Natural Soccer is a highly playable arcade soccer game with fast-paced action, accurate physics and intuitive controls.
Play it on Microsoft WindowsTM, Android, iPhone/iPad, or the OUYA console!
If you are a fan of classics like Kick Off, Sensible Soccer, Mircroprose Soccer, Goal! or Tekhan World Cup, Natural Soccer is for you!
I, for my part, did love those games back in the days and always dreamt about bringing back the same feeling and fun to modern platforms. That is why I created Natural Soccer!
Natural Soccer is created from the ground up to be as playable and fun as possible - just like Kick Off, Sensible Soccer and all the other classics. I try to pick out all the strengths and great features of those classics and add and improve those which simply were not possible on the Amiga - like multiple buttons or true color graphics.
I will never hesitate to admit that both "Kick Off 2" - created by Dino Dini & Steve Screech - and "Sensible Soccer" - created by Sensible Software - are great sources of inspiration for me as I loved those games back in the Nineties. Actually, during the creation of Natural Soccer my respect & admiration for Dino Dini and Sensible Software grew even more as I recognised what they were capable of creating with yesteryear's hard- and software!
So what were the most remarkable features I recreated and how did I improve them?
Those are the heart and soul of any soccer game.
Kick Off was the first game I played that offered the "free ball" feature that never got the ball "glued" to player's feet. It is, in my opinion, together with the high pace, the essential part of Dini Dino's masterpiece. (Sensible Soccer comes second here.)
So, from the very beginning of the creation of Natural Soccer, it was essential to me to have the same "free ball" feeling and never ever glue the ball to anything.
I actually began the development process with programming the ball physics and spend a great deal of development time solely on implementing accurate and fun ball physics with everything that's important:
I am very proud of Natural Soccer's ball physics and - in all modesty - claim that it is better than that of both Kick Off and Sensible Soccer. It just feels very natural (hence the name) and does not suffer from glitches with collision detection as Kick Off's sometimes did.
Although I preferred Kick Off over Sensible Soccer, I can understand people who just hated Kick Off and much preferred Sensible Soccer's decreased speed and easier dribbling. So with Natural Soccer, I tried to recreate Kick Off's dribbling but added a more natural touch to it by introducing a little assistence in dribbling. Together with the - compared to Kick Off - slightly reduced pace, it just feels great and very playable. Actually I'm taking a great deal of time just to very fine-tune this. I also consider to add the option to Natural Soccer to let player's choose between several dribbling styles (close to Kick Off, close to Sensible Soccer, natural, ...) and game speeds.
It still amazes me how both Kick Off and Sensible Soccer could create such versatile controls with just a single fire button - and how today's soccer simulations manage to overwhelm average players by using eight or even more buttons in all kinds of combinations...
It was very clear to me that Natural Soccer will only use two buttons for most of the actions. One button proved to be just a bit to limiting. In Kick Off, for example, it could happen you triggered a sliding tackle although you pressed the button to actually trap the ball. So, in Natural Soccer there are "just enough" buttons to avoid those problems and keep the controls simple and intuitive.
Back in the days, joysticks only allowed for eight different directions. This kind of limited the game play quite a bit and I am happy that today's controllers offer "360 degrees of freedom" - a fact Natural Soccer makes great use of and that really improves upon the classics.
Actually, I won't ever compare Natural Soccer to those for several reasons. First and foremost, they are two different genres. Natural Soccer is an arcade soccer game that sacrifices realism for maximum fun and great gameplay, while both FIFA and PES are (awesome!) soccer simulations trying to be as realistic as possible. I personally really like both of them very much - but they are just very different from what I am trying to create with Natural Soccer.
In Natural Soccer, the pace of the game is just a bit higher than it would be in real life - for the purpose of being more fun and more exciting. You can shoot "banana shots" which are just not real - again just for the purpose to bring as much fun and excitement as possible.
FIFA's and PES' approach on the other hand leads to - very impressive - simulations of the real world sport. But this also means to sacrifice playability from time to time. For example, in both FIFA and PES you hold down the shoot button to shoot and after releasing it have to wait a bit for the shoot animation to be fully played before the shot acutally takes place. This leads to a very realistic motion but just does not feel as "natural" as it does in Natural Soccer - you touch the shot button and the shot is taken immediately.
So please don't hesitate and visit Natural Soccer's Google+ page and tell us what you think!
Enjoy Natural Soccer!
~ Thorsten Schleinzer