Goblin Auto Club Manager

I got this in the spring sale and it's a great game for the price. The gameplay is surprisingly deep with a lot of room for strategy and decision making even within the race. My biggest complaint is that late game gets super clicky as you refresh the shop and are forced to watch the animation each time while waiting for the small chance for gold items to appear, which are the more or less needed to win the final races.

I just love a fantasy sports management game. It's not perfect but it definitely is fun if you are into this kind of stuff.

Neat little racing/autobattler game

Better than F1 Manager

Strangely fun game. Maybe I don't play enough idle games to find this one repulsive, but I felt a slight addiction here. I think it helps a lot the game gave me a sticky flypaper slap at the start of the game with a custom play portrait. Couldn't help myself and spent an hour making a portrait. (But should be noted that I'm one of those crappy pixel artists who loves self insertion so...) : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3751975137 My biggest critique of this game is the lack of strategy and management pre-race. It's rough to really grasp what the actual routes of maps/races are so you kind of have to feel it out a bit. Anyway, the game advertises itself as partial control. I've played a lot of games with partial control and I'd say this is the right balance. The time between races fits nicely unlike some games where you spend tons and tons of hours on something where you just don't have enough control. But enough about inferior games like (Kingdoms never last), lets talk about this one. Hah, it's kind of fun. I like collecting and I like the idea of not being the actual person doing the work. I like management. I'm the kind of person who is a lieutenant and not really the footsoldier or the general. Tactics are important, yelling at your subordinates is important, but you aren't responsible for the resources nor are you the one actually beating the guys up. So I would say that I like this one a lot. If you're looking at this from an outside perspective though I'd say the most appealing part is the collecting. Me... I don't care THAT MUCH, but most love watching numbers go up. This has that well enough. Progression is good enough. I found it to be... just enough. My biggest complaint is there seems to only be 12 tracks? I mean... I think most are pretty attractive, though I don't like the non-committal non-euclidian tracks as a personal annoyance. That's ok though. Most of them have the right pixel-art. As far as the actual racing goes, it feels a bit like those real racing tracks where you don't actually have control if they were slightly less binary. I remember as a kid that someone owned one of these race car tracks that you press the button and if you hold it too much your car spins out or something and you're supposed to carefully manage it to not spin out. Those things sucked ass. This game doesn't make the wrong mistakes. Instead it has more detail to each. So it's like a soft puzzle. If you're just here for the unlockes, I think you can probably get everything on normal. But if you wanna keep going after, I think it has extra difficulties for perfectionism. I'm more like a semi-perfectionist. As in, I love optimizing, but also some semi-randomness. SO, my overall rating is that... base price.. worth it? Ten bucks is pushing it, but I'd say sure. It's good enough. If you're on a budget but also very into it, I think yes. Buuuuuttt... keep in mind it's a soft recommend. Lets see where the game fails in my eyes. Firstly, the game kind of has some issues with communicating how you control it. It tells you it's automated, but the more you work with it, the more you realize you can exploit a lot of it. This I have mild issue with. (Like there is a train on a map but if you gently influence when to repair, you can gain big advantages. I like this, but also don't because you can both pause your car to repair to get the best movement, but you also can't tell your car to chase the train as it retreats for max speed without getting that aggression. It's a really rough balance and I actually don't blame the dev for it here.) My next complaint comes from the custom elements. I spent like... an hour and a half with my portrait avatar, but it's just the avatar that shows up on news reports. This game feels like it would be much better if you could work with workshop elements. I kind of want to be able to design multiple portraits... yet... also not. The damn portrait designer sucks ass man. That ♥♥♥♥ was rough. I'm experienced as a pixelartist and I was just like I LOVE YOU ASEPRITE. SEEING HOW OTHER DEVS DO THIS. I LOVE YOU. Realizing just how good aseprite is compared to other crap. This game's custom portraits SUCK but... whatever. I managed. What am I even saying? What I'm saying is... it just feels like custom content would help this game a lot, but the only thing you can do is make yourself a portrait for news reports, that's it. Blegh... don't let me be too negative. Anyway, I think it's good enough. I liked it, like it, and I'm still playing it. I might change my review... but lets see. Also it's a major positive I can change which monitor this is on, but I really wish I could just have it loop through races and manage who is racing. Like make a buncha custom racers or slightly variable racers and loop them through maps for my second monitor. Did I mention I really like the details of the maps? They're good. Nice job artist. If there was one thing I wish this game had, it was Mario Kart esq stuff. Ya know... red shells, randomness, etc. I know that people who prefer management stuff probably dont' like this, but I kind of wish there was just a garnish of random sporadic stuff to the game. Like randomly falling into the river, being hit by a red shell, etc. Maybe 'optional' stuff, but personally I like that kind of thing. Or maybe that's another layer to the game where you can red shell an opponent or something. Just a teeny, tiny, touch of extra something. Still quite a nice game. That's all I have to say for now. Again, I might change the review, but it's positive for now.

Goblin Auto Club Manager is a delightfully eccentric management sim developed by Seaside Baboon and published by unthought games, built around the idea that racing success doesn’t come from driving skill but from clever preparation and controlled chaos. Instead of sitting behind the wheel, you act as the mastermind of a goblin-run auto club, assembling bizarre scrap-built vehicles and sending unpredictable drivers onto the track. The result is a game that feels less like a traditional racing simulator and more like a strategic sandbox where experimentation, risk management, and a tolerance for goblin incompetence are the keys to victory. At its core, the gameplay loop revolves around scavenging and assembling parts from a junkyard to construct race cars with distinct statistical profiles. Each component influences multiple attributes such as speed, durability, acceleration, drag, and handling, and combining them can produce unexpected synergies or disastrous weaknesses. The design encourages tinkering. Rather than following a strict upgrade tree, you are free to mix and match parts in ways that reflect your strategy for upcoming races. Some tracks may reward high acceleration and aggressive turbo usage, while others demand endurance and stability to survive long circuits without mechanical failure. This constant adaptation keeps the garage phase engaging and gives each race a sense of tailored preparation. Once the race begins, control shifts from mechanical construction to strategic oversight. You cannot directly steer the vehicles; instead, you set behavioral tendencies for your goblin drivers and decide when to activate boosts or schedule pit stops. Timing becomes everything. Trigger turbo too early and you may overheat the engine or degrade key parts before the finish line. Delay maintenance too long and your cobbled-together masterpiece may collapse spectacularly mid-race. Because the goblins themselves are prone to reckless or inconsistent driving, every race carries an element of unpredictability. Victories feel earned not because you reacted quickly in the moment, but because your preparation and strategic foresight were sound. The game’s charm lies heavily in its tone and presentation. Its retro-inspired pixel art aesthetic evokes early 1990s PC management titles, complete with simple yet expressive sprites and colorful track layouts. While visually modest, the art direction reinforces the comedic absurdity of the concept. The goblins’ antics and the haphazard appearance of the vehicles highlight the game’s refusal to take itself too seriously. This playful tone distinguishes it from more rigid motorsport management sims and makes even catastrophic failures entertaining rather than frustrating. Progression unfolds gradually as you unlock new parts, tracks, and strategic possibilities. Early races can feel constrained due to limited customization options, but as your junkyard inventory expands, so too does the depth of experimentation. Fine-tuning builds to counter specific race conditions becomes increasingly satisfying, especially when a carefully engineered setup outperforms seemingly stronger opponents. The incremental growth of your club reinforces the management fantasy, giving you the sense of shaping a chaotic but steadily improving racing team. Despite its strengths, Goblin Auto Club Manager remains a niche experience. Players seeking direct racing thrills or highly realistic simulation systems may find the indirect control structure limiting. Similarly, those expecting an expansive economic management layer might find the focus primarily centered on vehicle construction and race strategy. However, for players who enjoy systemic tinkering and the tension of watching plans unfold in unpredictable ways, the game offers a compelling and humorous twist on auto-battler-style design. Ultimately, Goblin Auto Club Manager succeeds by committing fully to its unusual premise. It transforms racing into a game of preparation and probabilistic risk, where mechanical ingenuity meets goblin unpredictability. The blend of scrap-built engineering, strategic decision-making, and retro charm creates a management experience that feels inventive within the indie landscape. While not a traditional racing game by any measure, it delivers a thoughtful and entertaining simulation of chaos, making it a standout choice for players who appreciate experimentation, lighthearted tone, and the satisfaction of seeing a carefully crafted plan survive the madness of the track. Rating: 7/10

Feels just like old racing games, but even better. Excellent!

RNG w tej grze jest tak losowe, że jedno szczęśliwe kliknięcie dzieli was od bycia OP. Co przekłada się na to, że 9 na 10 rozgrywek kończy się szybko z racji bycia za słabym na każdego przeciwnika w grze. Przez większość czasu niestety sklep podzespołów generuje śmieci, które nie dają realnych upgradeów. Dodatkowe podzespoły jak silnik, koła czy hamulce są do odblokowania. Koła odblokowujecie za 2000$ w grze(do tego czasu jesteście zdani na umiejętność grip nadwozia i kierowcy), gdzie za wyścig średnio dostajecie 10% wartości tego odblokowania. Ale bez upgradeów nie da się wygrywać. A żeby kupić sensowny upgrade trzeba kilka razy zresetować sklep za 100$. Co finalnie sprowadza się do tego, że wydacie 3/4 zebranej waluty na reset sklepu żeby finalnie nic nie kupić i ciągle być za słabym na progres. Pomysł fajny ale RNG jest tak skopane, że szkoda czasu

Very fun game ! It can be pretty difficult to understand how to build a good car for a given track, but you can balance it by micromanaging boost and pit stop. Pretty fun and casual !

goblins go vrooom, fun goes weeeeee