Dino Dini (born 5 June 1965) is an Italian-British

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

and creator of the '' Kick Off'' series of

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

games. He was a lecturer at the NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, teaching

game programming Game programming, a subset of game development, is the software development of video games. Game programming requires substantial skill in software engineering and computer programming in a given language, as well as specialization in one or ...

Career

In 1989 Dini's football game ''Kick Off'' was published by Anil Gupta's publishing house Anco Software, for the

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

to critical acclaim and high sales. Dini followed it with ''

Player Manager A player–coach (also playing coach, captain–coach, or player–manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. Player–coaches may be head coaches or assistant coaches, and they may make change ...

'' and '' Kick Off 2''. '' Goal!'' (also known as ''Dino Dini's Soccer'') was then released after Dini left Anco and moved to

Virgin Games Avalon Interactive Group, Ltd., formerly known as Virgin Interactive Entertainment, was a British video game distributor based within Europe that formerly traded as the video game publishing and distributing division of British conglomerate the V ...

in 1993. ''Goal!'' was critically acclaimed worldwide. ''Goal!'' introduced more user friendly controls compared to ''Kick Off 2'' and entertained a wider audience than its predecessor. In 1996, Dini moved to the United States to work as project director for the

Z-Axis In geometry, a Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of real numbers called ''coordinates'', which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular o ...

football game ''

Three Lions Three Lions may refer to: England *The Royal Arms of England, a coat of arms symbolising England (originally England, Normandy and the Duchy of Aquitaine, historically all ruled by Richard I) *The Three Lions, the nickname of the England national fo ...

'', released in 1998. In 2001, Dini moved back to

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

and started to work with his new development company, Abundant Software. In 2004, Dini signed with

DC Studios DC Studios is an American film and television production company that is a division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). It is responsible for the production of live-action and animated films and television series, as well as video games, based ...

to develop a new soccer game which was code-named ''Soccer 3'' and later ''Total Control Football''. The game was cancelled during the summer of 2005. After 2005, Dini worked as a contractor on a government-funded project. In 2009, he became a lecturer for the International Game Architecture and Design programme at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the

, teaching game programming. At the 2009 Game Developers Conference Europe (GDCE) in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany, Dini was guest speaker on the subject of video game design. In 2010, Dino ran unsuccessfully for a position on the

International Game Developers Association The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is a nonprofit professional association whose stated mission is to "support and empower game developers around the world in achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers." The IGDA is incorp ...

board of directors. In August of that year, he announced via his blog that he was working on a sequel to his game ''

'' as an independent project. In 2011 he contributed articles and the beta version of his browser-based game ''Letteroids 3D'' to DevilsMMO, a website for MMO and

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

games. A new game of ''Kick Off'' series, titled '' Dino Dini's Kick Off Revival'', was released on the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

in June 2016, with poor reviews from game journalists, and from players. Metacritic judged ''Kick Off Revival'' the 2nd worst game of 2016. ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...

'' elected ''Revival'' as the worst football game ever made. A

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, then in other international territories on February 22, 2012, and was produced ...

version was delayed and released nine months later in March 2017Dino Dini Kick Off Revival PS Vita GameFAQs
/ref> with bad reviews. The PC version, released on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

in September 2017, was an exact port of the PlayStation 4 version. Whilst maintaining an overall "mixed" summary status, it has similarly received bad reviews for being a basic game missing many features of the original ''Kick Off'' games.

Games

Games developed by Dini include:Dino Dini entry at Kick Off Association Wikipedia
* '' Kick Off'' (published by Anco, 1989):

* ''

'' (Anco, 1990):

* '' Kick Off 2'' (Anco, 1990):

* '' GOAL!'' (

, 1993):

, PC * ''

Dino Dini's Soccer ''Dino Dini's Goal'' is a soccer video game released by Virgin Games in 1993. It is considered by many to be the "true" sequel to '' Kick Off 2'' (in preference to '' Kick Off 3''), as ''Kick Off''s creator Dino Dini had moved from Anco Software ...

'' (

, 1994):

Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania a ...

References

External links

Dino Dini's blog

Dino Dini's YouTube Channel

Interview with Dino Dini
at

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dini, Dino Living people 1965 births Scientists from Bristol British video game designers English people of Italian descent