Joe Gillis
Academy Player
- Joined
- May 31, 2018
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
- 5
Seeing other similar topics, so I'm not the only one in this situation but still, wanted to share this one with you all :
Hey everyone,
For the past few months, alongside my full-time job, I’ve been working solo on a rugby management game I always wished existed.
I’m not a professional developer at all. This project started purely out of passion for rugby and management games, and honestly a lot of late nights learning, iterating, failing, rebuilding systems and trying to slowly shape the kind of rugby manager I personally always wanted to play.
The goal was never to create an ultra cinematic rugby game or a clone of modern sports games presentation-wise. What I really wanted was something focused on the core feeling that made old management games so addictive to me: building squads, shaping tactical identities, developing players, managing fatigue and rotations, discovering young talents, surviving difficult seasons and slowly building a club over many years.
I also wanted to keep that “one more match / one more week” feeling while still having genuinely deep rugby systems underneath.
A huge focus of the project has been the match engine itself. One thing that frustrated me in a lot of rugby games was that tactics often didn’t really feel visible or meaningful. Here I wanted tactical choices to genuinely change the behavior of your team on the field. High defensive pressure, territorial kicking, wide attacking structures, aggressive jackal systems, rush defenses, offload-heavy attacks, maul-oriented rugby, patient phase play, fast tempo rugby… all of these influence the actual flow of matches.
The match engine itself is intentionally simulation-focused and readable rather than TV-broadcast styled. I leaned into a more old-school management game philosophy where clarity, pacing, immersion and tactical readability mattered more than flashy presentation. It's a simple field radar kind of style. You see where the ball is and who has it. Period.
The current build already includes:
MATCH ENGINE FOOTAGE :
CARREER MODE SCREENSHOTS :
I know there’s still a lot I want to improve and polish, especially around balancing and long-term immersion, but I finally reached the point where I felt comfortable enough to start sharing the project publicly.
I honestly don’t know where this will end up — maybe nowhere, maybe somewhere cool — but I’ve been enjoying the process too much not to keep going. Would genuinely love to hear what rugby fans and management game players think about it.
Hey everyone,
For the past few months, alongside my full-time job, I’ve been working solo on a rugby management game I always wished existed.
I’m not a professional developer at all. This project started purely out of passion for rugby and management games, and honestly a lot of late nights learning, iterating, failing, rebuilding systems and trying to slowly shape the kind of rugby manager I personally always wanted to play.
The goal was never to create an ultra cinematic rugby game or a clone of modern sports games presentation-wise. What I really wanted was something focused on the core feeling that made old management games so addictive to me: building squads, shaping tactical identities, developing players, managing fatigue and rotations, discovering young talents, surviving difficult seasons and slowly building a club over many years.
I also wanted to keep that “one more match / one more week” feeling while still having genuinely deep rugby systems underneath.
A huge focus of the project has been the match engine itself. One thing that frustrated me in a lot of rugby games was that tactics often didn’t really feel visible or meaningful. Here I wanted tactical choices to genuinely change the behavior of your team on the field. High defensive pressure, territorial kicking, wide attacking structures, aggressive jackal systems, rush defenses, offload-heavy attacks, maul-oriented rugby, patient phase play, fast tempo rugby… all of these influence the actual flow of matches.
The match engine itself is intentionally simulation-focused and readable rather than TV-broadcast styled. I leaned into a more old-school management game philosophy where clarity, pacing, immersion and tactical readability mattered more than flashy presentation. It's a simple field radar kind of style. You see where the ball is and who has it. Period.
The current build already includes:
- Multi-season career mode
- Domestic leagues, European competitions and international rugby
- Recruitment, contracts and salary cap systems
- Youth development and training
- Dynamic tactical systems and custom playbooks
- Injuries, fatigue, morale and suspensions
- A live text/radar based match engine driven by tactics and player attributes
- CPU clubs recruiting and evolving dynamically over multiple seasons
MATCH ENGINE FOOTAGE :
CARREER MODE SCREENSHOTS :
I know there’s still a lot I want to improve and polish, especially around balancing and long-term immersion, but I finally reached the point where I felt comfortable enough to start sharing the project publicly.
I honestly don’t know where this will end up — maybe nowhere, maybe somewhere cool — but I’ve been enjoying the process too much not to keep going. Would genuinely love to hear what rugby fans and management game players think about it.
Thanks again mate !
