Ballsy! World Cup 2020
A downloadable game for Windows and Linux
Welcome to Ballsy! I wanted a game which has players feeling 'weighty' without being sluggish. Passing is very responsive.
Play VS or co-op with friends with the local multiplayer options, or win the Ballsy! World Cup on your own!
Gamepad recommended but not required.
If this game is successful, I will make more Ballsy! games; the next one should feature a league mode, with player transfers and all that. I don't have the budget for it yet, so buying this game will support me making it a reality!
Also, very happy to hear what you like & dislike about this one, so make sure to comment if you have anything to share!
Changelog v1.5:
- compiled with new unity to fix PS4/DS4Win controller issues
- can now accelerate to sprint into any direction, rather than only near the current walk direction
- team 1 (player team) now selected by default on world cup matches, to avoid confusion
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $2.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Ballsy! World Cup 2020 v15 update - PS4 controller fixJan 13, 2023
- 1.4b fixes a graphical performance issue with nightime matchesFeb 17, 2021
- Ballsy! v1.4 with easier gamepad setupDec 21, 2020
- Ballsy! now available on Linux!Dec 12, 2020
- Ballsy! update adds nighttime matchesNov 13, 2020
- Ballsy! update adds momentum sliderNov 01, 2020
- Ballsy! World Cup 2020 out now!Oct 28, 2020
- Ballsy! World Cup 2020 release candidate 1Oct 20, 2020
Comments
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Really intriguing concept. I never really got into SWOS, but this game is quite fun. My god were the matches tense sometimes tho xD. Really have to work for your goals in this game. Would be interested in seeing a sequel if you get round to it one day.
Thank you so much! Happy you like it :)) I am actually working on a sequel, though progress is a bit slow, but I'm already halfway there. Hopefully I can get it done before the end of this year.. no promises tho!
By the way, you bought it just too early for my sale, so here's a free key for my other game to make up for that unlucky timing :) https://properlydecent.itch.io/buggy-game/download/_RdUVmvkLaztVOvh7Wlr5A7ZOr56z...
Cool game! I think your work is under-appreciated to be honest. There's just something fun about the games that you make, and I can't quit put my finger on it!
P.s. I wanted to ask you: How would one go about creating a formation system in Unity for a football game (or soccer as our trans-Atlantic cousins call it). Do you create and place a list of empty game objects with the designated positions for the players in the formation and then have a trigger area in each of these positions to check and play with in code? What do you think?
Thanks mate, I appreciate that! :))
I do most things in code, I rarely use the Unity editor. So in this case, the formations are arrays of structs, that have a coordinate in them, as well as the player role per entry, etc. Then on starting a match, I Instantiate() objects on those positions.
So I'm not sure if that's very helpful for you if you work in a different way! I come from a background where there wasn't a thing like an editor, so I still do most things in code lol, but that's maybe not the best idea for most people so not sure if that helps!
Thanks for the reply. Instead of structs, I use empty GameObjects for each position in the formation. This way, I could do more with it like access its Transform component or attaching different components to it like Colliders, etc. Anyways, really cool work on your part.
I've read your blog that explains how you made your earlier football game. Very well explained! I learnt a lot from it for my game. Thank you! I just have a question regarding what you refer to as the 'formation position or rectangle' which decides whether the team is attacking or defending. Could you please just make a few more remarks here about how would one could code something like this for their game? I'm not understanding how do I apply this biased position for all the players in the field using this focus rectangle. I'm letting the difference between the player's default position and his ideal position given by the Hungarian algo control how the player should move. Kindly, elaborate a little on this subject.
Best,
I'm happy it helped you! I do find it hard to understand what exactly you want me to explain more about, and also text is a crappy medium to explain things that should be explained visually :( I'll try..
The formation rectangle is more of a result, than an actual 'object'. For example, the striker might be at coords (1, 0) in the formation setup: the most forward position, and in the middle. But during a match, they're only there while their team is attacking, and the ball is close to the opponent goal. While defending, this player might end up at (-0.5, 0) - halfway it's own half (but still the most forward of their team).
So, the original formation might have players positioned from (-1, -1) to (1, 1), but during a game, this rectangle is compressed. For example at the start of a match, both teams are on their own halves, so the players of team 1 would be between (-1, -1) to (1, 0), which you could visually see as the formation rectangle being compressed in the 'depth' axis. then as the ball moves forward, this rectangle moves up.
Again, this is not an actual rectangle, but just a result of the player's positions moving up and down with the action, while still retaining the formation's 'form'.
I hope this helps.. (but it could also be that you already understand this, but have a problem with translating this to actual code/math?)
Thank you for your reply and explanation! I think what was confusing me a little is that you use a normalized coordinate system from -1 to +1. Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain your hard work to other people and also for sharing your work.
This looks excellent. I hope you keep it going. I started my game on Itch, going into early access soon on Steam. I really love the dribble mechanics in your game, I'd love to know what the logic is for players taking possession of the ball, and those little dribble touches?? Fantastic. Also, what game engine do you use?
Thank you so much! I'm using Unity.
It's kinda hard to explain all the details of the possession and the dribbles! I did write an (unfinished) document with various details if you're interested http://properlydecent.com/blog/soccer_game_development_concepts I hope it can be of use for you :)
I'm not working on this game anymore (sorry!), as I'm busy now with a follow up game that has a league mode with player transfers and such!
I found your football game on Steam, looks so cute! Good luck with development :)
Thank you! I'm continually trying to improve upon the dribbling, and there isn't much online tutorials regarding football games. Maybe you found this too. So it's interesting to see how others tackle these things. I've started having a read of your article, it's really well written, I'd love to put together something like that of my own once I have the time. I've noted a couple of things I'd like to experiement with my own game too. Thanks for taking the time to share it.
Btw what's your current title called? Will you release to Steam? I'd love to follow your progress.
You're welcome!
My new title is called Ballsy! League, it's not on Steam yet, I need to fix myself some store art first.. but it's coming together nicely :) I think it needs another year of work though!
How is your project going?
(Sorry for my slow reply)
I love your game and study to make a football game, your document is very useful. I have bought your game BallsyWorldCup and donated for helping me a lot.
Thanks man I appreciate that! Good luck with your football game :)
roger-peng I want to contact you, send me your email or other conacts please
Your game looks awesome. It's a shame there is no mac version. I found your game searching for soccer games, as I'm trying to make a small prototype for learning Unity. Do you have any recommendations for building a dribbling system? I've tried a few things but I'm stuck.
hiya, thanks!
the way I do dribbling is:
when player is not touching ball, walk into direction where ball is (actually, prediction of future ball position)
when player is touching ball, set ball velocity to be a combination of the player movement direction, and the direction of input/stick (these are not always the same if your player has momentum/sluggishness, after all)
I hope this helps?
Hey thanks for answering my question. This is really helpful!
Your game looks amazing mate, I'd have picked it up if there was a mac version of it. By the way, is there anywhere specifically where you learned to code a footy game? I've tried a number of times and it feels impossible at times, especially getting the AI to work and there doesn't seem to be much in terms of resources online, unless I'm looking in the wrong place. Congrats on a great game!
thanks mate! I'm sorry I can't port it to mac, I don't have one and it's just not really my platform either.
I've come up with the ideas myself over the years, I agree there isn't much in the way of resources since it's such a specific topic. I've used a combination of concepts/algo's to program the AI. I should probably write an extensive blog about it some time but I'm not much of a writer. If there's any specific problem you have maybe I can help you a bit?
First of all: I am not exactly a soccer fan. Browsing through the list of games I got recently in a bundle I had a look at the trailer and decided to give it a go. I have to say: it is impressive! Playing it (solo) is fun, controlling using the keyboard works nice and the graphics look charming. And yes: it runs great on a Linux laptop {i5 10210u) ;-)
Thanks! :) Nice to hear it works well on your linux laptop!
i'm not an expert in games, but is soccer, and soccer is cool, because of this i installed, i gonna try after
Wow, just wow. I don't mean this lightly. I have tried a lot of football games in my lifetime. really a lot. From match day 2 on the spectrum to sensible soccer on the amiga to the golden age of PES on the PS2. and I have been waiting for a long time for a game like this. You nailed the ideal speed and passing game feel on the spot. congratulations. this is exactly what the football gaming community needs: a slower version of sensi. there are however a few little niggles and omissions, but of course for an beta its already pretty good!
here are my suggestions/niggles:
You have something special here. I tell you. Would definitely pay for a more fleshed out version.
Thanks so much for your kind words! I really needed that. I'm having trouble keeping up motivation since there seems to be little interest in my game :)
About the game speed; I notice that making it faster makes it more reflex-oriented, while making it slower makes it more tactics-oriented. I prefer the latter, though I understand that's a personal thing. I will consider a game speed slider for this.
The curve ball idea is a good one!
Radar/zoom good ideas, though I may add it later (I really want to release ASAP, this project is starting to drag on a bit)
Side selection, good point!
Cheers!
Yeah, about the speed absolutely, only testing you get the feel and I trust your judgment. Definitely feels tactical at the moment.
One more suggestion:
A nice control feature from classic PES that you could implement to great effect here is - tap dribble modifier right after a pass and the player that made the pass makes a run fwd into space. Again this ads absolutely no complexity for the novice player, but ads depth to the game allowing to setup one-twos or even to make dummy runs (i.e. make the passer run and then as the opponent tracks that run then you pass to the other side instead)
About lack of interest:
Its tricky, the market is just so overcrowded with small indie games (and big ones as well!). I guess you may have to play around with the core presentation and the core focus of the game at some point. Maybe make it a clear five a side street football feel? (instead of the grass)
The World Cup stats progression just doesn't feel that great to me at the moment. Not very interesting i guess. I see this more as a game where each team could have their own fixed identity (even if it is unrealistic) like one team have great speed but poor shot power etc. That would be very innovative because tipicall football games focus on player individuality, you could focus on team individuality instead. Something along those line. Then really stylize the art in an original way so that it really stands out in the crowd and doesn't look just like another flash game (which I'm sorry to say it does a bit now =)
Anyway, I have infinite ideas that I can bounce your way about this later =)
1-2 passes is a great idea!
a question about team individuality; I did try that; for example, japan has great ball control but are very slow, most african teams are more the opposite, south-american teams have generally higher agility etc. is this not what you mean? or do you mean more extreme differences?
I fully agree on the presentation part. I made it a bit too generic. My original idea was to make it look like an MSX game - very barebones - but with modern gameplay. I guess maybe I should have gone for that, to stand out :) The idea for street football is also fun; I can still consider making other types of fantasy stadiums, but at this point I just want to release soon, and then update it later - or start a new footy game with better presentation/other graphics to start with.
(In fact, I started a few years ago with an isometric style game, with a bit larger scope; but it was a bit too big so then I made this as a way of just having a game in the market, to get some experience with that. I may continue working on that other game later.. not sure yet. The idea was to have 5-7 completely different teams, with themed stadiums. I made one so far: https://www dot youtube.com/watch?v=W0tvdekv_nk (replace the 'dot'; if I paste the full link, it'll embed the video and I don't want that :) ))
For team individuality i meant more extreme even. And I wouldn't use countries to avoid xenophobic connotations with the skills etc (sigh... you never know these days....) I meant like really imaginary 5 a side teams, like a trickster team, a slow but powerful team, you know, almost like Mario Tennis balance if you know what I mean. (If you don't know Mario Tennis I highly recommend you analyze the control scheme in that series. It uses only 2 button, and with those 2 buttons by combining double tap or tap in sequence or tap together it achieves a really deep control scheme.
The "stadium" in the video looks awesome, so atmospheric!
I had a look in your yt channel, I cannot believe you are the author of that game that google was using for the machine learning project!
And you made your own 3d engine! Serious level of skill.
Also incredible that you experimented with a top down racer! One of my favorite games ever is Turbosliders.
I'm just an amateur programmer, but for years I had these 3 games on my todo list one day:
Ohh Turbosliders looks very similar to my game! I swear I had never heard of it before now :D Seems a lot of fun!
Thanks for your kind words on my other projects! I did make a lot of stuff over the years, though it annoys me that I never finished anything; which is why I want to just finish this game so bad, without enlarging the scope all too much :)
Btw, a tennis game (in some abstract interpretation) is also on my todo wishlist, ballgames are fun! Also, some pinball game would be fun!
I acknowledge that your idea about very different teams, it may work well, but I have to keep that for a future project; I don't want to change too much anymore for this one. One of my future football games ideas is to also have very individualistic differences between the players; this would be denoted using hats. So if you put a hard-hat on a player, they become very strong in defense, or you can put a wizard hat on em, they get some weird tricks, etc. But yeah ideas for a future game ;)
Oh and a good point about the xenophobic connotations, didn't really realize that possibility.. but I'm not going to have my behavior changed by some woke dicks, so I'm gonna keep it in :P
Btw what language/engine do you program in?
Bro, what you are creating is really amazing. I bet not a lot out there who knows to make one. If you ever make a course just for this I will definitely buy. I urge you to explore the options to pas this onto the community in some way or the other.
Thanks man! I have been thinking a lot about sharing the knowledge I gained over the years, but I find it really hard, I'm not a teacher type at all. I've tried some blog posts in the past but I really hate writing them lol. I hope someday I can force myself to document some stuff.
Either way I appreciate your kind words <3
I am indeed happy to see unique talent
Good work. I tried it with wine on Ubuntu. The game starts ok but there are some images missing on screen (players). Have you considered to make this project open source?
I am considering it, but only after it's done. However, I'm considering releasing a Linux version, if Unity allows me to easily do so :)
Have you had the chance to see, if Unity lets you build the game for Linux?
Sorry man, I've been busy with the steam release. I'm gonna take a look later this week and let you know!
Sorry for the long wait, but I'm working on a Linux port. You can download my test version from http://properlydecent.com/data/downloads/BallsyWorldCup2020_v12_linux_x86_64.rar - it would be very helpful if you could give it a try and tell me if it works for you, and what distro you are using!
I've been working on a Linux port, you can download my test version from http://properlydecent.com/data/downloads/BallsyWorldCup2020_v12_linux_x86_64.rar - it would be very helpful if you could give it a try and tell me if it works for you!
Great! I'll try it as soon as possible
Works! It took a time to reach to the first screen (the system asked for shut down or wait).
My system
Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
3,4 GiB
AMD® A8-7600 radeon r7, 10 compute cores 4c+6g × 4
AMD® Kaveri
Gnome 3.28.2
Thanks!! I think the pause at the start is loading of some assets eg. music, I'll see if I can make it seem less 'crashy' :P
Thanks for the help!
I am not a sports fan and not very keen on football, but this game is very cool. AI is tough for me though) The game looks cute and I like the UI and menus in particular a lot. Controlls feel good, however maybe sprint is not that responsive. I mean that I don't really feel like running fast. I will follow the updates to see what can come out in the end. As flokiman sad, the game has good potential. Sad that keyboard is not supported.
Keyboard is supported, settings are in the player setup menu :)
Yes you can change it :) If you don't have a controller, it should use keyboard for player 1 by default.
I'm not really a discord kind of person, the problem with too much input is that it takes time away from actually working on the game, so I'll keep to listening to comments here, and on reddit (I post an update there every new version) :)
Thank you for your kind words! Keyboard IS actually supported! It should be the default if you have no gamepad connected. If not, let me know, it may be a bug! You can view and set keys in the player setup menu.
I really want to play this, but it keeps not responding when I open it, any help?
You need an XBOX gamepad actually
I tried keyboard, it is not working, also tried PS4 controller with SCP Toolkit, didn't work either (
Actually, a keyboard works in all of the menus, but not during the match
Ahh thanks for testing, I use Win7 myself so i didn't know that.. if you want to help, can you maybe send me the contents of C:\Users\<yourname>\AppData\LocalLow\ProperlyDecent\Ballsy_WorldCup_2020\Player.log after a failed run? It would help me debug the problem!
You shouldn't need a gamepad, keyboard should do fine! So it's probably a bug.. sorry!
If you could share with me the contents of the file C:\Users\<yourname>\AppData\LocalLow\ProperlyDecent\Ballsy_WorldCup_2020\Player.log after it fails starting, it would help me a lot!
Excellent game, lots of potential.
Keep it up.
Thanks man! Appreciate it :)