NUTMEG! A Deckbuilding Retro Football Manager (PC) Preview

I can’t quite comprehend why I’m weirdly nostalgic for Teletext football scores. It was NABTS, JTES in Japan, and other things else where, but for those of you younger than dust itself, Teletext was the internet/newspaper on your TV and it was just colorful text plainly written. If you go on the Wikipedia page for Teletext, the first image is exactly how some in the UK found out the details of 9/11 before reading it in the paper or watching the news. So when I saw Sumo Digital Academy and Secret Mode’s NUTMEG! had a teletext league table, I hit the wishlist button harder than Men’s footballers hit the ground.

Fully titled, NUTMEG! A Deckbuilding Retro Football Manager, it truly is nostalgia bait for those of us older than dust that remember Panini Sticker books, Teletext, and the invention of religion itself. Noted on Steam by the description as “a nostalgic football manager game with a deckbuilding twist, set in the ’80s and ’90s,” you know some of us are shouting “Shearer!” Or at least the legally distinctive version of that. Examples are Man United being called Manchester Reds, Wimbledon still having a team that isn’t a Judas, and of course, the league still being known as First Division. Unlike the upcoming management game about football, this one is exclusively classic English league fodder.

That said, when you break down NUTMEG!’s description it doesn’t make much common sense. A deckbuilding football game, a football manager where you’re playing on the luck of the draw from a deck of cards, and one that’s focused around a nostalgic idea of seeing scores tick through on the BBC’s proprietary teletext system, Ceefax. It really shouldn’t work, but I’ll be honest, despite a couple of hiccups here or there, I think it does in principle. At least from the October 2025 Steam Next Fest demo that I played while catching up on some continental Women’s football.

With a handful of scenarios available in the demo, the intended focus on release seems to be more story focused as you take on a 20-year career in the English football pyramid in the 80s and 90s. You are given the option to play as either team with separate scenarios for Oxford vs legally distinct QPR as they meet in the Carabao Cup, and Charlton vs Sunderland in the League play-off. You then play as Wimbledon in the ‘88 Cup Final, with the hardest scenario to win, Grimsby to upset Manchester Reds about three decades early. So not as open in team selection, but enough to give a taste of what to expect.

However, the scenarios aren’t so much the focus, but rather this weird and interesting concept of the gameplay. Played like a solo card game similar in how you play Solitaire, unless you’ve got a multiple personality disorder, you have a set of cards you select before the game that are your players and you use a disc selector thing to decide your formation. Classic English football formations only, no 4-2-3-1s for you, it is a 4-4-2, a flat back five, or you can sod off and wear clogs.

Each player in the formation having a number next to them, and unlike convention might tell you this isn’t quality, it is stamina. That is funny when you see Liverpool’s forwards with a 90 out of 100 for stamina in an age of 40 tabs a day and enough cider to drown The Wurzels. I remember about 20 years ago a player for a Scottish team that would go on to appear in Europe soon after would still smoke 40 tabs a day, and somehow he was still one of the best players on the team. The point being players now are far fitter, it is just odd to think of old players like that having stamina at all.

With the team selected and your generous two subs picked, you move into the game itself. Played on a bit of green leather with a notepad to your right, two name plates with scores, a wrist watch with a 90-minute timer between them, and two decks to your left, this is where everything is played. The main deck is the game cards, which will feed out “Goal Kick,” “Long Ball,” “Long Shot,” “Miss,” and so on. The cards you have in hand are from the Tactical Deck, which can be any number of things.

Some cards are Blue for your defensive players, some are Yellow for the midfield to play the ball through, and Red cards (not those ones) are for your attacking players. Depending on the story of the game and the intensity, you can also get Purple cards or special ones that also influence the game. So how does that work practically? Say you start the game with a build up play and provide a wide pass onto Lawrie Sanchez, facing off in a one-on-one with Ronnie Whelan, you have three possible outcomes of what card is next. With the cards in your hand, you can influence the percentages of what card is next.

As the screenshot somewhere around here is showing you could have a 46% chance of a Loose Ball, you could pass it on for a Wing Break, or you could have a 30% chance of clashing your way forward past Whelan. It is a simple idea, but you get the point. There is a bit of RNG, but you have at least the illusion of influence over the game being played. Is it highly engaging? Not entirely, no. You do get a bit of commentary in the style of the time calling the play, but as it naturally would, it can feel stop-start.

No more so when you’ve lost the ball and the other side is cycling through some plays that you don’t have any influence over. Then it lurches to a halt as finally you have a card or two to tactically influence the game. Now typically I hate adding timers to turn-based games like this, suggesting that somehow it could force players into making quicker decisions can sometimes leave Dyslexic players like myself often behind. However, I think that sort of Speed Chess, forcing quicker thought isn’t terrible when you’re focused on percentages.

I’m not saying a three-second clock, but something to speed the game up, force decisions, and sort of force mistakes to make it more fun. Once I’d understood the very basics, I was forcing myself into those quick decisions to try and make NUTMEG! more fun and more challenging than it actually is. If you go in, know your tactics, and take your time with every turn, you can steam roll those easier games. With a bit more pace to it, you can have a more tense game even if you’re leading by a goal in the 88th minute.

NUTMEG! A Deckbuilding Retro Football Manager is a strange little idea with plenty that could go wrong very easily, but it has some interesting ideas and could pose a fun little side quest for those who don’t want a full Football Manager experience. Ultimately, I’m excited to see more of NUTMEG!, if not for the graphical style that makes old people like me nostalgic, to see where it goes in terms of gameplay. From a technical aspect I could complain, as Fullscreen mode wouldn’t stick and there is no escape/exit option once you’ve selected certain things, but it is an early demo. So I won’t complain too much.