FFFL: Brutalball Manager
Stout Kassel Games · 2023 · Simulation, Sports, Management, Football (American), Fantasy
PC
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →
Screenshots
About FFFL: Brutalball Manager
The FFFL is a Franchise Management Simulation game, based mostly on American Football in a Fantasy setting. The goal is to create a game that’s fun to watch and manage with lots of complexity and stat tracking.
After decades of hobby programming, I decided to finally release one of my games to the public following all of support from the Legend Bowl community for the Legend Bowl Franchise Mod I created. This game will remain FREE. I made FFFL: Brutalball Manager for myself and family. We've played many seasons together online, and I just want to share the fun. There are no plans for microtransactions, just a Supporter Pack for those that want some extra races and other goodies.
8 v 8 football, players play both sides of the ball
Fantasy races: Orcs, elves, dwarves etc. 14 Base and 10 DLC Races with over 70 variants!
True Simulations: Simulated games use the exact same engine as games watched at normal speed
Total control of all teams: You can assign AI to manage any aspect of the game at any time. This also allows for Multiplayer Hot Seat and Multiplayer Streaming Leagues. Works with Steam Remote Play.
Franchise Features: draft, unique off-season free agency, in season events, end of season awards, league records, career stat tracking, Hall of Fame
Players have hidden personality traits that influence weekly events and free agency
Moddable: In game Team and Player Editor (84 teams already included in the game), Import your own logos, Game variables moddable in game, History, Coach and Schedule file that is fully moddable
With most sports franchise games it is difficult to connect to all of the players in the league - often there is little to distinguish players beside numbers and a few facial features. Fantasy races make for quicker connections and associations with the players, immediately giving them a bit more personality. Also, adding things like player death is more fitting in a cartoon fantasy setting. This also makes it easier to let go of American football conventions allowing for more rule innovations. The driving goal of this game is for the off-season and game play to foster stories and memories. Coupled with internally consistent stats and recording of major events each league should generate an interesting history.
Example stories shared by beta testers:
"Had a funny moment in a game earlier, in a blood thirsty sort of a way. One of my players killed an opponent who had previously spent multiple All-Pro seasons with my club before parting ways with us in the previous off-season. A pretty brutal way to treat a former team mate who left in free agency!"
"The Championship game was 4-4 after 100 plays and it was WILD! Four of my starters were injured including the league MVP. I had a little goblin come off the bench who hadn't played a down all year, only for him to spark the winning touchdown drive. We scored the walk-off title clinching TD 20 plays deep in OT"
"I'm currently in the midst of a truly brutal season! We're 1-5 having made it to the championship game last season and have lost to four teams with a worse overall rating. I've had three starters killed including my star player, a two time league MVP. I'm looking forward to a very high draft pick and a lower team salary at least!"
After decades of hobby programming, I decided to finally release one of my games to the public following all of support from the Legend Bowl community for the Legend Bowl Franchise Mod I created. This game will remain FREE. I made FFFL: Brutalball Manager for myself and family. We've played many seasons together online, and I just want to share the fun. There are no plans for microtransactions, just a Supporter Pack for those that want some extra races and other goodies.
Primary Features:
8 v 8 football, players play both sides of the ball
Fantasy races: Orcs, elves, dwarves etc. 14 Base and 10 DLC Races with over 70 variants!
True Simulations: Simulated games use the exact same engine as games watched at normal speed
Total control of all teams: You can assign AI to manage any aspect of the game at any time. This also allows for Multiplayer Hot Seat and Multiplayer Streaming Leagues. Works with Steam Remote Play.
Franchise Features: draft, unique off-season free agency, in season events, end of season awards, league records, career stat tracking, Hall of Fame
Players have hidden personality traits that influence weekly events and free agency
Moddable: In game Team and Player Editor (84 teams already included in the game), Import your own logos, Game variables moddable in game, History, Coach and Schedule file that is fully moddable
Why Fantasy Setting? Stories and personalities are an important part of management sims
With most sports franchise games it is difficult to connect to all of the players in the league - often there is little to distinguish players beside numbers and a few facial features. Fantasy races make for quicker connections and associations with the players, immediately giving them a bit more personality. Also, adding things like player death is more fitting in a cartoon fantasy setting. This also makes it easier to let go of American football conventions allowing for more rule innovations. The driving goal of this game is for the off-season and game play to foster stories and memories. Coupled with internally consistent stats and recording of major events each league should generate an interesting history.
Example stories shared by beta testers:
"Had a funny moment in a game earlier, in a blood thirsty sort of a way. One of my players killed an opponent who had previously spent multiple All-Pro seasons with my club before parting ways with us in the previous off-season. A pretty brutal way to treat a former team mate who left in free agency!"
"The Championship game was 4-4 after 100 plays and it was WILD! Four of my starters were injured including the league MVP. I had a little goblin come off the bench who hadn't played a down all year, only for him to spark the winning touchdown drive. We scored the walk-off title clinching TD 20 plays deep in OT"
"I'm currently in the midst of a truly brutal season! We're 1-5 having made it to the championship game last season and have lost to four teams with a worse overall rating. I've had three starters killed including my star player, a two time league MVP. I'm looking forward to a very high draft pick and a lower team salary at least!"
DLC & expansions
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
This game is too confusing and sloppily made! I mean at least make it to where you can see easily who plays what position! Every football game needs to have the BASICS done first before all the excess BS! Would be ok if it was done properly!1 found this helpful
Better than Madden. 7/10. For a free game. This is a very, very good game. With surprising amounts of depth and customization. However. There are some issues. So bad first, then we do wutz gud. Tooltips: Suck. No info. You have to put things together with intensive amounts of pattern recognition. Hands tells you it impacts fumble chance. I had a guy with 90 hands fumble 8 times on 80 carries. Okay. The tooltips say that the Pass stat determines catches in traffic. My guy with 108 pass and 90 hands gets mossed 50% of the time by players with 67 hands and 43 pass. Okay. My other cover with 83 Strength gets stiff-armed at the line every other play by a halfling with 34 strength... Okay? And it isn't dodge that counters stiff-arm either cus my cover with 90 hands has 73 dodge and he still gets cooked. And Press coverage "has a buffed catch chance"... No. It doesn't. But the Buff the gunners get to stiff arm and juke... That is very, very real. And even tooltips you think are good, lie to you. For example. A sub race says it increases the players strength score. BUT in reality it doesn't do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I created a 24 team league of all Dwarves. And the Brass dwarf made up around 8%…1 found this helpful
Legendary game!1 found this helpful
Positions are confusing, not sure why teams are so large if players play both off and def, my best player got locked on the bench for the playoffs and our team lost to an 0-14 team. Overall a good concept, especially the addition of a relegation system, but either the game is buggy or just too confusing for initial understanding.
I randomly found this game, decided to try it out as I love the idea of Blood Bowl but haven't loved the PC versions. I'm also a huge fan of Crush! Deluxe and wish somebody would recreate it. Having a fantasy sport simulation like this is a bit of a dream come true. I've played 3 seasons in 3 days, and I don't see myself slowing down. The game is a bit overwhelming at first, but after a few games I understood enough to feel like I knew what was happening. I fell in love with several of my players. Iluz, the Drow? He is the best Gunner (receiver) the game has ever seen. He'd average 4 touchdowns a game, and was MVP for two seasons. That third season, though? His last before forced retirement? He died. And I was relegated (which is an optional setting). Now I'm on the road to get back to the top league, and I'm going to kill Quintus, the player who killed my beloved Iluz (and was MVP the year Iluz died).
It seems fine, but the inability to initiate trades and the requirement for you to actually watch literally every game, even the ones not in your conference or with your team involved make this a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grind. 3/10
Community reviews
—
0 reviews
Sign in to write a review.
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this game.
