OpenSWOS

Open-source recreation of Sensible World of Soccer 96/97, targeting modern platforms (desktop, web, Android, ARM handhelds). Built with Godot 4 + C#.

Status — early, and honestly still worse than the original

This is an early work-in-progress. Right now the original SWOS is the better game — OpenSWOS is not there yet.

• On the pitch: ~99% recreated. The match engine and pitches are a faithful, near-1:1 port — movement, ball physics, keepers, tackling, headers, set pieces, injuries, referee, half-time, results.
• Everything around it is placeholder. The menus, the team-setup and substitution screens, etc. are rough stand-ins, not finished UI. They work, but they don't yet match the original's quality or completeness.

The goal is 1:1 fidelity with the original first; improvements come later, and where the original had quirks we intend to offer optional fixes rather than bake them in — you'll be able to keep the authentic feel.

Requirements — bring your own game files

OpenSWOS ships no game assets (they're proprietary) and redistributes nothing from the original game. You must own an original copy and provide its files.

Required version: Sensible World of Soccer 96/97 — Amiga edition. Two floppy disk images (.adf). Any filenames are fine; OpenSWOS scans every .adf and finds the files it needs (only disk 2 is used, but include both). Earlier SWOS editions (94/95 etc.) are not compatible.

On first start, OpenSWOS creates two folders next to the game (and, if that location is read-only, under its user data dir). Pick whichever you have:

1. You have floppy images. Drop your .adf files into original_swos_adf/ and restart. OpenSWOS auto-extracts what it needs into original_swos_files/. A HOW_TO_ADD_SWOS_FILES.txt in that folder repeats these steps.
2. You have loose game files (e.g. a WHDLoad / hard-disk install). Copy them into original_swos_files/ — a nested layout is fine, OpenSWOS searches it recursively — and restart. (.hdf / .lha hard-file images are not auto-read yet; unpack them to loose files first.)

• Optional: the PC (DOS) version. Drop the PC DATA/ folder into its own dedicated original_swos_pc/ folder. It only adds a slightly larger team list (~1730 vs ~1616 teams), is not required, and does not change the graphics (those always come from the Amiga files).
• PC-only is not supported yet — the PC graphics aren't decoded, so an Amiga copy is needed for now. A PC-or-Amiga choice is planned.

How the engine is built — reference sources

The engine is written from scratch in C#. No code is copied from any of the sources below — OpenSWOS is a different language and a different engine (Godot). What we do instead is read and compare: we study how a given mechanic was solved in these references, paraphrase the structure/algorithm into idiomatic C#, and cite the source in comments so reviewers can trace the lineage. When something behaves wrong in-game, we go back to these references, look at how the original handled that case, and check whether that solution applies here before fixing it. Original numeric constants are treated as data (facts about the game), not as authored code.

References used to build and debug the engine:

• zlatkok/swos-port — the closest existing recreation (C++/SDL). Primary reference for engine structure, asset loaders and game logic.
• starwindz/original-amiga-swos — the Amiga 96/97 game reverse-engineered to 68k assembly. Study material for the exact original behaviour.
• PC binary decompilation of SWS.EXE with Ghidra (LE / DOS4GW, Watcom) — consulted when the two above disagree or don't cover a case.

Study material only — read and paraphrased, never copied verbatim.

Layout

• game/ — Godot 4 + C# project (the game).
• tools/ — CLI utilities for asset extraction / format conversion.
• docs/ — design notes, reverse-engineered format docs, decisions.

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE. Original game assets are not included and remain the property of their owners.