Pro Jank Footy is the kind of sports game that seems to have been designed around the question of how quickly Australian Rules football can be stripped down before someone starts throwing seagulls, meat pies and random vehicles onto the pitch. Developed by Powerbomb Games and Tinker Town and published by Powerbomb Games and Umbrella Gaming, it takes the complicated fundamentals of Aussie Rules and turns them into a deliberately chaotic arcade experience. That makes it considerably more approachable than a conventional AFL simulation, particularly for anyone who doesn’t already know their marks from their behinds. There isn’t really a campaign to speak of, but there doesn’t need to be one: the appeal is in picking a bizarre team, stepping onto the oval and seeing how badly the match can fall apart. We found that approach surprisingly effective, although the lack of deeper progression means there isn’t much reason to play beyond the matches themselves once the novelty starts to wear off.
At its foundation, Pro Jank Footy is a surprisingly capable little football game. Matches retain the basic structure of four quarters, with players running, kicking, handballing, tackling, bumping and jumping their way towards the opposition’s goals. The rules are heavily simplified, removing much of the stoppage-heavy complexity that can make real Australian Rules difficult to translate into a videogame, and that is arguably the smartest decision the developers could have made. The result is fast, direct and relatively easy to understand even for newcomers. The separate Normal Footy option is particularly welcome because it demonstrates that there is a decent arcade football game underneath all the madness. We actually enjoyed this stripped-back version more than expected at times, because it gives the basic mechanics room to breathe instead of immediately burying them beneath modifiers.
The Pro Jank mode is where the game’s identity really comes together, however. Whenever a goal is conceded, the team on the receiving end gets a selection of power-ups to choose from, with the effects subsequently stacking into increasingly ridiculous combinations. These can range from useful improvements to profoundly disruptive rule changes: players can become enormous or tiny, the pitch can be filled with additional obstacles or players, goals can change value, and the action can be interrupted by everything from seagulls to bouncing DVD logos. Some of these ideas are genuinely hilarious, particularly when several effects collide and completely change the way a match is being played. The system also creates an interesting form of rubber-banding, since falling behind gives a team opportunities to alter the balance. Unfortunately, that can cross the line from exciting comeback mechanic into outright unfairness. Some combinations are so powerful that recovering from them feels less like good play and more like hoping the game decides to be kind.
That unpredictability works considerably better when there is another person on the other side of the pitch. Pro Jank Footy is at its best as a local multiplayer game, where a ridiculous power-up can turn a comfortable lead into disaster and both players can laugh about it rather than simply feeling cheated by the result. The short matches also make it particularly suitable for quick competitive sessions, with the escalation ensuring that even a relatively straightforward opening can become complete nonsense by the later quarters. The PS5 version consequently feels like the sort of game that benefits from being treated as a party or couch-competition experience rather than a serious sports game. Playing against the CPU is functional, but the comedy loses some of its impact when there isn’t another person there to appreciate just how absurd the latest disaster has become.
Season mode attempts to give all of this chaos some longer-term purpose by turning progression into a roguelite-style climb. Rather than presenting a traditional AFL league structure with a detailed ladder and finals series, it sends the selected team through a sequence of increasingly difficult matches, with power-ups carrying over and additional choices being made along the way. That creates some entertaining strategic decisions, because a modifier that looks helpful in one match can become a liability later when several effects have accumulated. It also makes failure considerably more painful, as losing can send the run back to the beginning. We liked the idea more than the amount of content built around it, though. The season lacks the statistics, team development and broader sense of progression that would make it compelling as a genuine career mode, while the randomness can occasionally undermine a run before skill has much opportunity to matter.
The controls are a more mixed proposition. The basic actions are straightforward enough, and once the fundamentals click there is genuine satisfaction in moving the ball around the oval and finding an opening. Player switching and positioning are less convincing, though, with the limited viewpoint sometimes making it difficult to identify exactly where the relevant players are or to switch to the right one quickly enough. Energy management also adds an unnecessary source of friction, since sprinting, tackles and physical challenges can drain the meter rather quickly. That makes some encounters feel less responsive than the fast arcade presentation suggests they should be. We could see the underlying game becoming much more satisfying with slightly tighter player selection, more forgiving stamina and a little more assistance with passing and kicking. The deliberately janky presentation is funny; controls that occasionally feel janky are less so.
Visually, however, the deliberate roughness works far better. Pro Jank Footy embraces a colorful pixel-art aesthetic inspired by older 8-bit and 16-bit sports games, complete with exaggerated animations and deliberately dated presentation. Rather than looking like a low-budget game that failed to achieve modern visual standards, it feels like a conscious recreation of an era when sports games were simpler and much more willing to be silly. The fake team names, animated interstitials and increasingly ridiculous things happening on the pitch all contribute to that identity. There is also plenty of attention to Australian sporting culture in the presentation, which helps give the game a personality beyond its power-ups. The humor won’t necessarily translate perfectly to everyone outside Australia, but that specificity is part of what makes the game distinctive rather than another generic arcade sports title.
The audio follows the same philosophy, and Broden Kelly’s commentary is one of the game’s strongest touches. His delivery adds a constant layer of irreverence to proceedings without attempting to make the game sound like a serious broadcast simulation, while the music and victory/defeat themes reinforce the nostalgic sporting presentation. There is enough sound and commentary activity to make even the most chaotic matches feel energetic, although some of the humor is inevitably more effective for players familiar with Australian culture. That combination of visuals, commentary and absurd power-ups gives Pro Jank Footy a very coherent identity: it knows exactly what kind of game it wants to be. We just wish the relatively small selection of modes and lightweight season structure gave that identity more room to develop.
Pro Jank Footy ultimately succeeds because it understands that Australian Rules football doesn’t need to be reproduced in its entirety to be fun in videogame form. By boiling the sport down to its most immediately enjoyable elements and then progressively sabotaging those fundamentals with ridiculous modifiers, it creates something that can be picked up by people who know nothing about AFL while still retaining enough of the sport’s character for existing fans to appreciate. Its problems are largely the flipside of that design: randomness can become frustrating, the controls could be tighter, season mode is too light, and the experience loses some of its spark when played alone. We came away feeling that the game’s greatest strength is also its clearest limitation. Pro Jank Footy isn’t particularly interested in being a deep sports game, but when played with friends, its combination of simple football and escalating nonsense makes that lack of ambition surprisingly easy to forgive.
Score: 7.0/10