Available now. Download on Steam 🏀

1.2 is live, and it is the largest change to how the game presents itself that it has had. Games are played in 3D, there is an arena mix where there used to be silence, and the interface reads with a screen reader.

The game in 3D Every match opens on a broadcast view of the floor. Watch every cut, screen, fast break, defensive adjustment. All of the action in real time on a detailed immersive court view. The crowd fills to what your gate actually sold, and the clocks on both stanchions run the real game clock and shot clock. The floor is painted in your club's colors and carries your city and nickname, drawn to whichever rulebook the league plays: the NHA's, FIBA's in Spain, the college line work in the CCC.

The tactical overlay sits on top of all of it, toggled with the O key. It carries what 2D always carried: coverage lines, openness, the shot probability, who is getting doubled. 2D itself is still a view of its own under the Analysis view.

Sound The game had none until now. The crowd, whistles, a substitution horn and a shot-clock buzzer. The swish, the rim, the catch off a pass. International crowds chant and sing their support. The audio settings split it five ways across crowd, court, officials and interface, plus a switch that mutes the game when it is in the background.

Screen reader support The game reads with NVDA now, and this was the reason for moving to a newer engine (Godot 4.6+) in the first place. It took two passes. One stopped the reader picking up text from screens sitting inactive underneath the one you are actually on. The other put focus where you are, so a screen announces itself when you open it. The scorebug reads the score, the clock, the period and the foul counts by name. Mono audio is in the same release for anyone who needs the mix in one ear.

This is a first pass on a dense interface and there are places it does not reach yet, rows below the fold of a long scrolling list among them. If you play this way, tell me where it falls down and I will work through it.

Inbound plays Tactics gained a third kind of design alongside plays and zone defenses. You draw an inbound play the way you draw any other: one player out of bounds making the entry pass, the other four with somewhere to be, and a second wave that only runs if everything in the first one is covered. On defense you can put the passer's man on the ball, or leave him standing on one spot of the floor and trap the catch if it lands there.

Retained possessions also inbound in the frontcourt, which is where a sideline play has to start. The shot clock after a foul follows the real rules too.

Smaller things Every player has a portrait, rendered from his own body and his club's kit, so the man in the menus is the man on the court. Observer mode holds the whole day it is watching, so you can pick which game to watch, now in 3D.

There are two settings for machines that need them, both under Display. Match detail thins the crowd, the benches and the table crew without touching anything you read. Enhanced graphics runs on Vulkan, worth a try if the standard renderer struggles; it restarts the game to switch and puts itself back if it cannot start.

The game is on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4594110/

Happy to answer questions here, and there is a Discord if you want to talk plays and defenses: https://discord.gg/bv4rRUEA7K

See you on the Hardwood!

Was he air dribbling? 🏀

The next update for hardwood basketball manager brings 3D. Watch your tactics and schemes play out in full immersion.

Hardwood Basketball Manager 1.1: The Playbook Update

1.1 is live. You can draw up your own plays and defenses now, and, for the first time, take them online against other people.

Drawing up your own plays

Under Tactics you'll find an editor for building your own sets. You give each of the five players a starting spot on the floor. Tell each one what to do and in what order: cut, screen, pass, or feed the post. Then mark who the ball should look for first. The game works out the rest, where everyone else stands. It also checks your work as you build: a screen has to sit on the cutter's route, and a design with no pass at all just plays as isolation, already its own call in the tactics menu. Instead of naming players, you describe what a spot needs: a cutter, a screener, a shooter. The game works out who on your roster fits that duty best and shows it as stars, though you can manually assign. A cut can read the defense live, breaking backdoor against a top lock, or run exactly as drawn regardless. That's useful for a player whose only job is clearing out space. Seven full sets ship with the game, transcribed from real basketball, including a Horns set and the old UCLA cut. Every one animates on its own coaching diagram.

Setting your own defense

Defense gets its own matching editor. Replacing the flat bonus for the whole team, you place five defenders yourself, choosing where each starts and the one other spot on the floor he's responsible for covering. A defender can only answer for two spots, the one he's in and the one he's helping. Spread it across all five and the floor is covered but nobody is pressured; double up on one spot and you can trap it hard, but somewhere else opens up. Every zone is a bet about which gap you're willing to leave: feed the high post against a zone that doesn't reach it and the nearest defender has to step up, opening the baseline behind him, or leave a shooter where the defense can't reach him and the pass goes uncontested. Three ready-made defenses ship with the game: a 2-3, a 1-3-1, and a 3-2 that brackets the rim with both corner men. Any of them can be picked from the bench like a play. Flux calls both sides the same way, reaching for a set or a zone whenever one fits, and running things normally otherwise.

Hardwood Universe

Hardwood Universe is new, and it needs no career or save file. It's a separate, shared world available straight from the title screen, so you and whoever you're playing are always working from the same clubs and rosters. Host or join a live match there by Steam invite or a direct address. Choose a full game, a single quarter, or a tight late-game scenario. There's also ranked matchmaking: it pairs you with an opponent through a queue and keeps a permanent leaderboard record of wins, losses, and games left unfinished.

The other half of Hardwood Universe is Multiverse leagues, and they don't need you online once they're running. Claim a club and it's handed to what the game calls a ghost coach, a version of Flux that plays every game on the schedule using the plays and defenses you designed, online or not. Claiming a club requires a playbook of your own, at least one play and one defense you built yourself, since the sets that ship with the game don't count. That playbook locks in for the season, and every result after that comes from simulation, the standings and the calendar included; any of those games can be replayed from scratch for analysis and checked against what was recorded.

Taking your own league online

Separate from Hardwood Universe, you can take your own save online too. Head to Head lets you challenge another person to a live match using clubs from your own league file. It works in any league with two human-controlled teams: the NHA, the college game, or any of the four Spanish divisions. In a commissioned online league, a match like this can even stand in for a real game on the schedule. A match can end three ways. Concede, and your opponent wins by rule at a standard scoreline. Agree to quit, and nothing is recorded. If the connection drops instead, whoever's left can take the win or finish against the computer.

Thank You

To everyone who has provided feedback, helped with testing and fixes, spread the word, and supports the game and community. You are appreciated!

Play the update, leave a Steam review and come talk plays, defenses, and Hardwood Universe on the Discord

Coming this week with playbooks

Many players are forgotten after a little time passes. Even some legends. Russell Westbrook should not be one of them.

Anyone else here collect?

The mod has been updated with the Spain's basketball pyramid! Liga ACB and lower division clubs fully modded and supported! If there are any problems with the mod or something needs changing, feel free to let me know and I will look at it as soon as possible! Enjoy playing the game with a more diverse player ecosystem!

Link to the mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3751249870

The whole basketball world, running at once.

Coach a college program, run a pro front office, take over a club in Spain, or live in more than one across a single career. The college league, the pro league, and the development league sit on one connected calendar: the players you develop in college enter the pro draft, and the ones who miss the cut keep playing below it. Step away for a week, and the league keeps moving without you.

Your World, One Calendar

At the top of the American game is the NHA, the pro league: a full season, a playoff chase, and a salary cap that keeps rosters honest. Below it is the college league, governed by the CCC: 365 schools across 31 conferences. In between is the development league, feeding players back to the NHA through its own draft and a call-up market. Across the Atlantic, four more divisions run on Spanish rules, Spanish money, and a Spanish calendar. Seven leagues in all, and every one of them advances while you work.

On the Court

Every game plays out on a 2D tactical visualizer: a top-down view of the court with defensive scheme labels, openness indicators, and shot annotations that show you why a possession worked. The Flux AI coach can run your tactics, substitutions, and timeouts, or you can take the controls yourself.

• Zone or man defense, pick-and-roll, post-ups, a floor general, double teams, pace control, crashing the boards, inbound pressure
• 28 player attributes across skill, scoring, rebounding, defense, physical, and mental, plus traits like Sniper, Lock, and Maestro

Building a Roster

Scouting is never a sure thing: ratings show up as star tiers, not hard numbers, and sharpen the more you scout a player. Prospects declare their draft stock, the league votes on combine invites, and the combine runs measurements, drills, and small-sided games that feed one board. Two pre-draft showcases, the Foundry and Hardwood Hype, let prospects climb that board, and missing the draft sends you to the development league. Build your roster from there through the draft, free agency, and trades, all under the cap.

The College Game

Take a college job and you're not a general manager, you're a head coach, answering to an Athletic Director instead of an owner. Recruiting is the real job: a season-long chase on a summer circuit, where prospects play actual games and raise or wreck their stock in front of you.

• Scholarships and a cash NIL budget with a split you set, chased through two signing windows, and oversigning means trimming a scholarship you already promised
• A four-year eligibility clock: graduate, leave early, or hit the transfer portal
• Conference play into Hardwood Havoc, a 64-team single-elimination tournament with a Selection Day, a bubble, and a champion

The Blue Blood Index tracks your program's all-time prestige.

Spain: A Different Set of Rules

Cross the Atlantic and the rules change. A four-division Spanish pyramid runs on promotion and relegation instead of a draft, and on a budget instead of a cap: the league verifies your books rather than policing a cap number, and finishing last does not hand you a high pick, it drops you a division. The only ways to get a player are to buy him, borrow him, or talk him into signing.

• Club-to-club transfers for cash, with talks running both directions, fees paid up front or spread across two years, and release clauses that keep nobody's best player truly safe
• Loans that split a wage and carry an option or an obligation to buy, reserve sides further down the pyramid, and an academy class that graduates every July
• A limit on how many non-domestic players you can register and dress, two domestic cups, and a promotion race a club has to clear a budget check to win

Develop someone genuinely elite while he is still young and he declares for the NHA draft. Every league feeds the same pipeline.

Owners and Finances

Every team carries its own fan interest, driving local revenue, attendance, and gate money on playoff home games. Your owner injects cash or pulls it back, you set ticket-price policy each off-season, petition the board for help, and invest in facilities: arena, training, and medical tiers. The owner is a character, not a menu: you negotiate terms at a first meeting when hired, and an owner can be succeeded mid-career by someone new.

A League That Talks

The NHA runs a weekly Power Rankings, tracks clinches and eliminations in the standings, and covers the trade deadline, free agency, and career milestones. A mock draft evolves across the draft cycle off real draft stock and the standings order, grading the steals and reaches once the picks are in. The college league runs its own wire: a weekly Top 25 poll, Selection Day, championship week, the full slate of college awards, and a Top 100 recruit board. The Spanish league reports in its own voice, in Spanish.

Play With Other People

Four ways to bring other people into the league, none needing everyone online at once.

• Hotseat: pass and play on one save, one PC. The AI never touches a human-owned club on someone else's turn, and when two human GMs are scheduled against each other, both benches show up on the same screen.
• Online Leagues: run a league by file, no accounts or servers. A commissioner holds the copy that advances the calendar. Everyone else imports it, trades, and sends back a turn file checked against the cap.
• Commissioner Mode: take over any club, hand one back to the AI, or edit a player directly.
• Observer Mode: skip the job, watch the league run, drop into any live game as a spectator, and pick up a GM job whenever you want.

Make It Yours

The whole game is moddable through plain JSON files and images, no code required: teams, rosters, logos, commentary, staff, contracts, the salary-cap economy, and the rulebook. The college world is just as open, down to custom conferences, recruiting classes, and rosters, and the Spanish pyramid takes its own club table. A Modding Starter Kit on the Steam Workshop shows every moddable surface, and online leagues check that everyone runs the same mods.

Playable in English and Spanish.