Beastieball is a volleyball Pokémon-like from the makers of Chicory

thesixthaxis.com:

Beastieball has been announced as the next game from Chicory developer Wishes Unlimited, a volleyball-themed Pokémon-like. The game will have a crowdfunding campaign soon with a planned release in 2024.

Joining the growing ranks of monster battling RPGs, Beastieball is all about the titular volleyball-like game. You can recruit a team of wild creatures to play for you, and there’s a Beastieball league for competitive play, but it’s all built off the foundations of what these creatures do in the wild anyway. Beasties play ball to make friends, decide disputes and more – beasties that make friends gain unique combo moves.

Matches of beastieball take on the form of a turn-based RPG with lanes – You have a left and right lane as well as a front and back court to make a 2×2 grid for each team. To recruit beasties to your crew, you need to take them on in games of beastieball, completing certain mission criteria before they decide they like the cut of your gib.

Set within a nature reserve, the balance between nature and a human town is threatened by the corporate Beastieball League, which wants to tear the wilderness down and build big stadiums. In order to defeat their plan, you need to join and win the league. To do this you will play against all of the ranked coaches, but can choose to do so in any order you like, with the other coaches then increasing in difficulty to match your growing stature.

All in all, Beastieball looks like a delightful take on the monster-collection JRPG, not least because of the delightful hand-drawn animations throughout and the tone of the monster collecting itself.

We’ll keep an eye out for Beastieball’s crowdfunding campaign, and look forward to seeing more of the game as it heads toward its 2024