We published a video and a post with materials about “A Feasible Approach To Team Sports Games Development”. We present concept and tips for sports games game development, inspired by Roller Drama and previously football games / simulators' development.
Here is the video:

And here[ppolsinelli.medium.com] is the post with the supporting materials. Hope this is useful for some independent game developer!

Our second game, Roller Drama is out now: again a visual novel / sport management mashup, this time with real-time matches and exploration quests. Check it out here.

Roller Drama runs on Windows, Macs and Linux, and is great to play on the Steam Deck. It is localized in eight languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and simplified Chinese.

This is the first major update after releasing Football Drama "HD". It features a major improvement: the readability of all texts that are now "sharper", in particular texts that are not black or white.

Another nice new feature is the hints for the controller mapping:

In the meantime, Football Drama has gone through Nintendo certification for the Nintendo Switch (coming out this week!), and this led to fixing several minor bugs:

• Several fixes to localization (German, Russian, Chinese).
  
• More robust to random tapping.

You also will find more variety in press meetings. Remember the new auto speed up option in settings!

P.S. Also with 40% discount until the 5th of May!

You can now update Football Drama and get a full-featured version built for desktops:

This is a big update for desktop users, as with this the entire application layouts have been redesigned to use the whole landscape mode space. We hope you’ll appreciate the new layouts!

Moreover, you can play with a controller (or even keyboard):

This release also includes several feature updates.

One nice new feature that we found can improve a lot the gameplay experience for some players is the “sped up mode”, available in Settings, that speeds up the matches gameplay so that the flow from deciding between a cautious and a risky move is quicker. This option also removes the enter fields animations and the replays after the first championship week.

We have a new “night mode” - some matches are played in the evenings. We also introduced some post-processing for the graphics of the whole application, and you can see both effects in action here:

There also some bug fixes and a new badge, that you may get when you meet a journalist and the major plot is revealed...
A reference to periodical football corruption scandals that are one of the distinguishing features of this sport.

(By the way here[www.open-lab.com] is the custom achievement site that we've built for Football Drama.)

And the future? We are now building a content expansion update (first quarter 2021), together with a Japanese language version and Nintendo Switch release. All this will be a free update for Steam users.

Last but not least, Steam Winter Sale is coming...

Football Drama currently is in a “weeklong deal” on Steam (60% discount, which is the highest you’ll ever get), and soon there will be 2020’s Steam Autumn and Winter sales. Plus Itch.io’s “black friday”. It’s probably not a bad idea to get it now discounted because of three coming updates:

• A feature update (December 2020)
  
• The “HD” version for Steam and desktops in general (we hope also December 2020)
  
• The content expansion update (first quarter 2021), together with Japanese language version and Nintendo Switch release.

One nice new feature that we found can improve a lot the gameplay experience for some players is the “sped up mode”, available in Settings, that speeds up the matches gameplay so that the flow from deciding between a cautious and a risky move is quicker. This option also removes the enter fields animations and the replays.

We have a new “night mode” - some matches are played in the evenings. We also introduced some post-processing for the graphics of the whole application, and you can see both effects in action here:

There also some bug fixes and a new badge.

This is a big update for desktop users, as with this the entire application layouts have been redesigned to use the whole landscape mode space. Together with this, we introduced controller (and keyboard) support, and that is a really nice way to play matches.

We are writing and developing an expansion of Football Drama’s narrative, both in the sheer number of dialogues and in variety of contents for looping events (e.g. meeting the press). Moreover, there will also be a Japanese localized version, and a Nintendo Switch porting.

All these will of course be free updates!

Football Drama now has a 60% discount! And its also a classic, find it in this wonderful collection of indie game's characters by Barracudaegg:

You probably should use the full sized image, here[cadgames.weebly.com].

Roller Drama is our follow-up game to Football Drama. Roller Drama is "a strategy and interactive narrative sport game on Roller Derby, a roller-skating full-contact sport. Live coach during matches (real-time gameplay), and help the troublesome five young women meet life challenges through an interactive narrative." (from our Steam store page).

We will publish a free "playable introduction" version of Roller Drama for Steam's Summer Festival, June 9-14 2020.

Add Roller Drama to your wishlist here, thank you!!!

We recap three months of sales and preview Football Drama expansions: "HD" version, Switch porting, expanded narrative, Japanese localization.

We released Football Drama on September 18, releasing on Steam and mobile. We sold over 6000 units up to now, we have a constant stream of sales, and we got some very nice press ːsteamhappyː

We are happy to put it in this Winter Sale, and on the 23rd of December we will also publish a free demo of the mobile version on iOS (full iOS version here[apps.apple.com]).

Here is one of our favourite interviews, at Indiecade Europe this year:
and here are links to two nice reviews, at Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun. In Italian we have even been featured on several paper magazines!

We are developing an "HD" version that will serve several purposes:

(1) will be released on Switch,

(2) will be an update of the Steam/desktop version and

(3) we hope to include also accessibility features (maybe an audio-only version).

So you will get a version of Football Drama (a free update) that will use the full screen and an extension of the narrative.

Yes, the Switch release will have some special content, which will be eventually certainly released also for the other platforms later on, and also a Japanese localization.

A new game? Yes indeed: we are developing a prototype of our next game, Roller Drama...

This update is "major" because we improved several aspects of the game also in consequence of the feedback received.

The main updates are:

• After every training and for each successful card played, you get detailed feedback about your team's state compared with your current opponent. This is something several players requested. This reveals a lot of background, so we tried to make it so that it does not "break the magic" of how matches go.
  
  
• We introduced more variations in the narrative (e.g. press meetings), with more integration between matches and Rocco's life, and removed some end of match loops ("handshakegate") after the first championship weeks.

Other improvements:

• Action replays improved a lot; moreover, you can close replays way sooner just by tapping on them.
  
• Improved the AI on some match actions.
  
• Minor font size issues in non-English versions.

Specifically for the mobile version: if you play it on a high-resolution tablet, you can play it in landscape mode, getting the additional features available on HD layouts (Football Drama is also available on iOS and Android).

And finally, the Autumn Steam sale should go live really really soon... :-)