up with a solution to this issue.
Introducing the “EF Solitaire Play Call Simulator”
“This website will automatically select an offensive and defensive formation based on the type of offense you have selected to run. You can also select the Offense and/or Defense Formation icons to view the actual formations and how to line up your players.
If you prefer, you can set both formations and run your own plays and bypass the website doing this for you
If the website determines the play is a run, it will also tell you who gets the carry and what hole to hit.
Currently, if you want to use a Prevent or Goal line defense, you will need to override the defense selection and just set up your players in either of those
The offense play call logic is based on what type of offense you choose to run – Run Heavy, Pass Heavy, Balanced, West Coast, as well as down and distance required
Penalties and Fumbles are optional – you select to include or not at start of game
You can also choose to simulate the kicking game: Kickoffs, Field Goals, Extra Points, Punts, and Kick Returns or you can choose NOT to simulate the kicking game and use whatever method you like
The offense play call logic is based on what type of offense you choose to run – Run Heavy, Pass Heavy, Balanced, West Coast, as well as down and distance required”
“A little history…I am 68 years old. I got my first EF game back in 1965 I believe. It may have been a year or two earlier. To be honest, it seemed like I got a new set almost every Christmas, as did many of you. I played it frequently and when the teams were produced in NFL uniforms, well, it was nirvana!
I picked up the game again around 14 or 15 years of age. My best friend would come over and we do battle for 2 hours. We made up our own rules for passing (flips of the coin depending on yardage), and for other areas of the game. We kept detailed stats in notebooks (wish I still had them!) and even played a Pro Bowl at the end of the year with the best players from each team.
I put the game away for a while but picked it up again after my son was born. I was 32 at the time and it felt good to get back into the old hobby. Dad duties and marriage did not allow me to play as often as I liked, but for a while it was my go to hobby.
Fast forward 30 years and here I am again. I decided to create my own league of 20 classic teams and ensure that they all had home and away uniforms. So as of now, each team has 44 players all in correct uniforms and numbered correctly. I had to paint some of the uniforms myself, and they are in no way as good as what you see many guys doing with their paint jobs and custom sets. In fact, I stuck with the old Hong Kong figures for the most part with a few Haiti repros thrown in here and there. But is it great to see the 68 Jets and the 72 Dolphins doing battle on the gridiron.
I decided to develop the EF Play Call Simulator because I found it impossible to fairly pick offensive and defensive plays in solitaire mode. I wanted to keep it simple and base the formation calls on the type of offense you have selected to run (Run Heavy, Pass Heavy, Balanced, or West Coast) as well as the down and distance required for a first down. The tool kept on expanding from there as I decided to add in automation for kicking (Kickoffs, Punts, Extra Points), penalties, and fumbles. Version 1.1 then added in a window where you can view all the offensive and defensive formations that will be selected in the game by the app. It is helpful because after the formations are selected, it shows you how to line up your players on the field. I did make all selections optional, so you can choose to use them or not.
There is so much more that can be done with this companion tool. The question is, how many solitaire users are or will actually use it? Most guys have been playing with their own rulesets for a number of years and see no reason to change. I can understand that. I have to keep reminding myself that I developed this to assist with how I prefer to play the game, and to have tasks automated for things I don’t like to do or are hard to replicate in the game…like penalties and fumbles, kicking, etc. I do hope that others try it out and find it useful.
I am always open to suggestions on how to enhance. I can be reached at chralb2015@gmail.com if you wish to communicate with me about this, or need help on how to use.”
Thanks to Chris Albino for providing this history and narrative on the development of this “Innovation of the Game”
The National Electric Football Game Museum 