Fix Stories: Football Meets Yu-Gi-Oh in Football Duel

When Red Cards Become Traps and VAR Can Change the Match

The developer behind Football Duel shares how childhood interests in football and card games led to a free browser title built with JavaScript.

For Fix Stories, the developer explains the game’s seeded match simulation, computer-controlled opponent, and lessons from early player feedback. Football Duel is free to play in a browser on itch.io or through its official website.

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Building Football Duel: From Football and Card Games to Code

Story by Helmiklai

Growing up, I spent hours playing Yu-Gi-Oh games like Power of Chaos and watching football. I always loved the strategic side of card games: anticipating your opponent’s moves, setting traps, managing resources, and finding the right moment to strike.

At some point, I started wondering: what if football worked the same way?

What if a Red Card could be a trap set face down? What if VAR could overturn a goal? What if choosing a stadium actually changed the pitch and influenced the match?

That idea eventually became Football Duel.

I decided to build it myself, from the ground up, using JavaScript, HTML and CSS, without relying on a traditional game engine. I wanted to create something that felt like a real strategic card game rather than simply putting football players on cards.

The project grew into a complete game with its own rules, cards, football mechanics, AI opponents and online multiplayer.

Football Duel combines player cards with referee tactics and special abilities.

One of the most interesting technical challenges was making the match engine deterministic using seeds. This allows me to reproduce matches exactly, test different scenarios and even run AI-versus-AI games to validate the game mechanics.

I also built the sound effects directly in the browser instead of relying on external audio files.

Another interesting experience was developing the AI opponent, called The Captain. I discovered that an AI playing instantly feels more like a computer than a human opponent. So I deliberately introduced thinking delays to make its decisions feel more natural. Surprisingly, this small detail changed how players experienced the game.

The Captain’s bench shows cards available to the game’s computer-controlled opponent.

But building the game wasn’t the hardest part.

Getting people to discover it, convincing gaming platforms of its quality, and navigating the rejection and review process were entirely different challenges. Some initial feedback and rejections made me question whether the game was ready for a wider audience.

Instead of giving up, I started looking at the experience from a player’s perspective: how quickly someone could understand the rules, how they experienced their first match, and what might make them leave before discovering the actual gameplay.

That pushed me to rethink the onboarding experience and make the first interactions more accessible, rather than overwhelming new players with explanations.

What started as a personal experiment gradually became a real multiplayer project, with players joining matches, competing against each other and sharing feedback. Seeing people genuinely enjoy something I had imagined and built alone has been one of the most rewarding parts of the journey.

I’m still working on improving the experience, refining the AI, balancing the cards and finding the right platforms to bring Football Duel to a larger audience.

For me, this project has been a reminder that you don’t necessarily need a big studio, a team or an expensive game engine to turn an idea into something people can actually play.

Sometimes, you just need an idea, curiosity, persistence and a lot of JavaScript.

Football Duel

Release: Available now

Genre: Card game / football strategy

Developer / Publisher: Helmiklai

Platforms: Web browser — Official game · itch.io

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