Boeckham's Football Manager news & patch notes

Hi everyone,

This update brings some small and big enhancements (at least I hope it does).

From now on, the game supports loading custom translations. I would love to offer more translations on my end, because there are football management lovers all around the world, but for such a small game, it is economically not possible to provide. Community translations are a cool thing, but those could not be used in the game so far. But from version 1.13 on, there is a new "..." button in the language menu for loading language files from your hard disk.

More user-friendly is the possibility to upload those files to the Steam Workshop, where they can be subscribed to. In such a case, every subscribed language gets a new dedicated button in the language menu:

I got the idea for custom languages from eboke81 and TonyBoySUPER, who has been very kind to already create a French translation in the Workshop. Merci beaucoup ! :)

How the whole translation and Workshop process works, is described in a new guide I created for this:

But now to the other improvements:

• Your players now have separate settings for playing in a club or national team. Until now, this was the same setting, which led to unexpected behaviour, for example, more than 11 players could be on the field, or the automatic lineup did not use the strongest players.

• The storyline with the blackmail was fixed, so that you can only get blackmailed once per crime. Now, the story won't haunt you the rest of your career.

• There is a new setting to prevent player deaths. Although such tragic accidents are part of a coaching career, not everyone wants to have those in a relaxing game after work.

• You can now also adjust the effect of focus training. If you think a player gains too little or too much from it, you can adjust the modifier for that in the settings. In the future, I want to make a new education item, with which you can carry out more than one focus training per week.

• The setting for quick dice rolls now won't even show the dice window if you don't stand a chance of winning anyway

• The regeneration was reworked and fixed. Players now won't regenerate twice, if they are playing in a club and national team. The endurance won't be exceeding the fitness no more, and having two matches a week will lead to worse regeneration. This is especially true for World Cup matches, so you have to think carefully to which players you give a rest or if you prefer having players with more fitness in your roster.

• Waiting for the timer to end during a penalty won't lead to an automatic goal anymore ;)

• The board reaction was fixed in some cases, so winning shouldn't make the board no longer grumpy

• In the calendar and matches overview (statistics), you can see more easily, if you won or lost a match by using colored paper (an accessibility option with symbols is in the works).

I hope you like the changes and they will contribute to a better and bug-free experience. Have fun winning! :)

Hi everyone,

With this update, the youth player system has been reworked. Previously, a new youth player would magically appear in your team after a few weeks. From now on, there will be several review events for youth players who are currently living in the academy.

For each player, you can decide whether to continue training them in the academy, extract them early to the main team, or release them if they are not good enough and your resources are better spent on the other players. A player’s strength and talent are initially uncertain and can be assessed more accurately with each review round. How many players the academy can host and how long they can continue to learn new skills depends on the academy’s upgrade level.

At level 1, for example, the academy may only host one player, and after a single review round they can no longer improve. At level 5, up to three players and threee rounds are possible, allowing them to join the main team much stronger. The fewer players are trained in the academy at the same time, the better they can develop, as the staff can focus more intensively on each individual. So pick your darlings early ;)

As another addition, Mike has provided more portrait options for creating your manager image. This now explicitly includes female managers as well.

In addition, club crests can now be changed at any time from the overview screen by clicking on the Polaroid photo showing the current crest. This is especially nice when founding your own club.

Of course, this update also includes the usual bug fixes and small improvements.

And now, have fun discovering young talents! :-)

Hello everyone,

No 90s management game could live without local multiplayer. That is why this update mainly focuses on enhancements for the multiplayer mode. Previously, some features were not properly supported, or calculations were incorrect, for example, all users were assigned the same main sponsors.

In a game, only the first user could make substitutions or determine the playing style. This has now been expanded. By clicking on the substitution button, the bench can now be switched for all clubs that currently have an active match:

Another new feature is the option for multiple users to submit offers on the transfer market, because previously, the first user in the round was always able to snatch all the good players away. So now, before a new deal goes through, the game asks whether another user is also interested in the player. If so, the auction window opens, allowing everyone to make their bid for the player. The transfer fee is fixed, as it does not play a role in the player's decision about where to transfer. So sweeten the deal with a good salary:

However, other factors are also taken into account by the transfer player, such as how good the club and the coach are, which league the club plays in, how developed the facilities are, etc. So it's not always the highest salary offer that wins. There is also the option of hiding your offer from other users if you want to keep things exciting ;-)

Some inconsistencies have also been ironed out: players from other users no longer accidentally end up on the transfer market, main sponsor offers are now tailored to each user, individual difficulty settings are retained for each user, education points are credited to the correct user, and a few more things. The UI has also received a few improvements for poorly wrapped text, and it now remembers the sorting order of career events or the reputation table.

That's it for now. I will soon create a small roadmap for the next updates.

Have fun! :-)

Hi everyone,

Boeckham's Football Manager has hit the magical milestone of 1001 downloads. I am very grateful and give my wholehearted thanks to everyone who gave this little indie game a chance. My expectations for the release were nowhere near that number. I would have been happy with 100 downloads. 500 was already a fantasy. And now you multiplied the number I hoped for by ten. Thank you for your trust, the numerous ideas for improving the game, and your respectful treatment of bugs. Small indie games are not perfect at release, and I am glad you were not trigger-happy with bad reviews, because you could evaluate the whole development situation very well.

If you haven't bought the game already, but want to in the future: hold your horses until 8th of December. The game will get its first small 25% sale. You won't save a lot of money there because the game is already not too expensive, but I don't want you to buy the game one day before the sale and get frustrated about the lost opportunity ;-)

The next update will arrive in the next days as well. Besides some bug fixes, it will mostly give some love to the multiplayer mode. I am not sure how many of you play the game with a friend in front of the same screen (let me know!), but I think this mode belongs to this kind of retro game :-)

Many thanks again, and here's to a hopefully long future for the game!

Hi all,

The last update to a newer version of Unity introduced the bug for some players that the screen is zoomed in and the settings can't be accessed. This hotfix adds a shortcut so you can use the TAB key to open the settings and adjust the screen size.

This should work in Windows and the Steam Deck.

Hey everyone,

After the last update to the new Unity version, the launcher just disappeared. There you could set the screen resolution of the game.

Because of that, I added those setting directly into the game in the settings menu:

You can now also chose between exclusive fullscreen and fullscreen window.

Have fun with it :)

Hi everybody,

Maybe you already heard: Unity - the game engine behind many games - suffered from a recently discovered security issue that existed since 2017. Until now, there do not appear to have been any problems, and Unity and Steam have taken countermeasures. But as a recommendation, every game should make an update to close this security issue. This update 1.10.2 does exactly that.

The only problem is that the engine version I was using for Boeckham's football manager so far, did not get a security update. So I had to update to a whole new version. Such an update ALWAYS brings trouble along. I spent the last two days repairing stuff, and I hope the update has no impact on your enjoyment of the game. If you notice anything odd, please let me know and I will try to fix it asap. Especially texts, and font styles were posing problems.

I hope this "contentless" update brings security for you without being mean to you. Should this be the case, I apologize sincerely beforehand!

Until the next, better update!

Hi all,

This hotfix corrects a bug in the Steam-Workshop upload. Also, the rendering of the money chart in the statistics screen for money values above 2B was corrected.

Hey everyone,

The main highlight of this update is the integration of the Steam Workshop! That means club files and logos can now be shared directly through Steam — no more manual copying needed. Nothing’s standing in the way of using the original clubs and logos anymore.

Here’s how it works: once you’ve loaded, edited, and saved a club file in the editor, the Upload to Steam button becomes active. In the window that pops up, you can select any of your previously created items from the dropdown. If you haven’t created one yet, just enter a title and click “Create new…”.

At the bottom, you’ll see which files will be uploaded to Steam — including all logos and crests you’ve assigned to clubs. You can also add a description and a preview image for your item. Later on, you can easily update your content using the “Update…” button.

You’ll find your uploaded items on Steam in the game’s Workshop section. I’d love to see a few community creations show up there! (Unfortunately, for legal reasons, I probably can’t upload anything myself…). If anything does not work, please let me know, this is new territory for me as well ;)

As for other changes in this update:

• Player favorite positions will now stay closer to their current position, so retraining doesn’t become too powerful.

• The chance of a favorite position being a goalkeeper is now only 10%, to avoid ending up with too many of them.

• Player strength growth is now slowed down when exceeding their talent value. → Example: a player with strength 50 and talent 30 will gain less than one with strength 60 and talent 90. This makes it harder to train full teams of 100-rated players.

• Experience-based strength gain is now scaled: before, every level-up (every 1000 EXP) always gave +0.8 strength. Now it’s higher at low levels and reduced from level 5 onwards.

• As a small accessibility feature, you can now change the font size: Press CTRL and + or CTRL and - to increase or decrease all visible text. You can also hover over a specific text and use CTRL + Mouse Wheel to scale it individually. Note: this is still an experimental workaround — text may wrap awkwardly, sizes aren’t saved yet between sessions, and some elements (like the league table) reset when reopened.

That’s it for now — have fun with the update!

Hi everyone,

With this Update, you can customize the difficulty level not only by using the five presets, but you can create your own presets:

At the start of the game, there is a new cog icon. In the cofiguration window you can finetune many modifiers. They act as multipliers, which means: if a number is set to 1.5, then the related value in the game will be multiplied by 1.5. If you get 10 reputation points for an action, with that multiplier you will get 15 instead. Another example: if you need to roll the dice usually higher than 20 and use a multiplier of 0.5, you only need to roll above 10.

What values are modified will be shown in the tooltips if you hover over an input field. You can input values directly or use the buttons for that.

You can cycle the given presets in the combo box to see how those affect the multipliers. If you want to change the values, you need to set "Custom" in the box.

Further below, you can enter reputation, private money, and skill points, as well as already finished educations. Hitting "Ok" will use those values for your new game. You can also save and load your own presets by using the disc and folder icons.

But that is not enough: you can adjust those values anytime during a game in the settings menu. This will also work with older savegames. During a running game, you will only be able to change the modifiers. Money and education will have to be earned through hard work ;)

The values are saved in your savefiles, and in multiplayer mode, each player can set those values separately. That way, you can make your lives hard. Or easy ;)

Have fun using it! :)

Hi everyone,

This update was meant as a hotfix for the bug that money turned negative once it reached over 2 billion (thanks to Strohmann and RadlerAndi). Also, two stories could block the game (thanks to Waldi98). Both are fixed now, so you can get insanely rich again (although you could take a philosophical view on the idea, that no one should own more than 2 billion) ;)

But a new feature also made the deadline: you can now mark some of your players as favourites. Those will always be set when using the automatic roster checkboxes:

Why should you use this? If you want to rejuvenile your team or support a promising youth player, you can mark them. In the automatic setup mode, those will ALWAYS be set first if possible. After that, the game will try to create the desired formation (if that setting is active, see last update), and last not least, if the roster is not fully set, the strongest players (red checkbox) or players that will even the strenght of the teams over all positions (green checkbox) will be set.

If something feels off about it, please let me know.

Have fun trying it out :)

Just a tiny fix, that deals with preventing shirts and pants having only white and black colors when starting a new game.

Hi everyone,

Today's update brings a few bug fixes that were causing trouble in some circumstances.

• Fix for the Master League participant always being the same, no matter who won the league

• Fix for the lower information bar, if the roster value got over 2 billion (yes, that happened :D)

• Fix for returning players that were loaned, and could cause 12 players to be set to play

• Fix for a story arc in the coming-out narrative

Additionally, a new setting feature is also included:

Using the new cog button at the formation, you can now set a preferred formation for the automatic setup of players. You can use 3-4-3, or 3-5-2, and the automatic system will fill those slots if possible. You can also set less than 10 outfield players, e.g. 0-7-0. Then, the system will fill those 7 midfielder spots, and will set the rest accordingly (as before: the strongest players (red checkbox) or to balance the weakest parts of the team (green checkbox)).

Have fun :)

Hi everyone,

This update brings you the following additions and fixes:

• You can now create custom save files, just use the "..." button instead of the fixed 1 to 4 ones. The last used directory will be saved in the settings. (Thanks to gelbert1)

• Fixed the calculation of income / expenses when no match has been played. You will still get money from sponsors, souvenirs, etc. and national teams won't cost salaries (Thanks to Jon Zen)

• Fixed earnings from Europe Cup and Master League, you will get parts of the sponsor money for each successful round

• The income from souvenirs was nerfed a bit, they are also more dependent on the success in the last match

• Adjusted some questions for educations First Aid 2 and Coach License B for better factuality and understandability (Thanks to Ceycillian and Jon Zen)

• Fixed the strength calculation for youth players (Thanks to Jon Zen)

• Adjusted the modifiers for the different play styles, e.g. playing aggressively gives more strength to attack and subtracts less strength from defense than before

• Fixed being able to set 11 players during a match when a red card has already been given (Thanks to Karlsruhe00 / destroyer1177)

• Fixed some translations

• Fixed club colors for new teams in the editor (they were transparent before) (Thanks to gelbert1)

That's it, thanks for reporting the issues, I hope you will enjoy this update :-)

Hi everyone,

1.8.1 is a small hotfix that fixes some softlock issues that made progressing to the next week in the game impossible.

• Fix for switching to a new team and using the manual lineup of your players. Sometimes you could not reach the next week after a match

• Fix for never-ending cheering players, in case you set the match speed during a celebration to ultra-fast or result only

• Fix for savegames that were created when a goal was scored. You could not continue to the next week (well, yeah... you can't come up with those funny cases when testing :D)

• Fix for invisible team names or shirts

Especially the last point is not amusing, because I missed assigning team colors to the new international teams. In such a case, the game will assume black as the missing color. I did not want to alter the team files, just in case you have already edited some of those; those changes would have been gone by updating

Sorry for the bugs, and thank you for reporting them!

Hi all,

In this update, everything is about a new competition: the Europe Cup.

The teams placed 2nd to 5th will participate, unless the normal cup winner is not part of them. That team will then replace the 5th. The competition ties into the game like the others and takes place during the season. Results can be viewed in the stats screen, the main sponsor will pay an extra sum (subject to negotiation), etc.

It is a simple knockout tournament for 32 teams from Europe. For that, new teams from different countries have been added to the game. For modders: all teams will now be loaded from their respective league files. The old file with all international teams will be replaced by them. That is also one step closer to more parallel leagues for later updates. Right now, you can't use custom international leagues, so you have to edit the original files. Be aware that those can be overwritten by later, bigger updates. But right now, the files only contain a handful of teams (max. 5) to support the Europe Cup.

Winning the trophy will also put it in your virtual showcase, as well as bring you a new Steam achievement. I hope you completionists won't mind ;-)

Old savegames should still work, but the cup will only initiate in the upcoming season. For that, the international teams from the savegame will be replaced by the new ones.

Further content of this update:

• There are now keyboard shortcuts for the menu items: using F1 to F8, you can quickly access any screen. There is one issue, you can use these even if you don't see the menu, e.g. in an event screen. That will be fixed asap.

• Yellow cards will reset in a new season. First, to mirror the real world rules, and second, to stabilize savegames, that could have issues in rare cases with those cards.

• There will be a warning if you want to continue to the next match, and have less than 11 players set

• There were bug fixes here and there as well

Have fun hunting for the new trophy :-)

Hi everyone,

• critical fix for skipping a match without involvement directly after loading. This could result in a halt of the game

• fix for automatic lineup of teams you have managed and left. If you played with manual lineup then the teams were putting less and less players on the pitch after your departure

• fix for aging of cards for teams in other leagues. Such teams could end up with only blocked players

Hey everyone,

Just a quick note:

• second fix for retraining of players

• fix for resetting matchspeed after automatic skipping of matches

Hi everyone,

In the last update, there was a bug that could leave your players weaker than before when retraining them to their preferred position. This is fixed now! I am sorry for the inconveniences.

Hi everyone,

This update introduces some new settings, and adjusts some content that was getting on your nerves ;)

• Skip matches without user involvement: on a match day without a match that you have to manage, all matches will be calculated at once, and you can go to the next week without having to adjust the match speed, click "Start matches" and then reset the match speed

• Skip pre-match greetings: no more greeting words from your opponent's coach before the match

• Skip cup drawing when not in cup anymore: this lets you skip the whole cup drawing screen once you are not part of the cup event anymore

• Use quick dice rolls: dice rolls will be much faster to speed up the game flow. You will lose a bit of excitement, of course ;)

• FPS: die refresh rate can be adjusted to save some energy. The game runs very well with just 30 fps, even 10 is possible if you can live with a bit of stutter in the match simulation

Adjustments:

• a very high training skill could make your players weaker. That is fixed now, and a higher skill will always have a bigger effect on strength development

• re-training players was too powerful for many of you. The game could become too easy, especially by selling strong players. Now, re-training takes more time, and the gained strength depends on the player's strength. Until now, players gained 25% of strength. Now, stronger players gain less, for example, a strength of 90 can become only 95. But a strength of 20 can become 40 now. Talented players can be educated more quickly, stringer players need a bit more time to forget their established routines on the pitch. Duration and gain are now also tied to the difficulty setting.

• Spectators are adjusted as well. In lower leagues, there will be fewer people showing interest in visiting a game, especially when ticket prices are too high. 60 Pounds are not acceptable to most.

Fixes:

• fix for ever repeating message of the finished stage of the space rocket

• fix for "unkown playstyle" in the match screen

Have fun with the changes. If you think the game is too difficult now or something feels off, please let me know!

Hi everyone,

After my vacation, my productivity suffered a bit, but luckily, Mike created a lot of new graphics. Now, there are real differences in style for every upgrade of the bigger buildings. Here you can see it by the example of the restaurant:

Many thanks again to Mike, I think the sense of progress is much better now and adds a lot of flair to the atmosphere.

For the real nostalgic, there is now an option to set the currency to "DM" (German Mark). Now you can dive deep into a 90s season ;-)

The editor features a new button to import csv files for a better way to create original teams and players. This feature is in an early version and limited in features, but it will be tested and enhanced for the next version. An example file is in the folder with the team files. Many thanks to raoulduke55 for this project! :-)

That's it for now, in the next update, there will be more gameplay enhancements as well.