Eleven – Game Designer’s Journal #2

We kicked off the Game Designer’s Journal series about Eleven this week, and we already know it will be quite a long series! Today we will tell you what will happen in the club throughout the week.

Monday

First thing in the morning, you get your resource tokens for the week. You check your 4 tracks and gain that amount. So, if your budget track is at 2, you gain 2 cash. If your morale track is at 4, you gain 4 morale.

You can spend these tokens in different situations, later during the week. For example, use your fan tokens to fill up the stadium, or use your fitness tokens to make players perform special actions on the pitch.

Then, you head off to the board room for a board meeting. A club has 3 directors. They all have different opinions. For example, some see the club mainly as a business. Most of all, they want to make money. I won’t call out any real clubs here, but you probably know one or two which fit the description. Some directors think the club belongs to the fans, some will do anything to have the best team. Got one in mind? All these different opinions influence the decisions they take. So you should be careful which directors to put at those chairs.

Every player takes a board meeting card which will influence their own club. There always is a dilemma to be discussed with 3 different possible outcomes. For example: ‘Shall we raise ticket prices?’ You can imagine it brings in money, but won’t make you popular with the fans.

The board will decide. Not you. But you may want to join the discussion and try to influence them. We’ll get back to that later.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

From Tuesday to Thursday you may perform actions. You can hire players. They range in quality from 1 – 4. But beware. Some of them have special abilities which are just as powerful as a high-quality player. Besides, Players can be trained. You can contract a sponsor. They will bring you money and raise your stats on the 4 tracks. You can train tactics to make your team better. You can invest in infrastructure. You can hire staff. They give you many more possible actions. For example, If you have a first coach, you may train your players, which makes them better. At least, in most cases. Or a doctor to get rid of injuries. There is so much to do during the week.

In the meantime, you check your objectives card again. They give you extra victory points. Or go for the perfect achievement for double the points. For example, you may have to win the match against your local rivals, because they beat you last season. Can’t happen again of course.

Weekend

You probably are used to a free weekend. Forget about that. As a manager, you are always on. You need to study your opponent. It can be very helpful. Learn their system, and discover their qualities and weaknesses.

Then you select your players and choose tactics. All tokens are players with standard quality of 1. But you also have player cards. These represent the token with the same kit number. They often are better and/or have special abilities. Then the match is resolved. If you have enough fitness resources, you may be able to select enough players and make use of player abilities as well. Don’t expect to win your first game. You’re just starting your career.

Now let’s see what the other players did. There are always 8 AI teams in the league too. After you adjust the score track, you roll for the match consequences. Injuries may happen, fans may have had enough and leave, team morale may change, etc.

Of course, there is so much more detail to it! We will discuss this in the upcoming articles.