A card records the day you got it. The footballer carries on without you.
Open packs. Back the seventeen-year-old nobody rates. Then find out, over ten simulated seasons, whether you were right — and what that does to the card sitting in your collection.
Captured in the game. Every player, club and card is fictional.
The idea
A collection is only half the story.
Most card games end at the pull. This one starts there. Every card you own belongs to a footballer inside a world that keeps running — he plays seasons, gets picked or dropped, transfers, gets injured, wins things, or quietly does not.
Your card is fixed to the moment you acquired it. His career is not. Ten seasons later the same piece of cardboard can mean something completely different, and you will remember exactly why you kept it.
That gap — between what you knew then and what you know now — is the whole game.
How it works
Open
Buy packs and boxes and open them by hand, one card at a time — or hold them sealed and come back to them later.
Collect
Keep what you believe in. Chase the sets you care about. Watch the players you think everyone else has missed.
Follow
Advance the season. Careers move on without you: form, minutes, transfers, awards, injuries, decline.
Decide
Sell into the hype, or hold your nerve. Every call is recorded, and you live with all of them.
Open one
What is in it
Packs, singles and sealed
Seven product families, each with its own look and print run. Rip them, or leave them sealed and decide later.
Prospect discovery
Open any club, look at anyone. You get a public outlook as a range and a confidence level — never a hidden number telling you the answer.
A market with opinions
List your own cards and wait. Sell to a dealer for cash today. Field private approaches from simulated collectors who want what is on your shelf.
Current and past seasons
New product arrives each season, and old releases stay in the archive with their original cast and whatever supply is left.
Football that keeps running
Eleven fictional leagues across ten countries. Form, minutes, transfers, injuries and awards all move card values and card meaning.
Your collector record
Season by season the game remembers the cards you kept, the calls you remember, and the sale you still think about.
The rainbow
One player. Every treatment.
The same card exists in a ladder of treatments, and each rung is rarer than the last — base, foil, insert, then numbered runs down to a single one-of-one, then the same ladder again with an autograph on it.
Chasing a full rainbow of one player is a real thing collectors do, and it is a real thing you can do here. Below is Lucas Renaudin of Southgate FC, in First Whistle, ten ways.
- Base
- Foil
- Insert
- /199
- /99
- /50
- /25
- /5
- 1/1
- Autograph
Ten of the fifteen First Whistle treatments. Every product family has its own ladder.
Real cards, rendered by the game. Lucas Renaudin is fictional, like everyone else in it.
The cards
Real cards and real product artwork. Every player, club and competition is fictional.
Seven product families, each with its own print run.
Old seasons matter
Supply runs out. History does not.
Print runs are finite. When a season's product sells through, that is the end of it — but the release stays in the archive with its original cast, and whatever stock is left stays buyable.
So a Season 2 rookie card is not just an old card. It is the only place that player exists as a nineteen-year-old, and by Season 10 your save has built up a real history of who was worth backing and who was not.
Going back through past releases is one of the better things you can do with a mature collection.
- Product families7
- Leagues11 across 10 countries
- Clubs148
- Print runsFinite
- Past releasesStay browsable
- Everything in itFictional
Counts are from the launch build of the game world.
How it is sold
Bought once. That is the whole transaction.
You pay for it in the App Store and the game never asks you for anything again. There is no currency to top up, nothing to unlock, no advert, no subscription and no account.
Every price, balance and sale inside the game is fictional in-game money. None of it can be bought with real money or turned back into it.
Careers save on your own device. Version 1.0 includes optional anonymous usage and performance analytics, which you can switch off in Settings without changing how the game plays.
- PlatformiPhone
- PricePaid once
- In-app purchasesNone
- AdvertisingNone
- SubscriptionNone
- AccountNot required
- PlaySingle player, offline
- LanguageEnglish (UK)
Questions
Are these real footballers?
No. Every player, club, league, competition, card product and price in the game is invented and generated by the app. Nothing is licensed, and no real person or club is represented.
Do I need to know about football?
It helps, but the world is fictional, so there is nothing to memorise. If you understand that a young player can turn into a good one, you have enough to start.
Is this a management game?
No. You do not pick teams or set tactics. You are a collector: the football happens around you and you decide what to buy, keep and sell.
Can I trade with other people?
No. It is single player. The market, the dealers and the other collectors are all simulated inside your own save file.
Is there real money in the game?
No. The single App Store purchase is the only money involved. In-game currency cannot be bought, sold or withdrawn, and nothing in the game has real-world value.
Does it need an internet connection?
No. It is designed to be played offline and you can complete a session in airplane mode. The optional anonymous analytics is the only thing that ever uses the network, and gameplay is unaffected if it cannot connect.
iPhone · Coming soon
Find them first. Keep the card. Live with it.
The Hobby: Card Career is finished and preparing for release. Paid once, no advertising, no in-app purchases.