Gaffer support

Gaffer: Football Card Battle is a three-minute tactical football card game. You are the manager: over six turns you bring players onto three lanes of the pitch, and whoever has the higher total Rating in a lane at Full Time wins it. Win two of three lanes to win the match. There are three seven-round Cups, a Daily Fixture that is the same for everyone, an Unbeaten Run, Quick Match, a Squad Builder, a Trophy Cabinet whose 25 honours are also achievements, a Longest Daily Streak leaderboard and a club editor.

Every match plays on your phone and works in Airplane Mode. There is no Gaffer account: Game Center (iPhone) or Google Play Games (Android) puts your Daily streak on a leaderboard and your honours among its achievements, and iCloud or Google Play Games keeps a copy of your progress.

How do I learn the rules

Your first match, the first round of the Sunday Cup, is a coached match against The Rookie, with a tooltip for each new idea; "Skip tutorial" is there if you already know what you are doing. "How to Play", on the home screen and in Settings, runs a three-turn match in one lane, lets you play the coached match again as practice (nothing is recorded), and lists the words: Momentum, Rating, Possession, On Entry, Ongoing, Run, Sent Off, Dropped, Final Whistle. Long-press any card, in a match, in the Collection or in Squad Builder, to read its full text. Tap a lane's condition chip to read what the condition does.

Why can't I play a card

Four reasons, each shown on the card or the lane. Its cost, the gold number, is more Momentum than you have left this turn. The lane is full: four players per side, or two under Tight Pitch. The lane has Offside Trap and the player's Rating is 6 or more. Or the lane has Long Away Trip, which adds one to every cost there. Cards you cannot afford are dimmed in your hand.

Why did a Rating badge change colour

The badge says where a player stands against its printed Rating: blue at the printed value, green above it, red below it. Other players' abilities and the lane's condition move it, and anything Ongoing is recalculated after every change, so a badge can change several times during one reveal. A Rating can go below zero, and then it counts against the lane.

What is Possession

Who reveals first. The side ahead, on lanes won and then on total Rating, has Possession and reveals first; on a tie it passes to whichever side did not have it last turn. Revealing first means your On Entry abilities resolve before the other side's new players are on the pitch. Revealing second means yours can see, and act on, what has just been played. The header shows who has it.

Did the computer see my hand

No. Every manager plays from a view of the match with your hand and your remaining squad hidden, the same view you have of theirs. The Hard managers guess what you hold by sampling from the cards they have not yet seen; they never look. At Full Time the screen shows the cards the opponent was still holding, so you can check what they were working with.

How do I unlock cards

You start with fifteen. Each Sunday Cup round you win signs one particular card, seven in all. Every match pays Scouting Points: three for a win, two for a draw, one for a loss, and five more when it was the Daily Fixture. Every ten points signs a random card you do not yet own, and the Collection screen shows how far you are from the next signing. There is nothing to buy; all thirty-five cards are earned by playing.

When does the Daily Fixture change, and why did my streak reset

At midnight UTC, the same moment for everyone, so that everyone plays the same fixture on the same day. In the UK that is midnight in winter and 1 am in summer; in New York it is 7 or 8 pm. The home screen counts down to it. A streak continues when you play on consecutive UTC days. Every seven days of streak earns a Rest Day (you can hold two); if you miss a day, a Rest Day covers it the next time you play, and the streak carries on. Miss more days than your Rest Days cover and it goes back to one. The Daily reminder in Settings nudges you at 6 pm, your time, if today's fixture is unplayed.

How does the leaderboard work

There is one, Longest Daily Streak: your longest run of Daily Fixtures, whatever the results, played on consecutive UTC days or with Rest Days covering the gaps. Tap Leaderboard on the home screen to open it. It is a Game Center leaderboard on iPhone and a Google Play Games one on Android, so it shows your Game Center or Play Games name, never your club's name, and iPhone and Android players are on separate boards. If your phone is already signed in, Gaffer uses that sign-in when it opens; if not, tapping Leaderboard, or "Sign in" in Settings, shows the sign-in screen. Your streak is sent when you sign in, after each Daily Fixture and when you open the board. To keep it off the leaderboard, sign out of Game Center in the iPhone's Settings app, or out of Google Play Games on Android.

How do achievements work

The 25 honours in the Trophy Cabinet, from Off the Mark to Living Legend, are also Game Center achievements on iPhone and Google Play Games achievements on Android. Win one and Gaffer tells Game Center or Play Games after the match, which shows its own banner; the honours that count up, such as signing all 35 players, show how far along you are. Tap "Game Center achievements" or "Play Games achievements" in the Trophy Cabinet to see them; if your phone is not signed in, the sign-in screen comes first. Honours you won before signing in are sent when you sign in. "Reset progress" starts the Trophy Cabinet again, but an achievement already won stays with your Game Center or Play Games account.

How do I share a result

The Daily Fixture is the match with a share card. Once today's is played, tap Share on the Full Time screen or on the home screen. The phone's share sheet opens with a square card drawn from your club's crest and colours and a few lines of text: the fixture number and scoreline, one row of squares for each turn showing who led each lane (green you, red them, white level; blue and orange instead when colourblind lane markers are on), and a line about how it was won. Nothing is created until you tap Share, and it goes only where you send it.

The app asked to send notifications

That was the Daily reminder. After your first Daily Fixture the app offers it on a card; the phone asks for permission only if you tap "Remind me" there or turn on the "Daily reminder" switch in Settings, and the app books a 6 pm reminder on each of the next seven days once you agree. If you said no and want to change your mind: on iPhone, open the Settings app, find Gaffer and turn Notifications on; on Android, open Settings, then Apps, then Gaffer, then Notifications. Then turn the switch in the game off and on again. To stop the reminders, turn the switch off.

The app closed in the middle of a match

Gaffer saves a match at every Whistle. Open the app again and it offers "Resume", which puts you back at the start of the turn you were on, with the same cards and the same opponent's moves so far, or "Concede", which counts it as a loss. A Daily Fixture can be resumed but not started again. If you leave Gaffer for ten minutes or more, it starts afresh when you come back: the opening plays, you land on the home screen, and a match you left is offered in the same way.

How do I start again

Open Settings inside the app and tap "Reset progress". It asks you to confirm, then puts your collection, squads, Cup stars, daily streak and club back to a fresh install. The sound, music and other switches keep their settings. The reset progress then replaces your copy saved in iCloud on iPhone, or in Google Play Games on Android while you are signed in. Deleting the app removes everything on the phone; the copy of your progress in iCloud or Google Play Games stays until a reset replaces it.

Do I need an account

No. Gaffer uses the Game Center or Google Play Games sign-in your phone already has, for the leaderboard and achievements, and keeps a copy of your progress in iCloud (iPhone) or Google Play Games (Android), so a new phone of the same kind picks up where you left off. On iPhone there is nothing to switch on: once you have played a match, the copy is kept whenever the iPhone is signed in to iCloud with your Apple Account. On Android the copy is kept while you are signed in to Google Play Games; if Settings says "Sign in to Google Play Games to save your progress", tap "Sign in" in its Account group. There is no email address to give and no password. Progress cannot move between an iPhone and an Android phone.

The app asked which saved game to keep

That is "Two saved games". It appears when this phone and your cloud copy hold different progress and the app cannot tell which is newer, for example after playing on two phones. It shows the level and matches of each, and when the cloud copy was saved. "Keep this phone's" puts this phone's progress in the cloud; "Use iCloud's" or "Use Google Play Games'" brings the cloud copy onto this phone. The other one is replaced, so if you are not sure, keep the one with more matches. Tap outside the dialog to decide later: nothing changes, and the app asks again the next time it starts. It never asks during a match.

Something looks wrong

If a card or a condition did not do what its text says, send me a screenshot of the lane with the turn number showing and say which card you mean; if a screen looks broken, a screenshot of that. Email slotileapp@gmail.com and I read every message myself.