Devlog April 2026
03. May 2026
Android, continental cups and my first money earned with game development. A lot of exiting things happened and 2 new version where released.
Here you can read the changelog of every single version.
Finally continental cups
Now the game has continental cups and you can compete with teams all over the world. For now the cup logic is kept simple and the editor only allows basic changes to the cup.
The next step will be a dynamic cup system, that allows to create all kind of competitions. For example a world cup, where all continental cup winners can compete for the ultimate title. It will also be possible to define start/end dates, price money and other details. This should also allow to create multiple league divisions on the same pyramid level. Many real world competitions use this system in lower leagues. Anyway this system needs a lot of work and testing, therefore it will take some time.
Android is here, by accident
At the time of writing, over 6000 users downloaded the game for free from the Google Play Store. This is a huge success and this is now by far my most successful Android game. The game is designed to be played on the computer and therefore on big screens. So I increased the font sizes for smaller screens, but it is still not optimal. For that reason I did not expect that so many users download and like the game on mobile.
The release was actually accidental. Because I was not ready to release yet, turned on managed releases on the Google Play console. That way I can decide manually, when the app will be released to the public. In the meantime, I made some changes to the store listing and let Google review the changes. But I did not know that by asking for a new review, previous changes go online. So my game was released on the store without knowing and for 3 Euros. Only after 2 days I discovered this, when the Play Console had an issue while processing payments.
I was not even sure at that time, if I want to sell the game or make it free. This accident meant that I had to decide quickly on how to price the game. Finally I decided to make it free for Android and keep selling it only on Steam. This is what other notable FOSS projects like Mindustry, Pixel Dungeon (and it's forks) do. Even Krita is payed Steam and other stores, but free on mobile and other platforms.
I guess the idea is to use mobile stores as "free" marketing. That visibility boost can increase sales on desktop stores. Mobile users are used to free games and apps packed with ads and in-app purchases. Therefore selling apps and games there is not impossible, but much harder than on desktop.
Offering a free game without ads and micro transactions should make it also more popular. My game got over 40 5-star reviews this month. The Steam sales did not go up yet, but I think (and hope) this might take some time. Currently the game is getting around 500 downloads a day from the Google Play Store. The game is also top ranked in many countries under the free new sport games charts. This gave the game a big boost in downloads and visibility. I guess without this top ranking, I would not get 500 downloads per day.
Reproducible Godot builds for F-Droid
The game will also be available on F-Droid very soon. This takes more time than planned, because I want to make the F-Droid build reproducible. Reproducible builds allow to rebuild the exact same bit-by-bit executable. This way F-Droid can verify my built is exactly the same as they built on their servers. So they can distribute my build with my own singing keys on F-Droid. That allows to download compatible updates also from other sources.
If I get this to work, all other Godot games and apps can create reproducible builds too. I spent some days to fix most issues and there are still a few files that differ between the builds. So I decided to take a break and to continue working on the game for now and not rush this process. I really hope v0.7.5 will be reproducible and therefore also available on F-Droid.
What about iPhone
Shortly after the Android release, some users asked for an iPhone version. This game is open source and licensed under the AGPLv3-or-later license. According to what I read online, it is not compatible with the Apples App Store Terms and conditions. I'm not a lawyer and neither do I have the funds to hire one to understand if this is correct. So for now there is no iPhone release planned.
A reddit user pointed out that it might be compatible with the altstore. But after reading their docs it seems really difficult to release something there. At least I was not able to understand the exact process for now. I will try to understand more about the store and the release process. But for now my main focus is still on the game itself.
Another option would be to change to a license that is compatible with the Apple App Store. Any permissive license should work, but also a weak copyleft license, such as the MPLv2. The MPLv2 also allows integrating proprietary SDKs, such as the Steam SDK. For this reason I already evaluated if the MPLv2 is the right fit for this project.
For now I do not want to adapt the license to fit into non-free ecosystems and walled gardens. I feel the other way around makes more sense, where non-free stores open their doors. Strong copyleft software will never run on an iPhone, if developers and users don't push for it. The altstore and the EU regulations are already a sign for such change.
Indonesian leagues in default data packs
Brazil is the country where most Android downloads came from. On the second place instead there is Indonesia. I saw that Indonesia has a big Futsal community and therefore decided to add Indonesian leagues. Now the default packs have 3 Asian nations and that makes the Asian cup also more competitive.
I also added Indonesian names and surnames, to make it more realistic. Currently I simply get common names for a country from the Wiktionary. While this works, it isn't the best solution and I will try to find better ways to get common names. There is a big discrepancy in amount and quality of names on the Wiktionary for different countries. If you have any suggestions or know an open licensed data source for common names let me know!
My first fair
During April I also showcased the game for the first time at a local fair in Italy. I learned a lot and hope that some people discovered 99Managers during that days. On my personal blog I wrote a full blog post on this event.
My first money
I also got my very first payout from Steam this month. It is not much yet, but I'm really happy that I sold a Free and Open Source game. At the moment the sales are far from enough to be able to make a living from making FOSS games. My plan is to finish the Futsal Edition this year and see how things go. I should have enough savings to keep doing this for the rest of the year.
Depending on how the sales evolve, I will get a part-time job in 2027 or do some freelance work. No worries, I will continue working on 99Managers and start to cover also other sports soon. But life happens and bills need to be payed, so I have to earn money someway. If you know a grant that is open for FOSS games like mine, please let me know! I already unsuccessfully applied to nlnet and have not found any other opportunities yet.
Crowdfunding could be another option, but I have no experience with that. If you think that could work for my game or you can share some experience on that, let me know :-)
Every feedback is welcome
Feel free to write me an email at info@99managers.org and comment on Mastodon.
Exit through the gift shop
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