Retro Football

Six-a-side American football in chunky pixel art: pick one of four cards before every snap, call the blitz, and chase the Retro Cup over 17 weeks.

🏈 Retro Football: Four Cards, Seven Minutes, One Trophy

Retro Football shrinks American football down to something you can finish over a coffee. Six players a side instead of eleven, chunky HD pixel art, matches that last about seven minutes. What makes it feel different from a straight arcade conversion is the card layer: before every snap you choose from four options, and the play unfolds from that choice rather than from your reflexes alone.

🃏 The Snap Starts With a Decision

On offense the four cards are drawn from run plays, thirteen passing plays, the team's signature play and bonus plays you unlock as you win. Near a first down or the goal line two of the four become runs, which forces a decision about whether to pound it or throw. On fourth down, or inside the last twenty seconds of a half, the fourth card turns into a field goal or a punt instead.

On defense you get four schemes out of a set of eight — zone, man-to-man, an all-out blitz and the rest. Then you take control of one defender and try to make the call pay off.

🎮 The Ball in Your Hands

Once the snap is live, holding Up or Down walks your target between receivers, and an arrow shows who the throw will go to. Open receivers give you room to run after the catch; a lane in the middle invites a scramble. Running backs can hurdle a diving tackler with the action key, which is the most satisfying single button in the game and also the riskiest.

On defense the same key becomes a tackle or a dive at the quarterback. Get home and it counts as a sack.

🏆 Thirty-Two Teams, Seventeen Weeks, Eight Playoff Spots

A season runs seventeen regular-season weeks, then an eight-team playoff: win the division, take the semifinal, play for the Retro Cup. Each of the 32 teams carries its own ratings, its own star players and a different signature play, and every three victories hands you a choice of a new team or a new bonus play. Quick Play skips all of it for a single match.

🎮 Controls

Two-player on one keyboard: left side is WASD plus G, right side is the arrows plus L.

💡 How to Win More Than You Lose

• Change the call pattern. Running and passing the same way every series lets the defense guess.
• Read the defense before the snap. If the corners are tight, the underneath route is usually there.
• Take the short completion. A contested deep throw is how drives die.
• Kick when it is fourth and long. The card is offered for a reason.
• Run the clock when you lead. Wasting a play is cheaper than a turnover.