With World Cup fever dying down, thoughts are now turning towards the start of a new league season. Soon, we’ll be watching 22 human advertising boards attack each other with set-pieces to generate more money for their American private-equity bosses, while ludicrously long and picky VAR checks create fresh content for tribalistic and terminally angry influencers.
There was a time when football was much simpler and less serious – merely the most important of the least important things. It’d be wrong to call the 1980s a more “innocent” time, given all the racism, hooliganism, and Thatcher-led demonisation of football culture that was going on during that decade. Yet it’s easy to understand why many people are still nostalgic for the days of Mitre balls, “Roy of the Rovers” comics, and truly heinous mullets.
My name is Chris, but today, you can call me Johnny Hates Jazz. I’m about to turn back the clock and check out a (fairly) new game on Steam which combines modern strategic card games with old-school football management.
So here it is… my review of NUTMEG! A Nostalgic Deckbuilding Football Manager. (Don’t worry, folks. I’ll just call it NUTMEG! from this point on.)
BACKGROUND
Back in January, I reviewed SoccerCards – an independently-made freeware game from 2003 that essentially turned football into a card game. It still holds up well today, and at the end of my review, I lamented the lack of a modern equivalent:
“Though SoccerCards is still very playable on Windows 10/11, it’s a shame that nobody has yet developed a modern remake… So if there are any budding developers reading this, perhaps it’s time to give us a new version of Balatro – with balls.”
Well… it turns out Sumo Digital were already on the case. The Sheffield-based developers have produced various games over the past 20 years, including such wholesome titles as LittleBigPlanet 3, Team Sonic Racing and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In collaboration with their Academy apprentices, they spent 18 months turning their new card-based take on football management into a reality.
NUTMEG! was released in March this year by publishers Secret Mode. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Secret Mode are also the publishers of Bang Average Football. If you like Sensible Soccer-style action interspersed with a Stardew Valley-esque story, I can’t recommend that game enough.
By comparison, NUTMEG! is a much less conventional type of football game. It’s a roguelike deck-builder – combining card-based gameplay with procedurally generated randomness. The goal is usually to collect and combine powerful cards, and to use them efficiently to defeat your opponents. Other than the aforementioned Balatro, other games in this genre include Slay the Spire and Luck Be A Landlord.
But how does this gameplay translate over into a sporting context? Let’s take a closer look.
STARTING OUT
NUTMEG! focuses on a specific generation of English football – allowing you to play through the top four divisions of the English pyramid for 20 years between 1980 and 2000. As someone who was born right in the middle of this period, I’m obviously more familiar with players from the late 1990s, but the 1980s have always carried an air of mystique for me.
You will start your first career in the 1980/1981 season. In terms of club selection, you are initially restricted to the bottom four teams in the old Division 4 – Tranmere, Hereford, Halifax and York. Of these clubs, the closest one I live to is Hereford, so I will be trying to channel the spirit of Ronnie Radford today.
The rest of the 92 clubs (along with a few others who start in non-league) can be unlocked with points (or ‘Kit’) as you play through the game. Once you have enough ‘Kit’, you can move to the club of your dreams at the end of the current season… or you can even start a brand-new game with them, if you wish.
Of course, none of these clubs have their official logos, and many have been given unlicenced names. Some of these names are obvious (Mersey Red = Liverpool), but others need some work to figure out (Rampart Mill = Millwall). However, most of the players are based on real-life, even if they are represented in-game by generic silhouette cards.
Each season consists of at least 50 matches – with either 42 or 46 league games, and a few friendlies to fill in the gaps. A recent major update also added the Egg Cup – an FA Cup-style knockout competition which takes place at the end of each month.
WHAT I LIKED
Unlike most football management games, you will not be directly involved in every match your team plays. You will typically play five matches per month, but only one of these can be designated as a ‘Broadcast Match’. The remaining fixtures must be delegated to your coaching staff, with the game quickly generating a result based on your team’s and your opponents’ abilities, and your tactical approaches.
But the ‘Broadcast Matches’ are what NUTMEG! is all about.
Each match consists of several possessions for either team, and every action has three outcomes – each with a certain percentage chance of happening. A goal kick can lead to a long ball, which can find a target man, who can play a flick-on, which sets up a one-on-one opportunity, which gives a great chance of a goal being scored. Or the move could break down early – potentially leading to a counter-attack by the other team. Cards can be played during these moves to help turn the odds in your favour.
Before every broadcast match, you will get a fresh pack of cards, which you can add to your deck – or merge them with other cards to create more powerful cards. You can have up to 10 cards in your deck at any time.
There’s a lot of strategy involved in deciding which cards you play and when. You could play a load of attacking cards to try and increase your chances of scoring a goal. If you do score, you will get back any cards you played in the attack… but if you don’t, you will lose them, so be careful not to blow your load too early or waste any powerful weapons. Likewise, it’s best to save any stamina cards for later in the game (when your players are more tired) and your defensive cards for when you’re trying to protect a lead.
You’ll also need to think carefully about which match you choose to broadcast each month. Do you play a big home game against a tricky opponent to boost your club finances? Or will you try to give your team the edge in a tight promotion/relegation six-pointer on the road?
Note: Friendly matches don’t count against the one broadcast game per month limit. I like to use them to give some gametime to any fringe players or young prospects. This is important, because players will lose morale if they don’t play – and any unhappy players will reduce the number of cards you can have in your deck.
Then, of course, there are the players themselves. AI teams will evolve over time in line with real-life, while ageing players will gradually drift out and be replaced with new talents. As the game progresses, you might have the chance to sign the likes of Teddy Sheringham and Paul Gascoigne as teenagers and develop them to their full potential. You could even convince foreign stars like Alessandro Del Piero and/or Zinedine Zidane to shack up at your club one day!
WHAT I DIDN’T
Herefordshire is a strange little county, isn’t it? It’s not quite in the West Country, and it’s not really in the West Midlands, but it’s definitely not part of Wales either. On the other hand, they’ve given us cider, Hereford beef and Ellie Goulding – not to mention Jarrod Bowen.
Ahem… anyway… I’m not loving the user interface. While the retro office – complete with computer, fax machine, cork board, et al – does look great from a visual standpoint, navigating it isn’t exactly intuitive at first. If you want to get into a match, for example, you click on the cork board, then a post-it note, which brings up a chalkboard. There’s also a chalkboard interface for setting up training, which in itself is pretty cumbersome.
There are some features that I feel are perhaps unnecessary, even if they do make NUTMEG! feel more than just “build squad, play matches”. Upgrading your stadium and facilities is fine, but should you really be expected to keep track of merchandising?
I’m also disappointed that you can only choose from three formations – 5-3-2, 4-3-3 and (of course) the classic 4-4-2. I get that we’re a few decades away from 4-2-3-1 gegenpressing, but it would be nice to have other options like 3-5-2 and 4-5-1, which would still be appropriate for this era.
And naturally, the RNG can be a bit frustrating at times. When the odds give your team a 62% chance of beating relegation-fighting Crewe, and yet your clueless coaches can only deliver a shock home defeat, it can feel a bit rough. Fortunately, the fast-paced gameplay won’t have you dwelling on setbacks for too long, and a full season can easily be completed in around 2-3 hours.
WE MUST TALK ABOUT…
The nostalgia overload!
Yes, as clunky as the UI can be… it certainly evokes a lot of memories for those of us who grew up before smartphones, social media, and Sky Sports showing approximately 2,875 matches every year.
League tables are viewed on an old TV set as part of a Teletext-style service, which also gives you the latest politics and pop culture news from that particular time. Press the green button, and you can get ‘highlights’ from across the leagues – hat-trick heroes, shock results, promotions and relegations, et cetera.
Financial information can be accessed on a primitive early home computer, contract offers are sent via fax, and other managers will discuss signing your transfer-listed players via telephone. And as previously mentioned, your players and transfer targets are displayed like stickers in a Panini album.
Best of all – in my view, anyway – is that you even get a league ladder, like the ones that used to come in football magazines at the start of every season. I love how the game sorts out the teams in your division after each game – leaving your team as the last to be slotted into their new position. Even if it’s just moving Hereford from 12th place to 11th, it’s still a joy to watch.
SUMMARY
NUTMEG! is a real blast to play. I’m not a roguelike player at all, but the ‘football as a deckbuilding game’ concept works pretty well – making every win feel satisfying, while even my defeats brought a wry smile to my face.
The interface is not the easiest to navigate, but it ticks all the boxes for nostalgia – and then some. For added effect, I’d personally recommend listening to some 80s hits on Deezer while playing this game. Peter Spiring banging in a long-range screamer to the soundtrack of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark never felt so good.
FULLER FM RATING: 4* – Canon Football League First Division.
Thank you for reading. If you have played NUTMEG! and wish to share your own thoughts on this game, feel free to send a fax to Fuller FM’s Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. Failing that, you can drop a comment below or message on Threads or Bluesky.
[Sigh] Alright… here’s one more 80s mullet to send you off.
Fuller FM 