Soccer team management title The Football Game takes a shot at Kickstarter

If you’ve picked up the latest issue of Tabletop Gaming (and let’s be real, why wouldn’t you have?), you will have seen that we really enjoyed our time with the London Board Games Company’s The Football Game at this year’s UK Games Expo.

The family trio of founders – father Simon Pearson and his sons Mark and Jo – have now launched a crowdfunding campaign for the football-mad card-and-dice game on Kickstarter, looking for £15,000 to bring it to life.

The Football Game sticks two to four players in the overly-polished shoes of team managers, who battle it out over a season of the beautiful game lasting between an hour and an hour-and-a-half to best exceed their fans’ expectations.

In each of six rounds (each representing a week in the season), players buy and sell player cards on the transfer market, before rolling dice to determine how their squad performs on the pitch. Tactics cards help boost their score, while 2d12 dish out injuries, public scandal and other unfortunate events.

80 footballer cards come in the set, each with a satirical bit of artwork and title – Calamity Keeper, das Wunderkind, Petulant Prodigy and so on. There’s also a league table, four club player mats, 50 event cards, 16 Chairman’s Briefing cards – which determine the unique win conditions for each club – 96 tactics cards and five customised dice: 2d6 for matches, 2d12 for events and 1d6 for injury resolution, represented by 30 injury cards. Of course, there’s also a tiny trophy which doubles as the starting player marker and a bit of (plastic) silverware for the eventual victor.

As a neat extra, the main packaging folds up to make a cardboard stadium dice box to roll into.

Kickstarter backers can grab the game for £33, with a £38 RRP expected upon full release next March. The usual ladder of more expensive backer rewards are also available, including fancier components, retailer bundles and the chance to appear as a footballer or manager in the game.