Frequently asked questions

What is HoopDreams?

HoopDreams is a free basketball career simulator you play in a browser. You start as a 16-year-old prospect, decide whether to develop or declare for the draft, then live season by season through contracts, injuries, clutch possessions and playoff runs until you retire and get a full career report.

It is a text-and-numbers simulation rather than a controller game: every possession is resolved from your attributes against the rest of the league, so the box scores, standings and awards you see are all generated, not scripted.

Do I need to download anything or create an account?

No. The game runs in the browser and you can play as a guest with no sign-up at all. Your save lives on the device you played on.

Creating a free account backs up your careers, tokens and unlocks to the cloud so you can continue on your phone and your laptop. You can also install the game to a phone home screen as an app if you prefer opening it that way.

How long does one career take?

A standard career runs about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on how long your player lasts before retiring. Full Season mode, where you play all 82 nights of a year, takes closer to an hour and saves after every game so you can stop and resume anywhere.

Which languages are supported?

The game is playable in fifteen languages. You pick one the first time you open it and can change it at any time from your profile; the whole interface, including generated career text, follows that setting.

Are results random?

They are probabilistic rather than arbitrary. Each possession and each clutch branch computes odds from the specific attributes it depends on plus the game state, then rolls against those odds. A better-suited build genuinely wins more of them, but nothing is guaranteed.

Every career uses a seeded random generator, which is also what makes friend duels work: two players running the same seed face the same league conditions.

Are the teams and players real?

No. The league uses thirty fictional franchises in real cities and entirely fictional players, coaches and award names. HoopDreams is an independent, unlicensed simulator and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any professional league, team or athlete.

How do injuries and retirement work?

Injuries come from a roll influenced by your durability attribute, your accumulated body mileage and the specific choices you make — contact-heavy clutch branches and heavy minutes both add wear.

From age 36 you can choose to retire each offseason, and at 40 retirement is forced. A career-ending injury can end a run earlier than that, which is why spending some contract money on recovery matters as much as buying attributes.

What decides my draft position?

Your attribute profile, your hype, and how many development years you spent before declaring. Staying an extra year raises your stock but costs a prime season later, which is the first real trade-off the game asks you to make.

What is the difference between Career and Full Season mode?

Career mode compresses each year into four or five decision points and moves quickly through a whole life. Full Season mode plays the calendar itself: 82 games, live standings, rest days, a trade deadline on a real date, and a best-of-seven playoff run you can coach game by game.

What is GM Mode?

GM Mode puts you in the front office instead of on the floor. You manage a fifteen-man roster under a hard salary cap, propose and receive trades, run the draft and free agency, and coach substitutions, fouls and injuries during games. The first season is free for everyone; continuing past it requires a membership.

What are duels and the daily challenge?

A duel is a career run against a friend on a shared seed, so both players face identical conditions and the better decisions win. Daily quests and streaks hand out tokens for coming back, and tokens buy perks in the shop.

What is free and what is paid?

Career mode, the leaderboards, the Hall of Fame, guides, duels and the first GM season are free. Optional purchases remove ads, unlock the full 82-game season and GOAT Mode, or unlock the complete Perk Vault. A monthly membership bundles everything for as long as it is active.

There is a daily limit on how many careers a free player can start, which the Career Unlimited bundle and the Pro membership remove.

How do I cancel a membership?

Memberships are billed through Stripe and can be cancelled at any time from the store page. Access stays active until the end of the period you already paid for, and cancelling never deletes your careers or unlocks.

Where is my save data stored?

Guest saves live in your browser's local storage on that device only. Signed-in saves are mirrored to your account, and when a device and the cloud disagree the newest save wins.

Does the site show ads?

Yes, a small number of display ads support the free version. Players who buy the Ad-Free upgrade, a career bundle or a membership never see them.