Dino Dini - Taking pride in his work more than 23 years later

Dino Dini, the creator of the Kick Off series, including the upcoming remake Kick Off Revival, posted a video on YouTube in January demonstrating how much pride he takes in his creations. It turns out that Dino Dini's Soccer (Dino's soccer game after he left Anco Software, before Anco released Kick Off 2), has an apparent bug when played on the Genesis emulator.

The nature of the bug is actually quite interesting in itself, but what I really like is Dino takes so much pride in his past creations that he works out why it's happening, a work around and creates the below video about it. All in effect to clear his name because he's worried someone plays it and thinks it's sloppy coding!  Remember this game was released in 1993 and being played by a relatively small number of players now, who probably never bought it!

If this is the pride he takes in his work, then I'm really looking forward to Kick Off Revival. Any issues and he will personally be driven to addressing them.

Dino Dini Interview by Game Reactor Television

Dino Dini was the original creator of the Kick Off series and is making the upcoming Kick Off Revival. He gave an interview with Game Ractor Television that is quite interesting, as you get a feel for Dino's passion for gameplay but also a feel for his pride for his creations as well.  The latter is something that we'll witness in other videos I plan on posting as well later.

He gives some thoughts on indie game development, modern games and returning to a time when it's more focused on gameplay immersion than high production values.

He also gives some insight into what we can expect in Kick Off Revival. A single button control is reassuringly on the cards with after touch style control which is what made these games so skillful and satisfying. It sounds like in the first version at least will be only available on the Playstation platform which is presumably PS4 and Vita. He hints there might not be licensed teams and that a future version or DLC add on will provide team management.

Finally Dino is suggesting a Q2 release so we are getting close :-).

What is this blog?

I was standing making coffee at work, explaining to a couple of my younger colleagues how excited I was at the upcoming remakes of classic top down football games Kick Off and Sensible Soccer due later this year. They stood blankly looking back with seemingly no recognition of the significance of this. No one understood.

Sensible Soccer must far and away be the computer game I spent more time playing than any others. I've often thought if they kept making it with up to date squads, modern console compatibility, online play and even the exact same graphics and gameplay, I would happily purchase it every year.  I grew bored of the latest FIFAs a few years ago.

Since finding out about these games I have been searching almost everyday for news on them and more often than not drawing a blank. No-one in my friends or work circles seems to be bothered or had the same childhood experiences of mastering this game. This blog is my attempt to find out what I can and post with the news I find and to see if there are other people out there as excited as me. In my searches I have also come across a few alternatives that I will post about in case they tide you over until the big remakes are released.

I really hope the remakes Kick Off Revival and Sociable Soccer are commercially successful. I intend to purchase both even though my Kick Off experience was far more limited being on my mate's Master System II.  It's influence and importance on the development of Sensible Soccer is not lost on me. Bring on the new retro top down footy era.