I released now 12 monthly devlogs since August 2025 blog on 99managers.org/blog but from now on, I'll post them also here on Steam.
From the surface July seems very calm, with only two versions released. But behind the scenes a lot happened, especially the project got the very first code contribution. The game itself was improved a lot regarding the player transfer functionality.
Here the full changelogs and some more information for every version released this month.
v0.8.3 Transfers updates and financial graphs
v0.8.4 New continue button and bugs fixed
Note: I just realized this is devlog number 12, with the first one dating back to August 2025. Happy birthday to this devlog :-)
Oh and talking about birthdays, the game itself got 6 years old on July 11.
Here the very first commit from 2020!
commit dd7d5a9abdf6e61610bcb6f22eddb306c01f0bc7
Author: Simon Dalvai
Date: Sat Jul 11 2020 +0200
initial commit
Today I count 5,279 commits, wow...
First code contributor
Since July the project got also the very first code contributor! Novarama created this nice looking graph to show how the balance evolves over the weeks.
They also implemented the release fee logic, when a player is released. Now that can longer be done for free, but the remaining salary has to be payed to the player.
It makes me really happy to see other developers reading and understating my code. Alongside the over 60 translation contributors that are actively translating the game. I hope more contributors will join in future too, making it a community developed project :-) Thanks a lot to all the contributors <3
New transfer features
Now a dedicated transfer list exist, where the user can set the transfer state for own players. This makes it easier to sell players or define that a player should not get any offers. It is also possible to loan players now and everything can be set in the new transfer list view.
Team roles where also introduced, defining what role a player will have in a team. The current roles are key player, rotation player, reserve, future star and youth player. The team role affects now player morale and also influences transfer and contract negotiations.
30k downloads from Google Play Store
The game was now downloaded over 30.000 times around the world from the Google Play Store! This makes me really happy and also gives me and my games lots of visibility. This is the first time a piece of software written by me got so many users. And this in only 4 months since release on the Google Play Store.
For me it is obvious, but many friends often ask me how much I earn with this downloads. The answer is very simple: Nothing!
Google does not pay anything (just like all other platforms) just for downloads. Apps need to be monetized by the developer, trough ads, micro-transaction or by making it paid.
Personally my goal is to make free and open source games, without any tracking or ads. Therefore for me this is a form of free marketing by making my game visible around the whole world. Maybe one day it will even be possible to buy the game or a special "donation" version on mobile. Until then to support me, the game can be bought on Steam.
F-Droid reproducible Godot updates work
Last month the game was finally released to F-Droid as the very first Godot reproducible build. I was very happy about that, but there was still some fear, that there might be issues with updates. Today I can happily confirm, that the F-Droid pipeline works perfectly, with two updates released. Everything is reproducible and there was no manual intervention or fix needed.
Yesterday I updated the Godot to v4.7.1 and that means I had to manually update the build recipe. Even here, everything is still reproducible and built correctly :-) I just had to change the Godot source code commit hash to the desired version on both sides. With both sides I mean my build Dockerfile and the F-Droid build recipe.
Plan for the next 3 months
The first basic features complete version v1.0 is planned for November this year. That leaves only 3 months to add the last missing pieces
National teams
Player training
Club board, that defines season goals and can hire and fire managers
Player injuries
Yellow and red cards
I really hope that these features will be added to the game by October, to have time for testing. v1.0 will be a stable game, therefore it is important to keep some spare time for bug fixes.
Once v1.0 is out, the game will continue to be developed of course. This kind of games have lots of room for improvement and more details. Therefore there will many more features and version follow after v1.0. And some other sport management games of the 99Managers series will be announced very soon. The only thing is that by January, I might need to work part time again, to earn a living. Except the game becomes suddenly a financial success, there's still some time for that... ;-)