v0.15.0Beta
26 April 2026

Faithful to the original — across every system

Themed pixel-art backgrounds for cup & every event

The cup-draw announcement and every event message now have their own pixel-art backgrounds — DFB cup, red/yellow cards, illness, plus every money, morale, career-end and TV-rights event. And a stubborn bug that misattributed career-end messages to the wrong player is finally gone.

  • ▸Cup-draw announcement ("After the draw for round N …") and the cup-day opener share a new background with the golden trophy on the left — text sits cleanly beside it
  • ▸Red card, yellow-card suspension and illness messages now show dedicated referee/player scenes instead of the generic pitch
  • ▸All 13 event categories from EREIGNIS.KDT (money in/out, skill, energy, morale, chemistry, career-end, gift player, illness, training camp, TV rights) get their own pixel-art scene
  • ▸Bugfix for event messages: when the game said "Littbarski ends his career", Littbarski often stayed in the squad — a different player left. Message and effect now hit the same player (port of KICKER.BAS:845-857)
  • ▸Illness messages now use larger, left-aligned text — like a diary note next to the sick player
  • ▸Per-image safety margin on the left so the referee's arm, the cup or the player sprite never overlaps with the text
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Where we stand

With version 0.9 the free sandbox era ended — KICKER was playable from start to finish for the first time. Since then, every release pulls a single system at a time into faithful alignmentwith Dirk Weigand’s GFA-Basic source.

We’re now at version 0.15.0. Finances, cup flow, card handling, injuries, player development, team morale — all of it now follows the same formulas as the 1991 Atari ST original. On top of that: hot-seat multiplayer, football scenarios and dozens of detail fixes.

From here on it’s polish, bug fixes, and — crucially — your feedback.

Previous versions

v0.14.0Beta
25 April 2026

Gate-receipts fix, UX harmonisation, layout polish

A stubborn finance bug is finally gone, and many screens now share a single layout: same column heights, same font sizes, options arranged the same way as the original Match Tactics screen.

  • ▸Home-match gate receipts: the on-screen attendance (standing + seated) and the actual income now match — no more secret second random roll that made the till disagree with the board
  • ▸SONSTIGES, STADION, LIGAINFO, DIFFICULTY and MATCH TACTICS now share the same look: options vertically centred between title and button, unified checkbox and font sizes
  • ▸STATISTICS menu centred, fonts +30 % — finally legible
  • ▸Lineup, Positions, Contract Renewal, Training Camp: row heights computed via the same geometry helper — no more line-hopping between screens
  • ▸Match-day results and league table fonts +20 %, Manager-Info -20 % — readability tuned to the actual iPad display
  • ▸Sponsorship, Football World, Season Stats and Scenario Picker now follow the unified layout
  • ▸New default difficulty: »medium« instead of »easy«
  • ▸Triple-tap cheat on the ABOUT screen works reliably again (dedicated counter with 800 ms reset)
  • ▸Removed the duplicate »Atari ST 1.82.3« entry from the ABOUT screen
  • ▸Positions editor: four position buttons left-aligned, matching the list next to them
v0.13.1Beta
24 April 2026

Players evolve — form, morale, team chemistry

Three mechanics that used to be only hinted at now actually run: your players grow stronger or weaker over the season, their form follows actual performance, and the squad has a mood gauge.

  • ▸Player development: consistent good performances make a player stronger over time; repeated bad ones cost skill points
  • ▸Development affects every player in the league — opposing squads also change from season to season
  • ▸Form is no longer a pure random value: it tracks match performance, with just a sprinkle of variance
  • ▸Team morale and chemistry are now real, persisted values that move on events and feed back into squad strength
  • ▸Squad events (arguments, good moods, team spirit) now hit the right place — not just an individual player's form
v0.13.0Beta
24 April 2026

Finances, cup, injuries — original-faithful rules

The largest update so far: finances, the DFB-Pokal cup flow, in-game injuries and the cards system are now fully rebuilt to follow the rules of the Atari original.

  • ▸DFB-Pokal has a proper flow again: opening screen, separate first-leg / second-leg overviews, dedicated return match in between
  • ▸Players can now be injured mid-match — sidelined for one to eight weeks
  • ▸Yellow and red cards counted as in the original; suspensions last longer for away matches than home matches
  • ▸Events screen now appears BEFORE the main menu: bans, illnesses and injuries are shown before you set the lineup
  • ▸Starting capital, wages, stadium costs, travel costs and weekly miscellaneous items all follow the original formulas
  • ▸Cup matches now show goal sequence and cards just like league games, including extra time on a draw
  • ▸Six skip-cheats for the DFB-Pokal (#DFB1 to #DFB6) to fast-forward through the rounds during testing
v0.12.1Beta
23 April 2026

Credits & Tribute-Edition notice

Small but important polish on the info screens: dates, the Tribute-Edition notice and the iPad version are now correctly shown everywhere.

  • ▸Program info and About screens show copyright, the January 1991 original version and the Tribute-Edition notice
  • ▸Version and build numbers are pulled from the app automatically — they stay correct on every future update
v0.12.0Beta
23 April 2026

Twelve bugs squashed in one release

Bundled release after feedback from the 0.11.x series: training camp, lineup, highlights, cup flow, transfer list and the performance chart all get a polish pass.

  • ▸Training camp: reserves are marked with a tick; players in camp vanish from the lineup and show up as »away«
  • ▸Lineup: stat columns are properly centred and legible again
  • ▸Player detail: performance history now actually reflects the last few match days, on the correct scale
  • ▸Highlights: goals no longer fly past the goal, penalty takers stand upright again
  • ▸DFB-Pokal: announcement one week before the round, dedicated cup-announcement page on match day, personal recap after each tie
  • ▸Transfer list: message shown only once per match day; outside the transfer window, the original message appears instead
  • ▸Transfer values now drift match day by match day (up to ±25 %), and offers feel reasonable again
  • ▸Offers screen appears even when no bids are pending — with a clear message
v0.11.2Beta
22 April 2026

Selling players & DFB-Pokal — original rules

Two flows trimmed precisely to the rules of the original: selling your own players, and the DFB-Pokal cup format with first and second legs.

  • ▸Before every match day you see, for each player you've put up for sale, the bids that came in — accept or reject one by one
  • ▸DFB-Pokal: first leg plays 90 min + extra time on a draw — if extra time decides it, the second leg is skipped; otherwise a standalone return leg follows
  • ▸After every cup tie a summary screen: first leg, second leg, aggregate, winner highlighted
  • ▸Before the return leg, the first-leg score is shown again under the jerseys
  • ▸Personal event message: »You advance to the quarter-finals« / »You're knocked out« after every decided round
  • ▸Transfer-market messages now appear only on the actual match day, not on the cup interlude
v0.11.1Beta
21 April 2026

Finances at match-day start, smaller fixes

Three iterations after the 0.11.0 feedback: finances run where the original placed them again, and a handful of detail bugs are gone.

  • ▸Finance overview now appears at the start of each manager's match day — after the handover, before the main menu, just like the original
  • ▸It only shows when the bank balance crosses league-dependent thresholds; ordinary situations skip it
  • ▸The season-start banner no longer reappears a second time after loading a save
  • ▸Saves from the previous version load without issues
v0.11.0Beta
21 April 2026

Hot-seat multiplayer fully reworked

The hot-seat flow for multiple managers has been rebuilt step by step the way the original handles it — and there's a play-time tracker now.

  • ▸Season-start banner before each season's first match day, wording taken verbatim from the original
  • ▸»NAME's turn!« screen before each manager's main menu (skipped in solo play)
  • ▸Between two managers the screen blacks out briefly — the next manager doesn't see the previous one's inputs
  • ▸In the league table and results screens ALL human-managed teams are highlighted in cyan, not just the active one
  • ▸The »End save game« screen shows total play time so far and the duration of the current session
  • ▸League names now come authentically from the original data: Bundesliga, 2.Bundesliga, Oberliga, Verbandsliga, Landesliga
v0.10.0Beta
20 April 2026

Football worlds & match-scene polish

Two big additions: different football »worlds« with their own rules (taken straight from the original), and a polish pass on the match visualisation including hot-seat details.

  • ▸Six pre-set worlds to choose from: Germany 1990 and 1991 in North/South variants, the never-shipped 1989 league reform with playoffs, the TC World League with the three-point rule, and the All-Stars European League
  • ▸Every world has its own rules: match format, points per win, goal bonuses, playoff or relegation, dedicated league and cup names
  • ▸Confirmation screen after world selection, listing every parameter in plain text
  • ▸»Edit world« editor: every rule can be tweaked freely before kick-off
  • ▸Cup names everywhere in the game now come from the world definition, no longer hard-coded »DFB-Pokal« and »UEFA-Pokal«
  • ▸Match scene: top HUD stabilised, penalty ball sits on the spot, the ball is always at the kicker's feet
  • ▸Penalties now have a foul animation and a whistle — no more automatic cards
  • ▸Card scenes capped per half — no more card avalanches
  • ▸Hot-seat: handover screen between managers within the match day; bids on another manager's player now land in their negotiations rather than being randomly decided
v0.9.0Beta
19 April 2026

Playable end-to-end for the first time

End of the sandbox: KICKER on iPad is now playable from start to finish for the first time — all management screens, all statistics, full season flows.

  • ▸All main-menu areas in place: lineup, positions, tactics, training camp, contracts, sponsorship, ticket prices, stadium rebuild, football pools, player sales, league info, season stats
  • ▸Complete statistics: standings, finance review and balance, top scorers, best XI, dirtiest players, promotion/relegation, team of the year, attendance
  • ▸Manager info with manager points as 3D bars, player info with a performance chart
  • ▸Five difficulty levels at game start
  • ▸About screen with cheat unlock (tap the version three times)
  • ▸Relegation warning from match day 29, sponsor-expiry notices, realistic event cascades
  • ▸Capital history, season income and expenses, and cup state are persisted in saves
v0.3.0Sandbox
16 April 2026

Bugfixes & original details

Lots of individual systems pulled closer to the original, and the detail bugs from 0.2 cleared out.

  • ▸Saved games now fully restore lineups, tactics, cup state and fixture list
  • ▸Injuries and illnesses occur as often as in the original again
  • ▸Sponsorship contracts fully reworked — including upfront payments and sponsor names on the jerseys
  • ▸Jerseys drawn as vector graphics in 16-bit Atari style
  • ▸Pitch background on the pre-match announcement screen
  • ▸League table with plus/minus points, own club highlighted in cyan
  • ▸New About screen with version, build and credits
  • ▸New intro video
v0.2.0Sandbox
16 April 2026

Finances, cards, injuries, save/load

Major original mechanics pulled in: detailed finances, card logic, injuries that last for actual match days, and a sturdier save/load layer.

  • ▸Finance overview with full breakdown of every income and expense item
  • ▸Yellow and red cards with realistic distribution
  • ▸Injuries and illnesses last several match days, not just one
  • ▸Save/load with backwards compatibility — older saves still load
  • ▸Season with first and second round-robin
  • ▸Tidied-up match-day flow
  • ▸UI polish in squad, league table, finances and settings
v0.1.0Sandbox
12 April 2026

First TestFlight build

The very first TestFlight build: an authentic recreation of the Atari ST football manager KICKER as an iPad app.

  • ▸Full game engine: season, league, cup, finances, random events
  • ▸Original data for teams, players, internationals and training camps
  • ▸Retro UI built with the original Atari system font
  • ▸Match scenes in side view
  • ▸Original sounds: »Kicker!« voice, crowd cheers, »Another One Bites the Dust«
  • ▸Original-style intro: PolarSoftware video, team photo with credits, »Almost ready to go!«, welcome screen
  • ▸Squad management, transfer market, financial management
  • ▸Online lobby for multiplayer via iCloud
  • ▸Save and load

What’s next?

Next steps: gather structured feedback, prioritise bugs, polish. If you want to help — the TestFlight is waiting for you.

Spotted something off? Got an idea? Tell me directly — no login, no account.

iPad Test