(This is a mirror of "A Sportslike Manifesto" on our website, where it has a cooler background.)
This is our game design manifesto arguing that traditional sports games ignore too many aspects of sports, and thus, have stagnated and offer little to gamers today. One way to make better, fresher, newer sports games is to coin a new genre with new expectations and norms - and maybe this genre could be called "sportslikes."
THE SPORTS GAME -can’t- think about sports.
THE SPORTS GAME IS TOO BUSY. Everyone expects franchise-career modes, motion captured stadiums, sweaty grass physics, and the latest microtransactions.
It’s so busy becoming a sport, it can’t think about the people in sports:
- The Sports Game ignores our everyday experiences of sports. The Sports Game doesn’t take kids to practice, laugh at memes in the group chat, or scream at the TV.
- The Sports Game flattens athletes into pawns with no lives. The Sports Game can’t prank teammates on the bus, struggle to fall asleep before a match, or tie shoes five times for good luck.
- The Sports Game pretends society doesn’t influence sports. The Sports Game will never address sports betting or steroids - powerful forces shaping every pro league today.
But sports are made of people! If you can’t think about people, then you can’t think about sports.
To think about sports and sportspeople, we must think outside the genre.
THE SPORTSLIKE -can- think about sports.
- The Sportslike is much like a Sports Game.
- However, The Sportslike is not a Sports Game.
- Because it’s not a Sports Game, The Sportslike can think about sports and sportspeople.
How to think about sports with SPORTSLIKES
- Think about sports books, shows, or movies. Imagine a game about a high school football coach trying to do the right thing, or a clueless tourist coaching a pro soccer team.
- Think about athletes. Envision a game about a breakdancing professor, overly-endowed gymnast, or teenage darts prodigy who’s never needed a fake ID.
- Think about local sports. Picture a game about little league, pickleball, or retiree bocce ball.
- Think about sports news or history. Visualize a game about a basketball superstar trying to fall asleep after getting traded with no warning.
- Think about people who work in sports. What if we had games about cleaning stadium urinals or throwing hot dogs?
- Think about sports. Sports aren’t just entertainment products to consume – sports are also what we do every day, everywhere.
It’s most obvious when a game thinks via in-game text / audio / visuals, but it is also possible for a game to think via its controls, systems, or community.
You don’t have to recreate an entire sport. Only make what you need to think. Sometimes what you need is none. Or sometimes you need a whole new sport.
Where to find SPORTSLIKES
We wrote A Sportslike Manifesto to crystalize our thinking for our upcoming game Tryhard, “a sports RPG about managing an underdog rugby club in New Zealand.”
But a sportslike is just any game that thinks about sports and sportspeople.
Here’s some other games that could be considered sportslikes:
- Backyard Baseball (1997) is a game about children playing baseball.
- Golf Story (2017) is “the story of a golfer, forced to give up all that he holds dear for one final shot at accomplishing his dream.”
- Blaseball (2020-2023) was “a baseball simulation horror game” about sports betting taken to its logical conclusions. It was great.
- Roller Drama (2023) is “a narrative and a strategic real-time sports game about five girls playing roller derby in an oppressive and surveillance-based society.”
- Sudden Death (2024) is a “romantic sports fiction” visual novel about a renegade Australian Rules Football club in a speculative future league.
- Beastieball (2024) is “a turn-based volleyball RPG where you coach a sports team of Beasties” - ok technically not people… or are they??
- Despelote (2025) is “a slice-of-life adventure about childhood and the magical grip soccer held over the people of Quito, Ecuador in 2001.”
Thank you for supporting new approaches to sports game design; thank you for supporting sportslikes.