Retro Football Boss
1888 Games · 2016 · Simulation, Football (Soccer), Early Access, Sports, Strategy
PC
Mixed55% · 38
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About Retro Football Boss
Retro Football Boss is a historical football management simulation featuring the English professional leagues from 1888 to 1998 (with German leagues coming soon). This is your chance to take a trip down memory lane or right the wrongs of the past.
The game is based around a painstakingly compiled database of over 40,000 players, including every player to have played a League match and over a thousand who didn’t, including all the top foreign superstars.
Choose from over 130 teams across 110 years including short-lived clubs such as New Brighton Tower, Loughborough and Nelson, or save Barrow, Northwich Victoria and Gateshead from non-league oblivion. In total there is over 8,000 options as to when and with whom to start your career.
All the senior competitions, from the bread-and-butter of the Third Division North, to the glamour of the old European Cup, to short-lived affairs such as the Watney or Anglo-Scottish cups, are modelled as closely to real-life as possible. In addition, reserve leagues operate alongside to keep your young or fringe players match-fit.
To double the sense of nostalgia we have strived to capture the look and feel of great management games of the past. Retro Football Boss has been designed to be simple enough to play in short bursts or on the move, but with enough underlying depth and attention to detail to keep you entertained for hours if you so wish.
Financials including gate receipts, wages, transfer fees and running costs have been modelled to be as close to real life as possible. The parameters have been tweaked and the results compared against actual club accounts as far back as 1910. You will go from paying players £2 a week (£1 in the summer!) in 1888 to £4,000+ a week in 1992. The game also features rules such as the maximum/minimum wage and the 'retain and transfer' system, replaced later by transfer tribunals.
Tactics and player positions have also been modelled to evolve through time. Until the mid 1960s, you’ll be dealing with wing-halves and inside-forwards rather than wing-backs or false nines, and employing five-man forward lines rather than a lone striker and two holding midfielders.
With the benefit of hindsight, we know who the best and worst players throughout history were. We know that Robbie Fowler developed into a world-class striker and that Lee Fowler did not. To balance that out the game employs a fog-of-war scouting system, meaning that you must scout players to reveal their true potential and convince your board to release the necessary funds. This information from your scouts is not perfect though so watch out!
Your coaching staff will give you feedback on the strength of your side in six key tactical areas. This allows you to see immediately the effects of your team selections and tactical changes and develop a clear game plan. Of course, like your scouts the coaching staff are not perfect and their feedback will not always be 100% accurate.
All The Players, Clubs and Competitions
The game is based around a painstakingly compiled database of over 40,000 players, including every player to have played a League match and over a thousand who didn’t, including all the top foreign superstars.
Choose from over 130 teams across 110 years including short-lived clubs such as New Brighton Tower, Loughborough and Nelson, or save Barrow, Northwich Victoria and Gateshead from non-league oblivion. In total there is over 8,000 options as to when and with whom to start your career.
All the senior competitions, from the bread-and-butter of the Third Division North, to the glamour of the old European Cup, to short-lived affairs such as the Watney or Anglo-Scottish cups, are modelled as closely to real-life as possible. In addition, reserve leagues operate alongside to keep your young or fringe players match-fit.
To double the sense of nostalgia we have strived to capture the look and feel of great management games of the past. Retro Football Boss has been designed to be simple enough to play in short bursts or on the move, but with enough underlying depth and attention to detail to keep you entertained for hours if you so wish.
Evolution
Financials including gate receipts, wages, transfer fees and running costs have been modelled to be as close to real life as possible. The parameters have been tweaked and the results compared against actual club accounts as far back as 1910. You will go from paying players £2 a week (£1 in the summer!) in 1888 to £4,000+ a week in 1992. The game also features rules such as the maximum/minimum wage and the 'retain and transfer' system, replaced later by transfer tribunals.
Tactics and player positions have also been modelled to evolve through time. Until the mid 1960s, you’ll be dealing with wing-halves and inside-forwards rather than wing-backs or false nines, and employing five-man forward lines rather than a lone striker and two holding midfielders.
Fog Of War
With the benefit of hindsight, we know who the best and worst players throughout history were. We know that Robbie Fowler developed into a world-class striker and that Lee Fowler did not. To balance that out the game employs a fog-of-war scouting system, meaning that you must scout players to reveal their true potential and convince your board to release the necessary funds. This information from your scouts is not perfect though so watch out!
Unique Tactical Feedback
Your coaching staff will give you feedback on the strength of your side in six key tactical areas. This allows you to see immediately the effects of your team selections and tactical changes and develop a clear game plan. Of course, like your scouts the coaching staff are not perfect and their feedback will not always be 100% accurate.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Constantly crashes
I have played this game for many years. It's a very basic Football Management game that allows you to manage any team in the English League that ever existed with a team of players that were playing for each club at the time. I've just returned after a while and something isnt right with it now. Playing Preston in 1888. Had 1 player just disappear from my squad. No idea what happened to him. Then after the 1st season my best player Archie Goodall was transfered from Aston Villa to Derby County. Not a Preston Player anymore. So I can only assume that the actual historical transfers are now affecting the game. Never used to. But as it is, the game is unplayable.
Don't be put off by whining reviews. It crashes often BUT it's always saved up to the latest point so it' a minor inconvenience at most. If you liked the original champ manager games, without the endless fluff and bloated spreadsheet style of the expensive FM annual updates, then you should deffo try this game! Also, I LOVE it because you can manage at any point in history, back before the EPL saw commercialism rip the soul out of the game. Bargain.
nice
I don't expect much for a fiver but the very least should be a game that doesn't crash 10 times in 10 hours. The detail of the teams is great and the various formations you can create is as good as FM but the action is all moving bars and text. Bottom line it's a good reference to the players at a particular team on a particular season from 1888 - 1988 but not as a game you can actually play, shame really.
Developer seems to have lost interest - great concept; decent execution
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