It seems that the world of crowdfunding has a new surprise hit: the board game Eleven: Football Manager.
The campaign just went live today on crowdfunding website Gamefound. Eleven: Football Manager is a competitive board game for 1-4 players where you try to manage your own football club (not American football, not fantasy football, just football) and outperform everyone else. This includes hiring staff, getting your own stadium built, signing up with sponsors, and playing matches against other clubs. To this end, the game will include multiple playable managers, each with their own way of handling business, several decks of player cards to manage, both rookies and veterans, as well decks full of staff cards, events, board meetings, and even sponsors. In short, it's a comprehensive board game more about navigating the economic challenges that managers face more than the game itself.
And developer Portal Games have done something incredibly right. Just 30 minutes after the campaign for Eleven: Football Manager went live, the main goal of €30,000 was fulfilled. At the time of writing, that number has only continued to grow to an impressive €89,128. For comparison, that is $122,912.24. Given the award-winning pedigree of the studio and their work on projects like Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game and Imperial Settlers, it is clear most of this passionate backing has been through goodwill and positive word of mouth.
The campaign for Eleven: Football Manager includes several stretch goal incentives. In addition to the base game costing you about $82 not including shipping, there are expansions that you can order piecemeal at $27. These include an international players pack, a plastic dice tray shaped like a stadium, an Unexpected Events and Stadium expansion, and a solo campaign mode. Considering the base game is already packed with custom tokens, game pieces, boards, cards, and unique novelty dice, these expansions will do nothing but add to a substantial experience.
If you are curious on how the game itself plays, there is a demo of Eleven: Football Manager available through Tabletop Simulator on Steam. Bear in mind, that you will need to buy Tabletop Simulator yourself in order to play this demo, but it's a small price to pay to see if this complex portrayal of football management will scratch your particular itch.
