The Kick Off franchise is a series of football simulation video games, In 1988 Dino Dini was hired to code a top down football game from a Steve Screech idea. in 1989 Kick Off was then published by Anil Gupta's publishing house Anco Software for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. The original version was programmed by Dino Dini with graphics, playtesting and tuning by Steve Screech. First released in 1989, Kick Off was well-received and won awards. After the release of Kick Off several sequels were released. Player Manager was released in 1990. The game was the first game to combine a management environment (including tactics, league play, transfers, and detailed player attributes) with a football game engine (based on that of Kick Off). Kick Off 2 was released in 1990 as a sequel to Kick Off. The game introduced a number of new features as well as several small alterations. In 1992, Dino Dini left Anco and signed a contract for Virgin Games, which released Goal! in 1993. Anco released several further editions of the Kick Off series between 1994 and 1997, but these games had little in common with Kick Off and Kick Off 2. In 2001–2003, the KOA collaborated closely with Anco developer Steve Screech in an attempt to relaunch the Kick Off and Player Manager series. Kick Off 2002 was released. Anco started to work on another sequel Kick Off 2004 which reached beta status. The attempt came to a halt when Anco closed in 2003. History Kick Off was released in 1989. Kick Off was first developed for the Atari ST and then ported to the Amiga. Several expansion disks were released for Kick Off 2. In 1992, Dino Dini left Anco and signed a contract for Virgin Games, which released Goal! in 1993. Anco released Kick Off 3 in 1994. The game used a side view instead of a top-down view and bore little resemblance to Kick Off 2 apart from the name. Anco Software published the first versions of Kick Off for the Amiga and Atari ST. Gameplay With Kick Off the ball did not stick to the player's feet but instead was realistically kicked ahead from the players, in a manner similar to that of Nintendo's Soccer, released in 1985 on the NES. This added a degree of difficulty and skill requirement at the same time. Other attributes, such as action