History of the Text Sim

[Icy]

My first text sim was Football Manager in the Sinclair Spectrum 48k. When i discovered it, I was 7 years old (1982) and played if for like 5 straight hours until my father came into my room, saw i had red eyes from the hours watching the small black and white TV i had in my room, got angry at me and turned the Spectrum off. Too bad those days you couldn't save games, so i had to start again a new season every time.

It was a very advanced games, with transfer market, loans, etc and the games were simmed and displayed in an isometrical view just the most important events (like the "key moments" in FM).

SI purchased later the "Football Manager" brand i think, to continue their venture after the split with Eidos, as they kept the Championship Manager name (Marc V will correct me if i'm wrong).

Football Manager (1982 series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Football Manager is a video game series published and developed by Addictive Games. The original game in the series, Football Manager, was developed by Kevin Toms for the ZX Spectrum in 1982.[1] The game was to start a whole new genre of computer game, the football management simulation.

The game was a huge success and was ported to a wide range of systems from 1984.[2] While some, such as the Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro and Commodore 64 versions, kept or improved all features such as the match highlights graphics, most others (including the Acorn Electron, Atari 8-bit, Commodore Plus/4 and MSX) were text only. The 16-bit versions on the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga added extra features such as memorably using the machines' speech function to read out match results.

Due to the success of the game it was followed by several sequels: Football Manager 2 (1988)[3] and Football Manager World Cup Edition[4] (1990), both written by Kevin Toms, and finally Football Manager 3[5] (1993), without Toms' involvement. Football Manager 3 was poorly received, and as a result the series came to an end.

Paul Robson developed a remake of the original game. This remake has since been ported to the GP2X[6] and Google Android by Jonn Blanchard.
The Football Manager brand name was revived in 2005 by Sports Interactive as a continuation for their Championship Manager series after they lost the naming rights following a split with their publishers Eidos Interactive.

[Icy]

Dola, i just read that Marc V mentioned Football Manager before me in the thread.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

A lesser player perhaps, but one that I remember buying at least a couple of games from was Dolphin Sims, which is apparently still around as an online/email sim. Here's a link to their history, starting around 1991. http://www.dolphinsim.com/info/history.shtml

I really think the Dolphin games were underrated. He could never get the AI to be competitive in single player mode which is what led to its downfall.

However, he really got the rating categories right. Not too many, and they all intertwined in a really neat way. For instance, in baseball the speed category wouldn't just influence sb, it would also influence how many balls an outfielder could get to. In football, a lineman could have great technique, but if he didn't weigh enough, he would have real problems.

Also, it was a true sandbox game. In baseball you could build a team any number of ways and have success. Speed and defense or a power hitting softball team. If you got the right guys you could win. Same thing with football, you could win with a bruising running attack or a pass happy offense.

Really overall, great games marred by a much too easy single player experience.

[Marc Vaughan]

SI purchased later the "Football Manager" brand i think, to continue their venture after the split with Eidos, as they kept the Championship Manager name (Marc V will correct me if i'm wrong).

The 'gist' of that is correct.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by LloydLungs

By the way... anybody remember a football text sim called "Head Coach"? I believe the company was Midnight Oil. It was an American football career text sim made in the UK of all places, and it pre-dated FOF. I think it even pre-dated the original Baseball Mogul. I seem to remember playing it in the mid 90s, but I don't think I ever see it brought up in "reminiscing" threads like this.

It was somewhat crude, but it did have a draft, and aging, and it was really way ahead of its time. Fictional league, but it was good enough to keep me pretty engaged for several seasons. I seem to remember the actual games being pretty fun to play out, and I'm usually someone who doesn't play out games.

Was released by Addictive Games (Kevin Tom's company which did Football Manager) although I believe the original game itself was written by someone other than Kevin and 'ported' by him ... the original author was listed as Simon J.C. Davies - http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infos...cgi?id=0002258) .... beyond that I'm not certain.

[SirFozzie]

Have you looked at "Home of the Underdogs" or other such abandonware places for suggestions of games?>

[Ajaxab]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Have you looked at "Home of the Underdogs" or other such abandonware places for suggestions of games?>

I had checked out Moby Games and that seemed to be semi-useful.

This thread has easily given me more than enough for the page or two on early text sims. All of these suggestions could easily be developed into at least a chapter in and of itself if I ever wanted to track down some of these games' designers and do some interviews. Trying to survey the entire history of sports video games in 3,000-5,000 words is proving to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be.

[SirFozzie]

I have to admit, I got on a kick of looking at old games that have long since passed as a result of this thread. Trying to get a virtual machine running right now on Windows 7 so I can try the old One-Nil Game from Wizard Games

[OldGiants]

I've still got the disk somewhere and used to play it on my Tandy (remember the Isaac Azimov ads?). The first solid college basketball sim:

Warning: 'hoops' May Be Addictive - 03.30.87 - SI Vault

Yes, it is that Jeff Sagarin.

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

I have to admit, I got on a kick of looking at old games that have long since passed as a result of this thread. Trying to get a virtual machine running right now on Windows 7 so I can try the old One-Nil Game from Wizard Games

I played the crap out of one-nil, but I think Soccer Wizard was better.

[SirFozzie]

I found One-Nil.. I can't find Soccer Wizard