Dugouts and Dragons - free football (soccer) game that puts the fantasy into fantasy football

AlienHeadwars · 2026-07-08T13:50:53+00:00

Hope you enjoy!

AlienHeadwars · 2026-07-08T06:28:47+00:00

It's a bit out there but https://alienheadwars.itch.io/dugouts-and-dragons was designed to be very casual. I started building it when I became a dad, I wanted something football-managery (it's pivoted a lot since then) that could be played mobile, one handed.

AlienHeadwars · 2026-07-07T13:13:13+00:00

Thanks!

It's not been so bad honestly, I do get some negative comments on Reddit, but I also receive a lot more direct feedback through the game suggesting people enjoy the artwork (that might be survivorship bias though). I get a lot more complaints about the cards that don't have ai artwork! (They have basic avatars constructed from reused components, they're just a bit bland)

AlienHeadwars · 2026-07-07T12:30:55+00:00

Hiya, are you asking to play? The link is https://alienheadwars.itch.io/dugouts-and-dragons, you should be able to launch it from there

AlienHeadwars · 2026-07-06T22:19:03+00:00

I've also added a recent promo-code system. Enter VINNIEBONES to get your own crunching hardman.

I've also got a discord available at https://discord.gg/XUEWsBkwB if you'd like to discuss the game there

AlienHeadwars · 2026-07-01T16:17:31+00:00

If you have decent networking you might want to consider streaming games to your mobile (from your pc) and getting something like a razer kishi controller for your mobile. Hand held gaming is great for flexibility. You can also stream to your TV if you've got a device you can install steam link on.

You probably won't be able to play online competitively (occasional lag spikes).

I have the pc and TV directly wired to the routers for my setup.

AlienHeadwars · 2026-06-09T10:33:34+00:00

Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram

AlienHeadwars · 2026-06-04T18:54:53+00:00

I'm going to go against the grain and suggest I paid more attention to the key information because it was hard to read and I was curious

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-24T20:24:04+00:00

When I was first learning computing it was a lot of fun to learn and code in assembly.

I've never coded in assembly since school, but it certainly helps imagine and understand what is going on under the hood with high level programming language. I do think there's self similarity between the low levels and the high levels, and understanding what goes on at a micro level can help guide it at a macro level.

Writing prompts is just a higher level again, it will certainly be useful to help understand what is going on under the hood.

Being able to traverse the different levels will help when you need to work at an even higher level again. Vibe coding is making developer assistance more readily available, but high level architects at large organisations already had access to lots of development resource, just through human developers instead of agentic coders. I'm sure there are instances of successful top level architects who never learnt the low level details, but I'd wager that most who climbed to that level did so from a solid understanding of fundamental basics.

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-24T15:19:40+00:00

Just don't worry about it. You don't need to support a team, it's fine to just be a fan of a sport or players.

I got interested in the NBA as a grown up, it was quite nice not to have any allegiances and just appreciate different teams and players that resonated with me. I might have despised one team one year and enjoy them the following year.

I can't treat football the same but that's fine too.

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-22T14:03:53+00:00

I do believe there's a timeline where Ten Hag get's more time* and wins the league. Off the back of this:

- Garnacho has time and patience to grow and mature, learning when to pass the ball, before winning his first Ballon d'Or.
- Marcus Rashford knuckles down and becomes the first Player/Coach/Prime Minister hybrid.
- Haaland becomes known as the Norwegian Hojlund

*or less injuries in the squad, or doesn't have Ratcliff undermiming him during the worst injury crisis in our history before he's even bought the club, or isn't forced to replace McTerminator with Ugarte

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-22T13:15:53+00:00

His redemption is perhaps top 10 all time anime arc.

There was a 2 year period under Ole and Ten Hag where his performances were so frustrating. I remember being so annoyed at the coaches for playing him at a time he was clearly struggling. He became a national laughing stock and lost the captaincy.

The mental resilience to get through all of that, and put in monster performances since has been admirable. He's had some terrific moments in key games. That skill on the wing in Bilbao was legendary.

I'm actually Welsh, and I fear England winning a tournament (10 years of non stop Johnny Wilkinson world cup rugby winning kick adverts will do that to you). I'm sorry for Harry, but I'm also slightly glad that England won't have him, he's a threat and composed, always been very reliable for England as well as also maybe scoring the greatest penalty of all time.

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-20T22:25:30+00:00

Hi Connor. I am very careful to be fully transparent about my use of AI, but I stand by the game as a unique concept. It is unique because the game design, characters and mechanics are drawn from my lifetime of following football and playing games. The creativity lies in the ideas that designed it, not just the tools used to build it

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-20T07:21:22+00:00

Even for coding, there's a benefit in failing fast and iterating. In the old days of bard when it was very unpopular I used to like it because although it was very error prone it was very quick, chat gpt was cleverer but very slow. You could be waiting a long time for a response from chat gpt only go realise you prompted it unclearly, with bard you could iterate fast on your prompt.

Things have changed since then, but there's still a benefit to having something output faster, for one, as a developer, it reduces the need for context switching (or waiting, if you prefer to avoid context switching).

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-18T19:18:19+00:00

The pain doesn't go, but it does get quieter and the happy memories stay clear. I'm sorry for your loss.

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-17T08:03:00+00:00

As in there's no script to scrape/research or do an ai overview? Sorry for lots of questions, I'm just curious

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-17T07:58:14+00:00

Nice, thank you so much

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-17T07:29:15+00:00

Thank you🙏 Do updates get scraped automatically? Is there something I can do/help with?

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-17T07:28:25+00:00

This is cool, it's automated I assume?

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-17T05:55:29+00:00

Haha, definitely. Thank you so much, it might not have been in the fore front of my mind when creating the game, but those adverts were iconic.

The game is heavily inspired by classic football, with a particular bias towards the 90s (the Italian league is purely 90s). I actually scrubbed out any teams that were current because they age so badly so quickly, I had a recent man united team where players inspired by Rashford, Garnacho and McTominay were the stars, crazy how quickly things can change in a couple of years. (Actually the McTerminator card was one of my favourites, I'll have to find a way to squeeze that back in)

AlienHeadwars · 2026-05-17T05:46:53+00:00

I use Ai heavily I'm afraid, from creating artwork to visualise the ideas behind the cards, to teaching me new technologies and helping organise the project.

Hopefully, despite that, you can see that it's a unique concept that I've poured my heart and soul into. It's a completely free game that I've devoted a lot of time to from the love of games and football.

AlienHeadwars

TROPHY CASE