Eleven – Game Designer’s Journal #5

It’s all about the money at your club, isn’t it? Well, no. Just like in real life there is more to it.

The 4 tracks on the center board, which is called the boardroom, provide you with resources: Budget, fans, operations, and fitness. At the start of each week, you gain resources according to these tracks. If your budget marker is at 3, you gain 3 Euros. If your fanbase marker is at 2, you gain 2 fans, etc. Resources drive the game.

You need Euros to buy players, hire staff, build stadium expansions, pay for maintenance, etc. If you have a board that doesn’t care about money, you probably have to pay for their expensive decisions as well.

You need fans to… Of course, you need fans! Open up your stands in the stadium for them. They will increase your income and even can make players perform better. Besides that, fans can influence the board. If they make a decision they don’t like! Use fans to complain: Use fans to reroll decisions. Remember the Super League? No? That’s because of the fans.

The operations track shows how efficiently your organization is run. If you have a well organized club, you can get more things done. You can pay 2 resources to do an extra free action each turn. So if you do well here, you may perform as many as 6 actions during a week, while some players can only do 3. Sometimes you use operations resources to pay for certain actions, provided by the staff.

Fitness resources influence the team. If you have a lot of fit players, you can all put them in the lineup for the upcoming match. Pay 1 fitness resource to every player card you want to have in the team. A lot of players have a special action they can do during a game. For these actions you need to pay resources too.

Every player starts with their track markers in different positions. This is determined by the directors you hired. Once again: Choose them wisely. They are really a bunch of stubborn guys. The tracks all start at 2, but the directors will give bonuses or penalties to the markers on the tracks.

But how do you get more resources? You can earn them in a lot of different ways. Sponsors will give you Euros. Staff will give you other resources too. Think of a fitness trainer, who provides you with additional fitness markers, for example. Or a steward who brings in new fans.

It’s even better to increase the track markers. They will provide you with extra resources each week. After each match, you need to roll for match consequences. Sometimes your players get injured. Sometimes they increase or decrease the tracks. For example, if you win, there is a big chance, you may increase your fans’ track.

There are more ways to get your resources or increase track stats, you will discover that soon. All in all, resources are the core of the game. You need all 4 of them to win a game, no matter which of the many strategies you choose to play. Remember, money can’t buy you everything. Good luck.