Hello!

As Kickabout’s June launch approaches, I’ve been on a big production push which I’ll cover in this newsletter. First though, let’s kick things off with a bang by announcing the 35 Kickabout launch teams!

Here are the national teams you'll get to play as, and against, in Kickabout (grouped by region):

National Teams

Home Turf Heroes:

• USA
• Mexico
• Canada

Samba Legends:

• Argentina
• Brazil
• Colombia
• Uruguay
• Ecuador
• Chile

Asian Engines:

• Japan
• Australia
• South Korea
• New Zealand
• Singapore

Euro Titans:

• Spain
• France
• England
• Portugal
• Netherlands
• Germany
• Italy

Euro Underdogs:

• Croatia
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Norway
• Wales
• Scotland
• Ireland

African Pride:

• Morocco
• Senegal
• Côte d'Ivoire
• South Africa
• Ghana

It’s a truly diverse and international line up, with all the must have nations of the beautiful game represented. I’ve gone 'more fantasy, less filler' than the real life 2026 tournament. I want players in Kickabout launch countries to be able to play out a fantasy of their home nation Vs titans like Brazil, Spain or yes Italy, rather than play out boring group-stage games against minnows like Curacao.

The Big Production Push

I pushed hard over the last four weeks implement the "meta-game" I described in my previous newsletter, and I am very proud to say it's now systems and content complete. 🎉 I've also made huge strides on the User Interface which I've entirely redesigned to make the metagame loop easy to understand and enjoy. Here’s the big list of features I’ve added in the last month:

• EASY difficulty level (with no goal keeper)
• EXPERT difficulty level (with everything ramped to 11)
• CPU Team difficulty (10 sub-levels within each of the 4 difficulty levels)
• Score multiplier based on Difficulty Level & CPU Team Difficulty (risk/reward)
• CPU Play Styles (Tika-taka, Pressing, Flashy, Fighters, Direct, Brick Wall, Total Football, Rockets)
• CPU passing AI
• CPU dribbling AI
• On pitch team names on game start
• On pitch score announcements following each goal
• Kick Off’s for the team who conceded the goal (distinct from Drop Off at the start)
• One tap to play AGAIN (with randomized CPU team selection)
• Camera tuning, e.g. now tracks super fast shots
• Tabletop scene around pitch (setting the scene & scale)
• Daily Score Milestones with Ticket Rewards
• Lots of Teams & Gear to buy with won tickets
• 6 stadium stands to unlock
• 33 teams to unlock (see above, added to Red & Blue defaults for 35 total)
• Tabs and pages UI framework
• Browse Item and Teams UI
• Home tab and 2 player tab UI
• Team selection UI
• Dogfooding, iterating, and tuning all of the above!

I’m loving how much better it plays than the Kickabout GDC demo. To win on EXPERT, I’m finding myself needing to defend better, progress the ball more thoughtfully, and think about my opponent’s strengths & weaknesses. It’s still chaotic fun at the lower difficulty levels, but more strategic and skillful than before at the top end. The improvements to CPU AI playstyle and difficulty make a big difference. I’m also finding the daily rewards to be highly motivating. They shape a daily loop of playing to win tickets, then spending tickets to buy a couple of teams, then repeating the next day to expand your collection of tabletop toys / gameplay variation. Play-testing kicks off this week, and I can’t wait to get it into everyone’s hands come June 2nd.

App Store Release beckons

Talking of which.. if you've read this far, you’re probably a regular here. Thank you for following along. Here's how you can support me at iOS launch.

Beyond downloading Kickabout, playing solo & with friends, and paying to remove the ads…. LOL... my biggest ask is that you RATE the game on the App Store when it goes live (June 2nd). It turns out high ratings convince people to tap on apps - so I need as many 5 star rating as humanly possible to get my download numbers up. Apple’s algorithms will be watching too, and automatically promote new games that get good ratings. So your rating will make a noticeable impact, and thankfully ‘tap to rate’ is as simple as it sounds. No written “review” is needed, you literally just tap on that 5th star. So, on June 2nd when Kickabout goes live, please take 5 seconds to rate it.

It’s genuinely exciting to be approaching the home straight to the Kickabout iOS App Store launch. I’m keeping my head down for a couple of weeks to finish strong, then I'll switch fully into promotion mode! Wish me luck!!! ✊

Bye for now,

Rob

​
​

​
​

​
​

​
​

​
​

​
​

​
​

​
​

​
​