Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of ideas for minimalist modding challenges.

Although modding has obviously been a big part of what we do here at the NLSC since we were founded – and therefore something we care about – at the end of the day it’s meant to be fun. If I may step on my soapbox for a moment, people chasing clout and turning the hobby into a source of income has unfortunately led to the loss of some of the charm and spirit that made our modding community so special. For that reason, I greatly appreciate the people who do still adhere to those old principles of making great mods freely available to everyone, and finding joy in creating them.

Therefore, in the spirit of having fun with modding, I’d like to propose an idea to our community: minimalist modding challenges! As I’ve previously discussed, minimalist modding can take many forms. While huge, comprehensive projects that are accurate down to the last detail will always be impressive, we can really spice up games with small mods that nevertheless make a significant change or improvement. With that in mind, I think it could be a fun challenge for modders to attempt minimalist modding projects based on prompts and parameters that test the limits of their creativity, and result in some cool mods to play with. Here are five suggestions that come to mind.

1. No Created or Overwritten Players

Minimalist modding projects can still be fairly comprehensive. For example, rolling back the rosters in NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 is technically a minimalist mod. I’m only creating twenty missing players – the maximum number of players that we’re able to create in the game – and none of them have proper face textures. None of the original players are overwritten or edited beyond what we can access in-game, because we don’t have the tools to do that. As such, despite the amount of time and effort that goes into those rosters, they’re still minimalist compared to what we can do on PC. Once again though, I am still adding new content in the form of those created players.

To that point, it would be an interesting challenge to create a brand new roster that doesn’t involve adding any new players through in-game or external means. The catch is that it has to be something a bit more creative and challenging than a manufactured fantasy draft. In other words, there has to be a more consistent theme than just “all the teams are mixed up”. This is obviously easier to achieve in games that have a wealth of historical players! Makeshift classic teams with missing players are fine, as long as the lineups are still viable. Players can go also unused if they don’t fit the concept. As long as you don’t have to add or overwrite any players, it’d still meet the challenge.

2. Custom Rosters Accurately Using Current Branding

This challenge is probably better suited to older games that would require major art updates for an accurate mod, or any release where art mods are difficult or impossible. The idea here is that any custom roster that you assemble must match the original team branding. Say you were to create a classic team roster for NBA Live 96 PC. You can add any players that are necessary through the in-game Create-a-Player and by overwriting unneeded original players using the editor, as well as moving the original players around. However, the new squad must have used the same logo, court, and jerseys as their 1996 season counterparts, allowing the branding to remain accurate.

Still using NBA Live 96 PC as an example, this would rule out any Houston Rockets team from 1995 or earlier, but any teams from 1997 to 2003 would be acceptable (so would 1996, but that’d be boring!). Needless to say, this will be easier in games where teams have branding that was in use for several seasons either side of the year they’re set in. Because the parameters are quite restrictive, I’d also suggest that accuracy is relative here. Minor changes to details on the jerseys or court, or a slight update to the shade of colour in the logo, can be overlooked. The goal is to overhaul the roster with lineups from different years, while all of the team branding remains mostly accurate.

3. Biggest Overhaul Using Only Original Assets

The only restriction to this minimalist modding challenge is that you can’t add any new artwork. However, you can use any assets that originally came with the game, including any hidden or unused files, re-assigning them as necessary. That includes making retro jerseys the default home and away uniforms, swapping and re-using logos, duplicating teams and players with their included textures and models, adding cut content back to the game, and so on. In contrast to the first minimalist modding challenge on this list, you can also add new players, though they can’t be given a custom cyberface. They’ll either need to be sculpted in-game, or use existing assets.

In short, you can use any in-game customisation function and any external editing tools, as well as any of the textures, models, and data already in the game, while also adding new players and even teams as necessary. The only restriction is that you can’t add any new assets, whether they’re created from scratch or imported from another game. The challenge therefore is to take the resources that the game provides, and re-use them in a way that overhauls the roster as significantly as possible. Once again, any game that boasts a huge selection of historical players and team branding offers the widest array of options, but creative minds will make the most out of less content.

4. Smallest Change, Biggest Impact

As I noted, minimalist modding can be kind of a misleading term, as it encompasses projects that can take a considerable amount of time to put together. Nevertheless, due to either creative choice or limitations to what we can modify, they’re still minimalist. With that being said, another minimalist modding challenge would be to think even smaller than that; at least in terms of the work required and the changes being made. More specifically, what is the smallest change that we can make to a game that would still have a huge impact on the way that it plays, or creates a fun new experience? If the rosters and art basically remain intact, how can you drastically change up a game?

Obviously, it has to be more impactful than just changing one face or making a minor correction to a team’s court or jerseys. Those are small changes compared to a major roster mod and they certainly are important and welcome, but they’re not really in the spirit of the challenge. I’m thinking something more along the lines of when JaoSming provided a modified roster that allowed players on any team to throw alley-oops off the backboard; a function normally reserved for the All-Star and Rookie Challenge teams. Quick hacks that unlock or restore hidden content or fix a bug could also count here. As long as it’s a small change that makes a huge impact, it certainly qualifies!

5. Spot the Minimalist Modding!

With all of the previous minimalist modding challenges, the concept you choose will be obvious. Whether it’s cobbling together a makeshift classic teams roster using only original assets or matching the default team branding, or making a minor edit to a file that nevertheless has a huge impact on gameplay, the results are clearly advertised. In contrast, part of this challenge would be creating a challenge for the community, such as a small change that we would need to correctly identify. To put it another way: can you make a change that’s so subtle that only the most knowledgeable and eagle-eyed basketball gamers can spot the difference between the original game and your mod?

What I find so tantalising about the whole concept of a “spot the minimalist modding challenge” is that it can be either aesthetic or gameplay-related. Changing the hue of the frontend or adding some other minor detail to a menu screen would be a fun test of everyone’s observational skills, but making a significant change to the roster or gameplay that isn’t immediately apparent – and properly hiding it – would be a worthy challenge. Whether it’s swapping around animations or importing them from another game, a “spot the mistake” kind of mix-up, or anything else that may fly under the radar, it’d be a way for the community to have some fun with minimalist modding.

Are any of these minimalist modding challenges appealing to you? What kind of minimalist modding challenges would you suggest for the community? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Minimalist Modding Challenges appeared first on NLSC.