Nifty Football — The Game in Beta
Q2 sees the long-awaited release of the Nifty Football management game in beta. Let’s take a look at what the lucky first players can expect!
The moment we’ve been waiting for almost three years is finally upon us! Pretty soon the game platform will be launched in Beta and the first users will get the opportunity to enter the arena and create their first team of 15 unique players, with graphics designed by acclaimed artist Stanley Chow.
Getting Started
You’ll begin by creating a unique avatar for yourself as a manager, with physical features such as skin tone, hairstyle and outfit chosen by you to reflect what you look like in real life — or better — how you imagine you’ll look when you’re a world-beating football manager! From this point on, your every achievement will be recorded and will contribute towards the reputation you build for yourself down the ages.
While we’re mainly focusing on the game in beta here, it’s still worth mentioning that this reputation factor will be a feature that grows with you through the years, affecting player morale, your ability to attract the top coaches and scouts in the game and fundamentally, your influence on matches (Fergie-time anyone?). Your manager avatar will even be minted as a collectible NFT just like the players when we get out of the beta phase.
Next you’ll name your team, choose a badge (which will also determine your team colours) and choose your preferred kick-off time. In beta, you’ll play one match of a 38-game season every day and you’ll need to be present in real time to manage your team. If you miss a game, the game engine will play on your behalf but you won’t earn any XP even if your team wins without you. This is player-vs-computer however, so you can change the default kick-off time on the main dashboard if you need to.
Then it’s time for the big moment! The Nifty Football game engine will randomly generate for you 15 unique players covering every possible position on the field. Specifically, you’ll get two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three attackers, appropriately spread as right-sided, left-sided and central.
All players produced at this stage will be fairly low level, the ethos of the game being that from humble beginnings you take a team of nobodies up to the highest level. That said, all Beta users will get to play a whole season’s worth of matches, during which time players will improve and earn XP.
What’s more, all players will have a hidden potential, so you may have an extremely valuable asset in your midst but you’ll never know it until way into the future.
Once into the Nifty Football platform dashboard you can easily access all features of the game. The first thing you’ll see is your current starting eleven in formation and the time you have remaining to rearrange it to your liking before your first match. To the right of the team formation you’ll see a list of tasks that you must carry out. Completion of each of these tasks, as well as success on the pitch, will earn you XP which you can use to improve your players.
Scrolling down you’ll see the current league table and upcoming fixtures as well as other features of the game — namely your stadium, training facilities, youth academy and treatment room. Sadly however, these are nothing more than teasers of things that will be part of the full, player-vs-player version of the game, due for release in 2023.
Know your Squad
As a brand new manager the first thing you’ll want to do is take a look at your ragtag squad of beer-bellied mishaps — the low-level, unfit, technically-challenged band of nitwits that you hope to transform into a team of world-beaters! Click on My Squad on the main navigation bar at the top to go where the magic happens.
Again you’ll see your preselected first eleven in default formation. Below that are tactical options and further down again, roles or responsibilities you can assign to your key players, such as the captaincy. On the right you see the fitness level, form and statistical rating of each player in your current starting eleven and your four subs. Here you can switch players in and out in order to select your best team for match day.
Before you do any of that though, you’ll need to see what your players are made of, so scroll down a little further for your first real glimpse of your player cards!
These images are identical to the NFTs that will be minted in your name when the fully-featured version of the game goes live. Each one is unique in the world and each one is also a collectable trading card as well as a Nifty Football player, with a real-world value not only in the Nifty transfer marketplace but also out there on the open market.
Clicking on a given player will take you to his dedicated page where you can see the full range of his attributes as well as other relevant information for you as a Nifty Football manager. Absorb these stats as best you can — the clock is counting down to kick-off!
Match Day
As well as getting to know your own team’s strengths and weaknesses inside out, you’ll probably want to take a look at the opposition — shown on the main dashboard — in order to figure out a strategy. You may choose to try and contain their best players and exploit any weaknesses you perceive. I’ll explore how players interact with each other on the pitch in a later article — watch this space!
Each player will have his preferred position under his name at the top of his dedicated page and his attributes will only really be true when he’s played where he should be. If tactics require it, you can squeeze a player into a position adjacent to his preferred one, but this will diminish his capabilities, so think carefully!
So you know your players, you’ve selected your best eleven, assigned them roles and versed them in the tactics you believe to be most effective — now it’s time to play!
At this point in the Nifty Football journey, the match day experience consists of watching stats change before your eyes with a running commentary at the bottom of the screen. Each half of the match will last about five minutes in real time but you can click on Change Tactics at any point during the match in order to pause and take stock of your situation. Is a tactical change essential to avoid disaster? Or are you having such an easy day you feel like you want to rest one or two of your stars? Sometimes, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is the best policy. Only time and experience in the Niftyverse will tell.
Luckily players do not get injured in beta but they can get tired, so that’s when your ability to make effective substitutions comes in.
On the day, anything can happen. Even the weather can affect the result, but if things go your way you’ll earn valuable XP to spend on improving your team!
Post Match Analysis
When it’s all over you’ll be able to look back as many times as you like at what went right and what went wrong and use this analysis to improve your strategy going forward.
Positive results are rewarded with XP which you can then use to improve your players. Did your right back get exposed for lack of pace? Maybe your star striker could work on his penalty taking? Go into each player’s page and click on any one of his attributes to spend some of your XP on making him do better next time.
It may be your preference to shore up those weak points and build a solid if unglamorous team, unlikely to drop easy points. On the other hand, perhaps you’ll choose to build on your strengths to make certain players — or strategies — unplayable for the opposition. Again, it all comes with experience in the game and that’s what the 38-game season is all about. Players do not age in beta, so you can concentrate on improving their abilities (and value) without worrying about them reaching their autumn years before the new dawn of play-to-earn Nifty Football!
Planning for the Future
While our developers are busy slaving away in the Nifty Football factory, hoping to get the full game with all its features ready for 2023, those 38-game seasons will renew over and over again, with dedicated players earning XP all the time in anticipation of the great minting of their squad. That’s not to say however, that users joining in later on down the line will be unable to compete. Nifty Football is all about including the casual players, so no matter what stage of your managerial career you’re at, there’ll be fair opposition for you to test your wits against.
Don’t forget to join our Discord community to get involved and stay up to date on developments and you too could have an influence on game features as we grow!
CORRECTION/REDACTION: When originally published this article stated that the $NFTF token would be launched at the same time as the Beta version of Nifty Football and that it could be staked during that period. We have now decided to delay the token launch until the full PvP version of the game is released in late 2022 / early 2023.
Disclaimer: This article is not trading nor investment advice nor financial advice. I am not a financial advisor. The above article is for informational and educational purposes only. Please do your own research before making any financial decision especially purchasing or investing in any stock or digital asset.
