Knockout City - Installation Instructions

Three steps. Most of the time is Steam downloading the game.

Get Steam Skip this if you already have it.

Get Steam

Get Knockout City: Private Server Edition Free on Steam. It is its own app, not the original Knockout City.

Starting the game from Steam does not work. Steam cannot see the league server, so the game looks for the official ones, which are shut down, and tells you to check your wifi. Every session, start it from the launcher below.

Download the launcher, double click it, type your name and PIN, pick a server Your PIN was emailed to you when you registered.

Not sure of your name or lost your PIN? Look it up.

Windows · PC and laptop

Pick a server. The launcher times each one from your PC and puts the fastest first, so taking its recommendation is fine.

Loading servers...

Selected:

Then find PlayKnockoutCity.cmd in your Downloads and double click it. That is the whole thing. Nothing to copy, nothing to paste, no Windows settings to change.

Windows will warn you that the file came from the internet and is not signed. That warning is expected. Choose to keep it, then run it. The launcher is plain text, so you can open it in Notepad and read every line before you run it.

If the launcher will not run

If the window closes on its own

It should not any more, and if it does there will be a message on screen telling you why. A copy of that message is saved at %LOCALAPPDATA%\TrophyKnockoutCity\launcher-log.txt. Send it to marcus@trophyplatform.com and it will get fixed.

Older instructions

The .ps1 version still works if you already use it. Right click it and choose Run with PowerShell, or open PowerShell and paste this:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1"Copied!

Browser blocked the download? Or want to read it first?

Some browsers and email providers block script files. If nothing downloaded, or the file vanished, copy the text instead. It does exactly the same thing.

Browser blocked the download? Or want to read the whole script first?

Click Copy launcher text above.
Open Notepad. Press the Windows key, type Notepad, press Enter.
Paste (Ctrl + V).
Click File, then Save As.
In the “Save as type” dropdown, choose All Files. Don't skip this. Otherwise Windows adds .txt and the file won't run.
Name it PlayKnockoutCity.ps1 and save it to your Desktop or Downloads. Either is fine, the command below finds it in both. It ends in .ps1 now, not .bat.
Press the Windows key, type PowerShell, press Enter. A blue window opens.
Paste this in and press Enter:
$f = "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1","$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1" | Where-Object { Test-Path $_ } | Select-Object -First 1; if ($f) { Unblock-File $f; powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File $f } else { "PlayKnockoutCity.ps1 not found in Downloads or Desktop" }Copied!
Click the box to copy it. It looks in both Downloads and Desktop, clears the block Windows puts on downloaded files, and runs it. You do not need to remember where you saved it.
Type your username and your PIN when the launcher asks. Your PIN was emailed to you when you reserved your username. It is six digits, and it is how the server knows the person playing is you.
Pick your server from the list, and play.

About your PIN. The launcher asks for your username and a six-digit PIN the first time you play, then offers to remember it on that PC. If you say no, you type it each session. It was emailed to you when you reserved your username. Without it the server cannot tell your matches from anyone else's, which matters most on a shared connection where a whole house or a whole computer lab shares one internet address. Keep it to yourself: anyone with your username and PIN can play as you. Lost it? Ask for a new one from this page. You keep your username, your stats and your place on the leaderboard.

Use Notepad, not Word or WordPad. They save hidden formatting that stops the file running.

Why Windows blocks it

Windows refuses to run PowerShell scripts that did not come from a signed publisher. That is a blanket rule about unsigned scripts, not a judgement about this one. Nothing has been detected in it, and nothing is wrong with your PC.

The command above allows this one file to run, once. It changes no setting on your machine. If you want to know exactly what it does first, that is set out in What the launcher actually does higher up this page, and the full text is in the copy box so you can read every line.

If you would rather type the path yourself

Use whichever matches where you saved the file.

Saved to Downloads:

cd $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1Copied!

Saved to Desktop:

cd $env:USERPROFILE\Desktop
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1Copied!

If you cannot open PowerShell from the Start menu

Press Windows key + R, paste this, and press Enter. It does the same thing without opening PowerShell first.

powershell -NoExit -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "$f = @((Join-Path $env:USERPROFILE 'Downloads\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1'),(Join-Path $env:USERPROFILE 'Desktop\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1')) | Where-Object { Test-Path $_ } | Select-Object -First 1; if ($f) { Unblock-File $f; & $f } else { 'PlayKnockoutCity.ps1 was not found in Downloads or Desktop' }"Copied!

-NoExit keeps the window open so you can read any message. Nothing on your PC is changed. Do not double-click the file. Double-clicking opens it in Notepad instead of running it.

If it does not work

It opened in Notepad

You double-clicked it. Windows opens .ps1 files in an editor rather than running them. Use the command instead.

A blue box said Windows protected your PC

That is SmartScreen, and it appears for any file that is not signed. Click More info, then Run anyway.

A window flashed and closed instantly

There was an error, but the window shut before you could read it. Open PowerShell first, then paste the command in. The window stays open and the message stays on screen.

Nothing happens at all

Windows may have quarantined the file because it came from the internet. Clear that with:

Get-ChildItem "$env:USERPROFILE\Downloads\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1","$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\PlayKnockoutCity.ps1" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Unblock-FileCopied!

It says the file cannot be found

It is saved somewhere other than Downloads or Desktop, or it is named something else. Check that Notepad did not save it as PlayKnockoutCity.ps1.txt, which happens when All Files is not chosen in the Save as type dropdown.

⚠️ You'll see a security warning - this is normal!

When you double-click the launcher, Windows will show this warning:

⚠️ Open File - Security Warning

"The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?"
Publisher: Unknown Publisher
Type: Windows Batch File

✅ This is safe! Click "Run" to continue.

Why this warning appears: Windows shows this for any launcher script that isn't digitally signed. We're investing proceeds from tournament fees to purchase a code signing certificate this summer, which will eliminate this warning. Building sustainably!

Want to see what it does? The full launcher text is shown above, in the copy-and-paste box. That is the exact file, nothing hidden. It finds Steam, finds the game, and starts it pointed at the league server. No data collection.

Before your first match

🎯 Before your first match: run the tutorials

In Knockout City's main menu, play the first five or six tutorials, about 20 to 30 minutes. They are not optional polish. They teach the four things every competitive match turns on:

Catching. A timing window, not a held button. This is the single biggest skill gap between new and experienced players.
Charged and lobbed throws. When to hold a throw and when to release early.
Ball curving. How to hit someone who is behind cover.
Tackling and ball-forming. How you help a teammate when you have no ball.

Style KOs and catches are two of the six Compound Score goals, so the tutorials are also the fastest way onto the leaderboard.

💡 Bookmark This Page!
Press Ctrl + D (Windows) or Cmd + D (Mac) to save this page for easy access later.

Steam Deck and Linux · SteamOS, Arch, Ubuntu

⚠️ Do this first, before anything else on this page.

Install the game from Steam. Use the Download on Steam button above. The launcher starts a game that is already installed, it does not install one.
Set it to Proton Experimental. In your Steam library, right click Knockout City: Private Server Edition, then Properties, then Compatibility. Tick Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool and pick Proton Experimental.

Without that Compatibility setting the game either will not start or opens to a black window. It is not the launcher going wrong, and no amount of retrying the launcher fixes it.

📥 Download the Linux launcher

📥 Download kocity-launcher-steamos.sh

It is a plain text script. Open it in any text editor and read every line before you run it, if you want to. It asks our server list which league servers are up, times them from your Deck, signs you in with your username and PIN, and hands the game to Steam. It installs nothing and closes when the game starts.

If you have never used Desktop Mode

Switch to Desktop Mode. Press the STEAM button, choose Power, then Switch to Desktop. The Deck restarts into something that looks like a normal computer. You get back to games with the Return to Gaming Mode icon on the desktop.
Open this page again in Desktop Mode and press the download button above. In Firefox the file lands in your Downloads folder. That is the right place to leave it, you do not need to move it anywhere.
Open Dolphin, the file manager. It is the blue folder icon in the bar along the bottom of the screen. Click Downloads in the list on the left.
Mark it as a program you are allowed to run. Right click kocity-launcher-steamos.sh, choose Properties, open the Permissions tab, tick Is executable, then OK. Linux will not run a downloaded file until you do this, which is the point of it.
Double click the file. A small window asks what you want to do with it. Choose Run in Terminal, not Execute. A black window opens and starts asking you questions, which is exactly right.

If double clicking does nothing

Some versions of Dolphin run the file silently with no window, so it looks like nothing happened. Do it this way instead, which cannot fail quietly. In Dolphin, right click any empty space inside the Downloads folder and choose Open Terminal Here, then type this and press Enter:

chmod +x kocity-launcher-steamos.sh && ./kocity-launcher-steamos.sh

That does step 4 and step 5 in one line. If it says curl or python3 is not installed, stop and email marcus@trophyplatform.com rather than trying to install them, because changing system files on a Deck is a longer job than it looks.

What it asks you

Three questions, in this order.

League username. The name you reserved in Step 2 above, exactly as you reserved it. Not your Steam name and not your Discord name.
Six digit PIN. The one in your registration email. Nothing appears on screen while you type it, which is deliberate. Type the six digits and press Enter. Lost it? Get a new one at trophyplatform.com/gkcl-pin.html and you keep your name, your stats and your place on the board.
Which server. It lists the league servers with how fast each one answered your Deck, fastest first. Just press Enter to take the fastest.

Then it hands the game to Steam and the game starts. Leave the black window open until it does. You only type the PIN once per session, and nothing about your PIN is saved to the Deck. If anything goes wrong, email marcus@trophyplatform.com and say you are on a Steam Deck, it narrows it down fast.

Mac · read this before you start

There is a community Mac launcher, KnockoutCity-Mac, and it does the genuinely hard part well: Rosetta, MoltenVK, GStreamer, a Wine prefix, Windows Steam inside that prefix, and the two byte patches the game needs. What it cannot do is point at our servers.

Its server list and its sign-in both come from whichever of two hardcoded backends you pick, kocity.cc or kocity.xyz. Neither knows about the league, so our servers never appear in its browser and your league PIN means nothing to it. That is a limit in the app, not something you have configured wrongly.

The gap is small and we intend to close it. The app launches the game with exactly the same two arguments the Windows and Steam Deck launchers use, so once it has done the setup, one short script can take over the final step and sign you in properly. We are not shipping that script until a Mac player has run it start to finish, because publishing an untested install is worse than saying this.

If you are on a Mac, email me

marcus@trophyplatform.com, and say which Mac you have and whether it is Apple Silicon or Intel. You will be the first one through and I will walk it with you rather than leaving you to a page that does not cover you. Your registration, your username and your PIN already work. It is only the launch step that is missing.

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