LATE LEAGUE
After the last curtain, win the cup and lift THE LAMP.
Loading the cartridge (512 KiB)…
Saved states last for this visit. Sound starts with Power.
LATE LEAGUE needs a keyboard or a game controller. On a phone or tablet without one you can read about the game here, but you can’t play it yet.
1
The cartridge · in the fiction
Avenell Playhouse's floodlit five-a-side football for one or two players, the theatre district's crews playing for THE LAMP after the last curtain. A followspot follows the ball and the grounds are lit in pools, so the light is the game: a keeper is slow to see a shot struck from the dark, markers lose the men they cannot see, and a lifted ball's shadow shows where it will land. The pitch pans in true perspective as the camera follows the play, its scroll rewritten every second line.
- Developer
- Avenell Playhouse
- Year
- 1994
- Genre
- Sports
- Technique
- follow-spot
2
Controls
| Cyclorama pad | Keyboard | Game controller |
|---|---|---|
| D-pad | Arrow keys | D-pad or left stick |
| A | Z | Bottom face button |
| B | X | Right face button |
| C | C | Left or top face button |
| START | Enter | Start |
| Save state | F5 | — |
| Load state | F8 | — |
| Power off | Escape | — |
Saved states are kept for this visit only. Controllers use the standard layout (Xbox, PlayStation and most USB or Bluetooth pads). Press any button on the controller after powering on so the browser notices it.
3
How to play
After the Curtain Up splash, press Start (Enter) on the title. With the D-pad (arrow keys) and A (Z) choose THE CUP, THE LEAGUE, FRIENDLY or PENALTIES (OPTIONS sets the match length), then 1 PLAYER, 2 PLAYERS VERSUS (friendlies and penalties) or 2 PLAYERS CO-OP, and pick your club on its card (a friendly also picks the opposition and the ground). In play the D-pad runs your man (the cursor marks him; you take the man nearest the ball when you defend). A (Z) passes in the direction you hold, or switches to another man; B (X) shoots, UP or DOWN with it aims at the far or near post, and holding UP or DOWN just after the shot bends it; off the ball B is a slide tackle (reach the ball first or it is a foul). C (C) lifts the ball over the defence, or sprints when you are off the ball. Only keepers may stand in the D. Shots from the dark are seen late by the keeper, so pass into the dark and shoot first time. A level cup tie or league final goes to golden-goal extra time and then penalties: aim with the D-pad and press B, and as keeper hold the side you dive to. Start pauses. Win three ties to lift THE LAMP at THE GRAND, or finish a seven-round season in the top two to play the final; your cup or season is saved and can be continued. Player 2 uses a second controller, or the keyboard: W A S D to move, F G H for A B C, R for Start.
What is running
When you power on, your browser runs an emulator of the Cyclorama: its CPU, its video chip with the light field, and its Cue sound chip, at the real frame rate. The cartridge is the same 512 KiB ROM the project builds and tests, byte for byte.
late-league · 524,288 bytes · SHA-256 5fea0c83b422f1bd8b25db2fc5c0e3b8fde09bdc894c110bf4861eead24c064c
No account and no cookies. Apart from its own files, the page loads one script: Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts visits and page speed without cookies. The hardware is documented in full: read the HED-0041 hardware and programmer’s manual and the SCRIM language specification. Or go back to the Cyclorama.