Hello!

Thanks for signing up for my soccer game newsletter. This is where I'll post longer updates. I'll keep the short-form content (video clips, etc.) to social channels - so be sure to follow me there too!

Let's start with the origin story - where did the idea for a 'soccer game as easy to play as foosball' come from? After that I’ll give a quick update on the very first playtest, and finish on next steps.

An idea years in the making

I’m a huge football fan. As a British school kid in Manchester, playing football every day was almost compulsory. Rain or shine, my friends and I had a kickabout (played football). My team Manchester United cleaned up in the 90’s, winning every trophy in sight and under the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson. I was also a huge gamer, of course, and grew up loving football games like Sensible Soccer and Kickoff 2 on the Amiga. They always felt special in a way FIFA lacked: simple, one-button games where controlling the ball took real skill (unlike FIFA, where it sticks to your foot and requires learning lots of buttons).

VR to Mobile: The Control Scheme Breakthrough

As a professional game designer, I’ve worked across many platforms, from console (PS1 to PS5) to mobile and web, but VR has been the most inspiring. I’ve released four VR games, including three at VirZOOM and one at Sony. What truly fascinated me were new interaction paradigms like "direct manipulation". This is where you use your hands to physically grab and manipulate objects inside a physics-driven world, with Job Simulator being the canonical example.

I've long wanted to apply this control method to smaller, diorama-style games (like Moss or AstroBot). I even prototyped VR platformers and brawlers where you "puppeteer" the main character.

When I shifted my focus to mobile, I realized something critical: Touchscreens offer a similar ‘grab things and move them’ affordance. It’s direct manipulation, but in small-scale 2D instead of expansive 3D. This led me to the question: "What genre is ideal for grabbing and manipulating small objects from a top-down, 2D perspective?". The answer became clear the moment Sensible Soccer came to mind: Football!

Playtest night!

I spent two to three months prototyping my idea in Unreal Engine 5, playtesting informally with a few local game design friends (perhaps a topic for a future newsletter!).

As a regular attendee of the SF game dev meetup, I figured the December 9th Winter Indie Showcase would be a great place to show my prototype to a wider audience - people with less 'friendship bias'. Due to work commitments, the date crept up on me, but thankfully the organizer, Jordan, kindly gave me a table at the event. My good buddy Tom offered to come along and help at the demo table. I prepped my trailer, post-play survey, QR codes, laptop with USB cable and screen casting, made last-minute build fixes to my dev phone, threw it all in my backpack, and jumped on the Muni to the event.

I needed to know: Did I have something here, or was I operating on faulty assumptions? If the latter, better to know sooner than later. Playtesting can be brutal - I’ve done literally hundreds over my career and very rarely do they turn out how you expect. What was people’s favorite moment? Their most frustrating moment? If they had a magic wand, what would they change? These are all questions on my survey cribbed from Schell games excellent playtest questions.

As you can hopefully see in the photos, it went great. People got really into it, and I found it super validating to see most players choose to play a second and third game. I heard phrases like 'Mechanics are really good' and 'This is actually fun' from many players. Best of all I was able to collect useful feedback on how to improve it through conversation and in the survey, which I’ve processed and am already actioning.

Onward!

With growing confidence in the concept, controls, and core mechanics - plus a laundry list of areas to refine - I'm also designing with an eye on the next major design goal: stickiness over multiple sessions, validated with a larger distributed playtest. To get here I need to switch to Mac to build for iOS as well as the feature work. So lots to keep me busy!

Thanks for reading & bye for now!

Rob

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