Kevin Toms Blog

30 years ago- Football Manager packaging – why the picture (beard!)?

Kevin Toms — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:16:31 +0000

Football Manager ZX81 packaging

This packaging was designed by me for when the game was accepted into WH Smith for sale. The picture of the cup with the two players around it came out of my imagination as did the Addictive logo with the lightning bolt and the choice of red and yellow. I chose the typeface for “Football Manager” and just to finish it off I put my picture on the cover. (Lol!)

Although putting my picture on as author of the game was novel in games I didn’t see it that way. It’s common to put the author on music and books because there is a recognised style of work and the publisher is less important than the creatives making the product.

I saw games as the same, and I think only corporate control of creatives has made it less common in games.

My iPhone/iPad Football Manager type game 58 – Evaluating playing it

Kevin Toms — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:04:51 +0000

So now I play my new football manager type game. I enjoy it. I have the basis of what I want to be there. I get excited about what is happening. I make changes and try to do better. I know how it works but that doesn’t make it easier for me. Only 70% of the functionality is in place but I have the base to build from!

An image...

30 years ago – BBC Football Manager in the making

Kevin Toms — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:45:41 +0000

The BBC micro had an interesting difference. Not enough memory for Football Manager except in mode 7 Teletext mode. But the only graphics in mode 7 of use were characters made of 2 by 3 block pixels. Many Teletext images were made out of these blocky characters. But on the BBC, to create the match action, that was all there was to work with. I was proud of designing players out of this that when they moved across the screen still looked like running footballers despite the low resolution. The image doesn’t fully show it but those who had the BBC micro version will remember!

Football Manager BBC match action!!

My iPhone/iPad Football Manager type game 57 – Playing it

Kevin Toms — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:49:29 +0000

I was playing the game, and enjoying it. I can see what is there, what works and where it will improve. I have to keep working at it, but there is plenty of momentum to what I am doing.

Remember this? These guys are waiting too….

Football Manager 1 Spectrum- just waiting..

30 Years on – Football Manager – new game screenshots

Kevin Toms — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:16:02 +0000

OK. I know I am not giving much away here, just a snippet or two, unfinished, iPhone, just to show something is there. Make of them what you will

Match

Pitch

30 Years ago Football Manager- weaving the gameplay

Kevin Toms — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:56:24 +0000

Not easy to describe this. But it was important. Important to making it work, to making it succeed. I decided the setting, the football league, 4 divisions, plus a knockout cup, the FA Cup. I decided on what attributes your players would have. I decided what you could control. Then I pieced together the game balance. The balance between randomness and control, between complexity and ease of use. Various moving(mathematically) components interacting, finding the way to make it fun and easy but give the game plenty or range, so it did not repeat, was never predictable. And then it had to fit within the programming environment I had, and the small amount of memory.

It took a year to make.

30 years on Football Manager rebirth renewal

Kevin Toms — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:21:33 +0000

Well clearly people loved the game I wrote 30 years ago. It’s amazing and delightful. But, it was 30 years ago and whilst you can still play Spectrum Football Manager online the game needs modernizing and a rebirth. Who would you get to do that? Well my skills are modern so it’s my job to complete. And that’s what I am doing now. – Completing the iPhone version of my new Football Manager type game.

30 years ago Football Manager – making stick men footballers!

Kevin Toms — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:22:45 +0000

30 years ago, the ZX81 game was doing well, the TRS80 Football Manager not so much. Then Sinclair came out with the Spectrum. So, I spent a busy couple of months enhancing the game. And one of the things I decided to do was add goal mouth action. So I got busy designing animated footballers on a 3D view of the football pitch. These footballers were stick men graphics, but they worked:

I built intelligence into their behaviour. It was simple but effective. Within the limitations, there was an infinite variety of things that could happen, so it kept the excitement, the uncertainty during the match.

Stick men graphics I created for Spectrum Football Manage

30 years on – the new Football Manager type game from me.

Kevin Toms — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:03:41 +0000

So what was it that made the original Football Manager catch on so well, and what can I do now? Well since I wrote it, I know a lot about what made the original tick. I know I made it very playable, very enjoyable, and it had a pace that kept people playing it. I know this because it was all deliberate. I was not new to programming, it was my profession, I was not new to games design- I had been inventing games, both board games, and ball games for years. So there was no random chance about what I put together.

When you are a programmer AND a games designer, you are in the best position to tune and design the game for sheer playability. There are no communication issues in the way. But, there is only you.

So now, I am completing my new Football Manager type game for the iPhone (name suggestions always welcome!). On the iPhone, once more I am free, just like 30 years ago to program and design the entire game myself. So, if I have my way, it will have my strengths in design- simple to learn, fun, very playable. And of course my weaknesses- not flash on presentation lol!

I am close now, I am having fun, creating fun, and that is the way it should be. I will be very happy when the game is (soon) ready for release and I can talk about it and discuss what I have created.

30 years ago – I wrote Football Manager

Kevin Toms — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:12:36 +0000

So I launched it on to the market in January 1982. But before that of course, I wrote it. I bought a Video Genie to write it on. The Video Genie was a Tandy TRS80 clone.

The computer Football Manager was written on.

It was cheaper, but still expensive for me at the time. But, I believed that I would be successful with the game. Overall it was about a year of writing the game.

The game had its roots in many board game versions I had written, but at this time I was a professional computer programmer by day, so I knew what I was doing on the Video Genie. I chose to use the built in Basic because it was much better suited to a strategy game than the limitations of Assembler.

Just before going to launch, the ZX81 came out, and I realised the potential market it was creating with its low price, so I converted the game to run on the ZX81 too.

Football Manager was converted by me to run on this

That, was a very worthwhile decision!! – The sales on the ZX81 proved to be 100 times what they were on the TRS80/Video Genie. If I had only launched on that, the whole thing would not have got off the ground as I would have lost money on every advert placed.

So the ZX81 was critical to the early success.