Fastcard Soccer

A representative of the 'replay' subgenre. Players run through a game of soccer using a deck of cards and a board, but have no actual control over the events in the basic game (though official variants included in the rule book *do* allow for choices on things like substitutions, making this a game)

From the review by Mike Siggins:

Ellis Simpson has been working on a soccer replay game for almost as long as I've known him. I think, having been privy to certain stages of its development, that the turning point came two years ago and Fastcard Soccer is the outcome. The resulting design emphasizes fast play (an admirable and difficult target), yet manages to retain many of the detailed trappings and flavour so important to the soccer fan. Well, this soccer game fan anyway. Like most replay games it is best enjoyed solitaire, but I have played some two-legged matches recently with a friend and these worked well enough. By way of a caution, please bear in mind throughout this review, as with Final Score, that I know next to nothing about football. What I feel I can comment upon is the atmosphere and game content of the system, and these are both first rate.

The system uses, predictably, a fast action card system that generates almost all of the action. Reference to charts is needed for goal attempts or unusual results (the infamous Z card effects) and the game status levels, essentially the team's overall ratings, are tracked on the pitch display using counters. The rest is a matter of choosing which teams you want to pair off, logging their ratings on the display, and playing the game.

The central structure, to a lazy bugger like me, seems like simplicity itself. Teams are rated for attack, defence and midfield. The latter ratings are compared to see which team wins possession and mounts an attack. A letter is read off, referenced to produce an attack number and then compared to the defence rating; if it is higher, the attack proceeds, if it is lower the attack breaks up, if equal there has been a clearance but the attacker retains possession. The whole setup runs on the highlight system by which, after each complete passage of play, a random number of minutes are marked off on the time display and the game runs through to 90 minutes, or longer if extra time is applicable. This method is now well established and it is an ingenious way of making sure that some ties have a lot of action and chances while other games are much like Arsenal at home to Arsenal. Game length will vary because of the use of highlights, but should take no more than a few minutes per match and it will get quicker as you become familiar with the card turning.