GOAL! Football Base Game

The re-release of David Steele's GOAL! Football is our most comprehensive project to date at Downey Games. The re-release of Dr. Steele's fantastic and easy to play game is over 3 years in the making.

For those of you that may not be familiar with the original game, GOAL! was a game that was well ahead of its time. Originally released in 1972, GOAL! was one of the first games to individually rate ball handlers on the tabletop. The game was also the first to comprehensively rate college seasons. Where other games may have paid lip service by rating teams as a whole, Dr. Steele painstakingly rated each team and all of the individual skill players, which was unheard of at the time for college football.

The primary strength of GOAL! Football is it's ease of play. GOAL! Football was the first tabletop game with individual players that could be played in an hour, while keeping stats. The game also featured a unique audible system for quarterbacks. As Dr. Steele would explain in the rule book, "Every quarterback, pro or college, is more than just a line of statistics and for this reason GOAL! Football rates quarterbacks for their ability to read defenses and make big plays under pressure". As a coach, the GOAL! gamer has 3 unique rushing plays (Inside, Off Tackle and Sweep) and 3 unique passing distances (Short, Medium and Long) on offense. On the Defensive side of the ball, a coach can call for a balanced defense, a defense aimed at stopping the pass and a stacked defense to stop the ground game.

So what is new with the updated game you ask?

The primary change has been a move to Fast Action Cards compared to a random number sheets or a spinner to drive the game engine. The original game played extremely well with both methods. I do believe however, you’ll find our conversion to Fast Action Cards speeds up the game and generally makes it even more playable.

Secondly, we made some slight adjustments to the ratings. Those that have the original game will immediately notice that some of the ratings for identical teams are slightly different in the updated version. We did this for a couple of reasons. For one, the game of football has changed quite a bit over the last decade on both the pro and college levels. When Dr. Steele designed the game, I don’t think he envisioned a time when QB’s were completing nearly 70% of their passes. We’ve made slight adjustments to accommodate all eras of football. We also added a slight normalization routine so that you can accurately play teams across eras and seasons.

Thirdly, we revamped the penalty system to bring into play teams that are penalized more or less than the league average. With the original system there was no distinction among the teams. All teams were penalized at the same rate.

Additionally, we added a QB scrambling system to bring running quarterbacks more into the game. Now scramblers like Vick, Cunningham and Tarkenton can more accurately impact a game as they did in real life.

As with other games that I’ve released, we have kept the integrity of the original game in all aspects. To me, this is really a project in preserving history. We have included the original rules and charts and have painstakingly made sure that the new Fast Action Cards are fully compatible with the original version of the game. And as I’ve done with other re-releases I’ve included a “nostalgia” booklet that includes many things from the original game. Also, wherever possible, I’ve kept original documents that are still usable for the update.

The Updated version includes:

*Complete Rules for the updated version

*192 double-sided Fast Action Cards to drive the game play, printed in full-color on die-cut cards

*A new solitaire play calling system

*The original rules just as they were printed in 1974

*The original game charts for those that prefer not to use Fast Action cards

*A nostalgia booklet that includes many original documents and charts from the first release of the game in 1972 to the last published version in 1987

* 17 Teams ready for play. The teams included are: The 2010 UFL, 1978 Dallas and 1989 Philadelphia in modern form. 1979 Houston, Tampa, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh in their original printed form (Nostalgia). The 1976 Texas and Pittsburgh college teams in their original form (Nostalgia). The 1983 Tampa, Buffalo, Los Angeles and Cleveland teams in the later computer generated format (Nostalgia)

The re-released game is very flexible for the gamer. You can use the new ratings with the original game parts, or the original game ratings with the new Fast Action Cards.

Whether you are an experienced GOAL! game player, or new to the series, I think you'll really enjoy the updated game.