Greetings, We are very grateful for your patience and loyalty to Sociable Soccer and wanted to explain to you the current state of play and our apparent silence in recent months. Our new deal with China Mobile may have come to your attention, this is a great way for us to launch the game on mobile in Asia and also provides us with much needed funds that we have not had at any time in the 3 years we have been developing the game.

From a Steam perspective the next big step is the online and squad building component of the game and this needed more investment than we have got from the sales so far, thankfully once we complete the mobile version for CrazySports/China Mobile we will have a lot of the online and squad building elements in place and completion of these elements for the Steam version should be a lot more straightforward, also hopefully by then we will know more details regarding how and when we are going to publish the Steam update and you will be the first to know.

As you have already purchased the Steam Early Access version of this game then you are one of our die hard fans and we owe you one, try to keep your skills sharp by playing PvP on the same machine, at some point this game will be going live and you had better be ready!!!

Hi guys!

We’ve been talking about the online version for quite a while now, at the same time we have been doing new builds for Android and iOS. They were shown at the Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco this week.

We’ve told you before, this year’s work has partly been focused around refactoring code to make it easier to do changes to the engine. We’re getting where we want but the progress is painfully slow as some of you already pointed out. The version we are showing at the GDC contains the following elements.

Things that are in the GDC version and that hopefully will be in the next Steam Early Access update.
– Online will be available in an early non-optimized version where proximity (closeness to your opponent) will be the biggest decisive factor to how well it works. At this stage you will only be able to invite Steam friends as we want people to have the best matches possible with a minimum of delay. We’ll have a thread where people can write if they are up for a match and also our chat channel on Discord will be used to pair users.
– Tactics have been redone so that you can compare player stats in your squad and decide who is better suited to play. There will also be some other options that will be blacked out for now but you’ll get a hint of what is to come.
– Referee on screen to show yellow and red cards.
– Many technical fixes that gave users a game that froze.

Things we are working on for the next Steam Early Access update.
– Zoomed out camera. This was one of the most requested things after the last patch. You guys wanted a camera that didn’t move that much. We hope to please you.
– Various graphical design updates.
– Control Screen will be updated after making the hoof button unable to perform a tackle in the December update.
– Manager mode. In addition to playing the games you can now just watch the AI play vs itself with your tactical choices. (not sure this one will make it into the update, but it’s coming)

Currently we are also making new animations for the engine. Our latest crew member Steven has started with goalie animations. The goalkeepers you see in the game right now have 6 animations, and when we are finished they’ll have 29. All in all 133 animations are planned to be added in all aspects of gameplay. It will be a step by step procedure just like everything else. When we have something to announce about Steven’s work we’ll let you know.

Stay Sociable everyone and let’s enjoy spring, football, and more updates!

Thoughts? Comment below!

Hi guys,

We are working on the online tech for the game right now. Menus, matchmaking, and a lot of integrating of things into the engine. Adding online will of course be huge for the game and eventually you’ll be able to play it in friendlies, DIY for up to 8 players, and in the build your team mode.

- We’ve also added many new haircuts for the players.
- We’ve worked on staff you can add to your management team in the build your team mode.
- We are discussing if we should have some sort of stamina, so that people can’t over exploit certain players.

Let us know what you think!

Stay Sociable!
Cheers! 👊

Hi guys!

Right now we're refactoring our code and this will give us greater control over things like:
* game cameras
* calling up menu items during the game (for things like substitution menus)
* game statistics
* the main card collecting game mode
*AND after this Online play

As usual we will do things in steps and we'll hopefully have some news to share about the features at the end of January.

We'd also like to thank our fans that helped us become the 3rd most trending football game on Steam during the holidays after PES and Football Manager. We are really enjoying your support and feedback and we hope you will help us continue to grow.

Thanks and stay Sociable!
#sociablefist 👊

Our holiday reduction ends at 7 PM CET and the price reverts back from €14.99 to €19.99. So if you are looking forward to online, build your team, DIY mode etc. Then why not pick it up already and follow development? The team is gathering again on the 8th of January and we hope to give you some nice updates on the game as we continue development. Cheers!

#Sociablefist

Let's look forward to big changes on the pitch for 2018 including online multiplayer. The game will be on sale for a limited time during the holidays.

Thanks for all of your support!

Hey Hey!

This is your community manager (Gustav) back to give you some excellent news. We've been kind of sick here, sick from working so hard on updating this game... Our lead programmer managed to click the upload button on this patch a few days ago before going into a heavy feverish state + sleep. Therefore no list of what has been done, but expect that to be up in a few days.

My general knowledge of what has been changed is:

- Player selection has been improved, particularly in defense. It is now easier to get the player you want when defending.

- Graphics have been improved, everything now looks a bit sharper, crowds are better and we added pitch textures and made things a bit brighter. Try with the button T in-game to see some changes.

- Huge database update from last patch.
60 new clubs added
3,600 new players added
8,600 players transferred
30,000 players revised

Please discuss the database update here
http://steamcommunity.com/app/636690/discussions/0/1500126447387784461/

Thanks for all your support and keep sharing our posts. We are moving in a very very sweet direction! Cheers!

They tried to stop me... they said there are still things to fix, features to add, but I wanted you to have this update. Today. Even if our Community Manager murders me twice. (He'll see this post in a few hours.)

The change list is immense - I don't expect anyone to actually read through this one in depth - but the key thing you should know is that two of the biggest sticking points, AI and goalkeepers, are much better than at launch. Players have physical bodies that deflect balls, player selection is much improved, crashes reduced... but look out for the Robot Overlords. Flip the switch in the Options menu only if feeling adventurous, or in need of a real challenge.

Note: if you have problems, experience crashes or hangs, please let us know in the forums, and share your log text and savefiles with us if you can.

- fixed: camera now defaults to the mode previous match was played with
- fixed: much improved player selection, especially in edge cases
- fixed: AI now plays a much stronger game than before
- fixed: AI scaling in Boss Mode matches adjusted
- fixed: critical bug causing fouls to hang the match at 45 and 90 minute mark
- fixed: reduced shadow acne on players in advanced lighting mode
- fixed: physics cleaned up, resulting in more consistent ball movement and bounces
- fixed: ball bouncing off posts and bar improved
- fixed: goalkeepers have proper response times graded by goal keeper level
- fixed: goalkeepers deflect the ball more towards sides of the goal
- fixed: penalty shoot-out should be mostly playable (work in progress)
- fixed: toggling Performance Info now displays a small FPS counter
- fixed: few missing colours (turquoise, teal, neon) were added to player kits
- fixed: some kit colours corrected
- fixed: kit clashing issues fixed, properly falls back into emergency kits
- fixed: restart match -button no longer available in Boss Mode
- fixed: audio no longer stops when quitting game from the pause menu
- fixed: display of goals now combined properly on HUD
- fixed: on-screen boxes for match progression corrected
- fixed: animation smoothing and improvements (work in progress)
- added: players now have physical bodies that deflect the ball
- added: game options setting for Robot Overlords?
- added: emergency kits (white, black and neon) added
- added: more player hair styles and colours
- added: tactics selected before match now persist to new matches in boss mode
- added: tactics and player swaps persist in save file
- added: safer saving and loading of game saves, complete with backups
- added: tactics work on friendly competitions
- added: multiple Boss Mode tournaments can now be in progress at the same times
- added: messaging to clarify when progress is saved during Boss Mode
- added: input guidance with platform-specific button info
- added: pre-match and intermission animations can be skipped with the hoof button
- added: replay can be skipped if in single player game or the goalscorer in two-player
- changed: smarter aiming controls especially when ball held by opponent
- changed: improved slide tackle and header targeting
- changed: hoof button no longer does anything during setpieces making it safe for skip
- changed: off-ball, hoof button triggers only headers for safe clearance
- changed: menu visuals and descriptions on all world mode buttons improved
- changed: card player pose templates expanded and enhanced
- changed: updated Rewired plugin to latest version (1.1.7.8) for controller support fixes
- changed: balanced boss mode token and checkpoint distribution
- changed: improved keyboard controls by balancing falloff / inertia
- changed: goal models improved, props added
- changed: in-game stadium visuals improved, now have banners in team colours
- changed: balanced kick, pass, slide tackle and header powers better
- changed: improved messaging by chairman & on-screen dialog boxes
- changed: much improved player card layout and visual clarity
- changed: improved tactics screen and functionality
- changed: new, improved ball texture
- changed: improved group qualification in competitions
- changed: potentially personal system information hidden until button clicked in menu
- various internal bug fixes and optimizations

Known issues:
- some crashes and instability is possible, we're hunting the issues down
- some controllers still have problems, full key and button remapping coming soon
- penalty shootout presentation still very incomplete
- injuries, suspensions and substitutions not implemented
- periods end too soon when setpieces should happen instead
- player walls on free kicks, offsides rule missing
- online multiplayer functionality not yet available
- effects volume and music volume settings have some issues
- settings menu doesn't respect controller input
- support for multiple displays, high framerates, HDR and 4K work in progress
- no loot boxes?!

Alright, time to go back into hiding and press Send before they fi

He shoots...
HE SCORES!
YOU BEAAAAUTY!

How do you think Sociable Soccer would stand out if it had "Scary as F***" instead of "Fast as F***"?

What a fantastic community we have this early on! There are already some people making themselves a name. Check out user Monkeydebris scoring headers in the video: Tibet - the Best a Man Can Get. He got challenged to achieve that with Tibet and did. Amazing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1QRUDFk1uM
There are so many other fans to mention, like the guys on the forums, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram and on and on.. Just doing a search on Sociable Soccer on Youtube brings up a lot of videos that would make any Community Manager happy in this early phase. Cheers to all your videos guys, and continue scoring while it's still easy 😉 I'd like to see more goals where it hits the post or bar and then enters the goal. Can you do that? Let's call it the post or bar challenge.

If you are a perfectionist when it comes to playing the beautiful game - why not take Game Designer Jon Hare's advice in this Redbull article: 7 Sociable Soccer tips to guide you to victory. That will get you up to date on most of the sociable skills needed to succeed.

If we look back at the first 4 days after the release our target was mostly to eradicate tech problems that made the game crash, we've managed that well with the first patches released. If you still get a crash, please report it in the crash thread.

We now have new priorities to work on related to the feedback and our own knowledge, which are mainly tied to the goalkeepers and the general AI. This updating process will be done in steps to achieve the vision we have for the full version.  Don't expect it all to be done in one sitting, but expect progress in the next patch.

Thanks for your support so far and let's continue together - step by step - towards a game that will give you the best of football in 3 min halves.

#Sociablefist 👊
#TheBestofFootball/

The Sociable Team

Your Community Manager is back at his desk. Doing what he loves most (getting a bad neck). I had to lock in our lead programmer and force him to do more work at the end of this weekend. It paid off. Have a look.

Changed in this patch:
- Added: Long sleeves for goalkeepers - winter is coming
- Added: Keyboard now assignable as a controller for player (can play controller vs. keyboard for a real handicap)
- Added: Keyboard and 8-directional digital control directions are properly smoothed
- Added: 8-directional arcade controllers & retro joysticks can be used through JoyToKey or similar (details in forums)
- Added: Joystick rumble support
- Added: Option menu toggle for disabling joystick rumble
- Fixed: Directional pad works in menus for all controllers
- Fixed: Ball momentum no longer lost when deflected from post/bar collision
- Fixed: Ball no longer gets stuck on top of goal bar (sorry, tricksters)
- Fixed: Sprint no longer lasts forever (sorry, speed freaks)

#sociablefist ːsteamhappyː

/The Sociable Soccer Team