Just want to share a bit more about my development process and what made me want to make this game. So a bit of a long tweet here.

So back during lockdown I had a lot of time to spend learning a new skill, and being a huge fan of playing games growing up I’d always wanted to try making my own. If you’ve played or heard of legend bowl made by king javo or Sunday rivals by lowpoly, then you’ll understand the sort of passion a single dev can bring to a sports game. They were a huge inspiration for me. The spare time gave me enough motivation to sit down a learn gamemaker properly. I’ve spent countless hours researching how 2d sports games were made, trying to find as much info as I possibly can, to apply it to my projects. As the years have gone by my programming skills have improved quite a bit, which led me to finally decided to attempt a rugby game. I’d prototyped a couple of attempts before that and got absolutely nowhere (there is zero information on how rugby games are developed online). So most of my time on this project has been about trying things out for the first time, making mistakes and then rewriting things. Again and again. It has been an invaluable learning process. And I’m still none the wiser on how I’m going to implement a lot of things I’m aiming to include. This can be a fairly exciting phase of development, because you’re forced to think outside of the box, and when you finally get something working as intended, it gives you a huge boost of confidence and motivation to finish. On the other hand, the feelings of uncertainty before hand can be seriously debilitating to one’s mental health and motivation.

Something I’ve been struggling with on this project, seeing a huge number of people resonating with the video clips I’ve shared and getting excited about the project, is both amazing for me and scary at the same time. Impostor syndrome has reared its ugly head many times throughout the development of this project so far. Both from my questioning my own skills and whether I’m capable of delivering what I’d like to. And also from my own understanding, or lack of understanding of rugby as a sport itself, compared to say a more die hard fan. I grew up, born and raised in wales, so rugby is ingrained in me whether I like it or not, and I get the same spine tingling watching wales play. But I’m certainly not someone who avidly watches club games or anything like that. I just love the sport itself and feel like it’s been failed over the years by the games industry, and it deserves another day in the sun. I grew up playing Jonah lomu rugby on ps1, and for me that’s never been topped as a rugby game. But I’d like to get close enough that people might see it as the next best thing. But I do understand it’s not going to scratch the itch that a lot of 3d gamers want in a rugby game. I’m okay with that. I want to bring the atmosphere or rugby across with fun gameplay, attention to detail and enough rugby depth in it to please both casuals and sim heads alike. So not to ramble on any longer, thanks to anyone who has shown interest and followed. I look forward to bringing my game to you, and I hope you enjoy the journey as I share more in the coming year. Cheers!