Nutmeg: A Stunning, Addictive Love Letter to Sticker Books and Football

Nutmeg is a massive shot of 90s nostalgia that hits you right in the childhood before you’ve even played a single match. Everything from the teletext on the TV to the rotary phone on your desk screams “the old days,” and that “Chef’s kiss” aesthetic is carried through every menu and management screen. It captures the look and feel of a bygone era so perfectly that it resonates instantly with a certain age of gamer, making you feel old while making you appreciate the retro charm.

Specs & HUD | Gameplay Review | Performance & Fidelity | Settings & Customisation

Nutmeg Steam Review: Specs & HUD

• Download Size: The game is a 3.74GB download.
• Steam Integration: Includes Steam achievements and Steam trading card drops.
• The Pinboard: This is the main menu of it all and where you deal with team management, cards, matches, and everything else.
• Club Management: Everything is done via a sticker album where you collect cards, and they join the album, housing stats like board approval and sponsor fans.
• Visual Feedback: You get a lot of visual feedback and prompts with everything.
• The Match Desk: The play area is a desk with a Casio watch in the middle, cards in play, and a notepad with the pitch on it where arrows and lines appear as events resolve.
• Save Slots: There are four save slots, and you can save and load when you want.

Gameplay Review & Mechanics Breakdown

A Nutmeg season is 50 matches, and you start by picking one of four numbered divisions. You only get a few teams to start playing with, and as a devoted Bristol City fan, this displeased me. A new campaign has you picking a division, then any of the unlocked teams, and you can play broadcast mode or hardcore mode. Broadcast mode is where you play 5 games, but only one is broadcast; you have extra control over these matches, whereas the others show win, lose and draw percentages based on your coaching staff. Changing your orders and formation can change those percentages, so sometimes I landed up doing whatever it took for them to go in my favour. I would prefer more instant feedback on teams like season goal, money, and rating, and I do wish I could have a simple let’s play match button, as I do find myself forgetting where to go.

Broadcast games only show the highlights, so it speeds through the dull stuff. It is fascinating watching a game play out; the event deck shows unfolding events, and the tactical deck is a random card from your hand. Events give you three possible outcomes with percentages, then you play tactical cards to change the percentages and pick one. When a shot is saved or your opponent takes control, the deck gets wiped, and it continues as a new run. When you score a goal, you get back any boost cards played during that run as a way of giving you an advantage. If you end up stomping someone early on, you can get an optional fast-forward mode button to basically finish the game. Substitutions and tactics can be changed after a run, not during, and at halftime, you get a random card from your tactical deck added to your hand. Remember that playing cards are not always the thing, as you can run out or not have the right card, and in this instance, the base percentages play out.

The depth is massive; you can sell merchandise, hire scouts, and buy/sell players on the transfer market. You can deep dive into your finances on the computer or use the phone to try to make deals or loans. Blueprints are when you go and see a 3D cardboard version of your stadium to buy upgrades and watch it grow. At the start of a match, depending on your coaching staff, you get card packs. You take those from the shelf and combine cards from your hand to make them a new one, seeing what the card will improve before you accept. In training, you can pick the player and what they train. All cards of players can be examined and have stats, and while the names are not 100 per cent official, they go with surnames, so you know who it is. There is a lot to take in initially, and the tutorial is a visual assault of speech bubbles, flashing cards and colour, but the game is very addictive and encapsulates the one more run mantra. I lost hours to the game.

Nutmeg Steam Review: Performance & Fidelity

• Load Times: Fast loading times.
• Aesthetic: Brilliant old school graphics with a beautiful 90s aesthetic from the old pc to the TV with teletext and a rotary phone on the desk. Chefs kiss.
• Nostalgia Trip: Having all this 90s exposure makes you (me) feel old and appreciate the old days.
• Atmospheric Polish: It is very impressive how they have captured the look and feel, even adding in commentary to the sport; it’s just so cool.
• Platform Wish: What a fantastic game and one I wish I had on Switch or I owned a Steam Deck.

Settings, Customisation & Control Details

• Controls: Full controller support, and you can remap the buttons.
• Display: Settings for Resolution, refresh rate, full screen, v-sync, and texture detail.
• Audio Sliders: Sliders for radio filter, commentary frequency, commentary volume, crowd, ambient, SFX, music, and master volume.
• Technical Toggles: Game settings include enable seed and enable seed adjustment.
• Match Prep: Before a game, you can set your formation, swap players and substitutes, and set orders: push up, hold shape, and drop back.
• Negotiations: When buying a player, you choose options for base wage, bonus pay, promise training, and promise first 11 with chance percentages.
• Speed: There is no game speed option.

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