Football diagrams show movement. They do not always teach the decision.

A traditional play diagram can show routes, blocks, zones, and rush paths, but a learner still has to understand what changes when the defense rotates, pressure arrives, leverage shifts, or a running lane closes.

Challenge Lab is designed to connect the diagram, the developing defense, the user’s decision, and the explanation in one short experience.

Live and Ready to Play

The foundation fully functional now.

OpenPlay Football is more than a proposal. The current proof of concept already connects structured offensive and defensive plays, animated assignments, situational play calling, in-play decisions, drive progression, and coaching explanations.

What $25,000 will build

1. 40-50 curated challenges across coverage, pressure, run, pass, third-down, and red-zone situations.
2. Three difficulty levels with beginner guidance through advanced reads.
3. Accounts and saved progress for challenge history and concept mastery.
4. Daily challenge, achievements, and progression loops.
5. Alternative-decision comparison and replay.
6. Simple and advanced coaching explanations.
7. Mobile and accessibility work.
8. Football expert review before release.

Coach Studio, custom playbooks, full-game simulation, multiplayer, and the broader developer ecosystem are not included in this first campaign promise.

Planned challenge categories

Proposed development budget

This is the proposed public budget for the Coming Soon campaign. Final estimates will be reviewed before launch. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing platform, so the goal must be sufficient to deliver the promised release if the campaign finishes at exactly 100 percent. Taxes and final vendor estimates will be reviewed before the campaign is submitted.

Approximately $2,500 is reserved for Kickstarter and payment-processing fees; actual payment-processing costs vary.

Timeline targets

1. August 3-9, 2026

   Complete the campaign-support website implementation, confirm the Challenge Lab scope, obtain or update development estimates, finalize the public budget, lock the proposed digital rewards, and begin coach and educator reviewer outreach.

2. August 10-14, 2026

   Record and edit the campaign video, add the real founder photograph, prepare captions and a transcript, complete the Kickstarter story draft, configure Resend and Google Analytics, and perform content, privacy, accessibility, and technical review.

3. August 15-19, 2026

   Complete Kickstarter setup and any required platform review, verify every campaign claim against the working product, test all campaign links and forms, finish mobile and production checks, and switch the website from coming-soon to prelaunch only when the official Kickstarter prelaunch URL exists.

4. August 20-September 19, 2026

   Target Kickstarter campaign window. Publish campaign and prototype updates, answer backer questions, continue reviewer recruitment, and avoid expanding the promised Challenge Lab scope during the live campaign.

5. September 20-30, 2026

   Confirm successful funding, fees, contracts, development responsibilities, technical scope, reviewer availability, and the detailed delivery plan. Publish the first funded-development update.

6. October 2026

   Build Challenge Lab foundations, secure accounts and persistence, the challenge content model, scoring, mastery tracking, administrative content tools, and the first reviewed scenarios.

7. November 2026

   Complete the planned challenge categories, daily challenge, achievements, alternative-decision comparison, simple and advanced explanations, responsive interaction improvements, and the majority of the 40-50 launch scenarios.

8. December 2026

   Run the target private beta with eligible backers and invited coach or educator reviewers. Fix high-priority defects, tune scenarios and scoring, complete accessibility and security checks, and prepare the public release candidate.

9. January 2027

   Target public Challenge Lab release. Complete launch verification, publish known limitations, deliver applicable digital rewards, and begin regular post-release maintenance and content updates.

Dates and roadmap items are aggressive targets rather than guarantees and may change as funding, development, review, testing, and Kickstarter approval proceed.

Proposed Kickstarter rewards

Rewards do not provide ownership, investment rights, custom development, permanent hosting guarantees, or unlimited AI usage.

What OpenPlay means by open

The campaign’s long-term technical commitment is to publish the OpenPlay Football schema, its documentation, and a reference renderer under clearly stated open licenses. That will allow developers and educators to inspect how a play is represented and build compatible experiments without requiring the entire hosted application to be open source.

The final license choices and contribution rules will be published before or during Challenge Lab development. The hosted simulation, account services, campaign content, and future commercial tools may use separate terms.

Accountability

Backers should be able to distinguish progress from promotion. If the campaign succeeds, OpenPlay Football will publish regular updates showing completed work, current development, upcoming milestones, material risks, and changes to the schedule. Budget reporting will be provided by category rather than exposing private contractor information.

• At least one public update each month during active development.
• Screenshots or demonstrations when meaningful.
• Clear status labels and disclosure of major delays.
• No silent substitution of major promised features.
• A public known-limitations section at release.

Risks

• Simulation and content quality require ongoing football review, not AI-only generation.
• Accounts, progression, and responsive animation may uncover technical scope changes.
• AI reliability and cost can vary, so deterministic fallback remains required.
• Reviewer recruitment and scheduling are still in progress.
• Privacy and security obligations increase once accounts and saved progress exist.
• Delivery targets are planning targets, not guarantees.

FAQ

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