After seven straight behinds I’ve finally kicked my first goal. Three cards appear on the screen, each with a buff or hindrance, and I must choose one. I go with the option to give me three goals for my next snag. Almost immediately, my opponent (WellPlayed’s Adam Ryan) levels the score at 13 all, and his rebuttal is a card that makes all of my players tiny like ants. What a bastard.
This is Pro Jank Footy, a retro arcade Aussie Rules experience that mixes the visual style of Aussie Rules Footy on the NES with gameplay akin to NBA Jam. Oh, and it features commentary from local comedy legend and footy nut Broden Kelly of Aunty Donna. So there’s that.
Developed by Adelaide’s Powerbomb Games (made up of Danger 5’s David Ashby and Dario Russo) and Tinker Town, the studios joined forces with the Melbourne-based film company Umbrella Entertainment in August to launch its gaming division.
Ari Harrison, General Manager of Umbrella explains that the catalyst for the company’s move into gaming was seeing several horror film and game IPs explore both mediums, Umbrella’s extensive catalogue of Classic Australian and New Zealand films and the opportunities that created, and the general need for more Australian publishers to help bring locally made games to life.
Harrison tells me that the partnership with Pro Jank Footy came about by pure happenstance, even though the company had worked with Ashby and Russo previously with Danger 5. Harrison ran into Ashby and Russo just after Pro Jank Footy had won the Best in Show award at the 2025 South Australia Game Exhibition.
“Ashby showed me some photos of the game and it looked hilarious and amazing – anything Ashby and Russo touch is gold,” says Harrison.
Umbrella then played the game and realised that it had tons of potential to reach a wider audience with its mix of comedy and sport, and from there discussions led to the parties working together to bring Pro Jank Footy to consoles and PC in 2026.
The idea for Pro Jank Footy was born during a fantasy football BBQ in February 2024, where the point was made that there are not enough comedy sports games. So the creative minds present decided to venture out and make one themselves, and really lean into the jank of Aussie Rules.
For anyone who has played or watched Aussie Rules before, you’ll know that it’s a complex sport, but Pro Jank Footy is a simple pick-up-and-play rendition of our nation’s greatest game. Imagine you’re explaining the basics of the sport to an international visitor watching it for the first time: kick the ball, mark the ball, smash one another and kick goals (kick the ball through the big sticks). That’s the simple part about Pro Jank Footy, the hardest part however, is dealing with all the absurd power-ups that are designed to make everything harder but very funny.
Picture this: Your opponent has just kicked a goal, so already you’re feeling deflated, and then they go and turn every player on the field into a seagull, because of course that’s a thing, so now you’ve got 36 seagulls flying around a footy oval fighting over the ball like it’s the last chip they’ll ever eat. To counter (after a goal), you decide to pick a card that sees the oval succumb to an earthquake, swallowing up players that are dumb enough to run into it. They’re just gone – catch ya later. Then there’s Dad’s Car, a power that transforms one player into a banged-up sedan destined to run over as many players as possible, or Big Fella, which turns one player into a huge unit, or Wind Blast, which makes every kick go over your head.
There are over 200 power-ups in the game, with some purely visual, like the one that flips the screen upside down every 30 seconds or makes a DVD logo bounce across the screen. Ashby and Russo tell me that the idea to use power-ups came about because “it wasn’t enough to just make a retro-style game of Australian Rules football.”
“We’re fully aware that nobody outside Australia knows what Aussie Rules is, and so we came upon the idea of how do we redefine what Australian Rules actually means to complete outsider, and if there was a way to change the rules throughout the game, just like the card game Fluxx.”
The tricky part about the power-up mechanics is getting the balance right, which Ashby and Russo say is done simply by trial and error, as well as design choices, like how certain power-ups won’t appear at the start of a match – such as the one that turns every player into a football.
Despite the bevy of wild power-ups, surprisingly not all of them work and make it into the game, Ashby and Russo say they want every match to be an “an absolute ride from start to finish, rather than a rage quit session.”
One power-up that didn’t make the cut was one called Dodge, which essentially covered you in Teflon as you couldn’t be tackled. The problem this created was that the opposing player couldn’t get the ball back.
“There is some logic to Pro Jank Footy,” laughs Ashby and Russo.
Pro Jank Footy is the type of game that shines on the show floor, thriving on groups of players and drawing a crowd of invested onlookers. It’s the type of game that even those who don’t really like sport or Aussie Rules, or even know what it is, can enjoy playing.
Just like my stint playing division three reserves for South Yarra in the SFNL, my hands-on time with Pro Jank Footy wasn’t long enough but it was bloody fun, and probably hilarious for those watching from the sidelines. Pro Jank Footy is definitely one to watch if you’ve been craving an Aussie Rules game that is all about having fun and a bit of biff. Or if you’ve ever wanted to turn a bunch of people into seagulls.
You can Wishlist the game here.
