Swansea (14/08/25) – Lovingly re-crafted for retro audiences and those wanting to get their management fix, Kevin Toms Football Star Manager launches on Steam today.
With absolutely none of the modern features you’ve come to expect, this classic from the 80s is designed to be picked up and played at your convenience. Play through a season in no time at all in a highly customisable, and addictive, experience.
“It’s a bit like being a Footballer that’s transferred to a club with a better manager and a better team to work with.” – Kevin Toms on working with Curveball.
It has never been more accessible to be a Football Manager, and you won’t need a second mortgage for a new PC to do so.
"It's fast. It's fun. And it's the polar opposite of modern Football Manager" - Kevin Chapman (Lollujo)
- Classic simplicity with subtle depth: Manage your club across four divisions, with promotion, relegation, domestic cups, and European cup competitions. There's a transfer market, tactics to set, player fitness-wise decisions, and club finances to balance — all designed to be quick to learn but hard to put down.
- Match highlights: Stylised, text and graphic match highlights reminiscent of the original 8-bit title. It’s charming, easy to follow, and still engaging.
- Customisation & roster controls: Rename teams, edit kits, or retitle players. Player ratings consist of skill, fitness, and age. Aged out players retire or decline, while younger talent can improve season by season.
- Strategic decisions: Purchase loans to fund signings, manage morale boosts (twice per season to lift spirit), bid on players with risk/reward valuation, and navigate transfer valuations that fluctuate with division status.
Kick off the Premier League in style with Kevin Toms Football Star Manager, OUT NOW.
About Kevin Toms:
Kevin Toms is a British games designer and developer who founded Addictive Games in the early 1980s when he created the original Football Manager video game. Its novel concept as a football management strategy game, rather than copying arcade games of that time, made it an instant classic that spawned a genre.
About Curveball Games
Curveball Games operate as the publishing branch of the wider Curveball Leisure Group, a market-leading worldwide distributor and publisher of video games and consumer electronics, headquartered in Swansea, Wales.
Formed in 2024, Curveball Games aims to uplift games that we love and leveraging our extensive experience and established networks to help bring them to market.