Fantasy Cycling 2012: coming soon!

Incoming! Okay, so it's Christmas and everyone's talking about that right now, but then it'll be new year and back to work with months of dark commutes ahead and nothing to look forward to. Right? Wrong! Fantasy Cycling is back! And this time it starts almost as soon as 2012 does, following the early season action down in Oz.

We've chained Dave to his desk and he's not allowed to go home for a well-earned slice of turkey until he's sorted out the new transfer system. So we're pretty confident that you'll be able to sign up and pick your team when you get back to the office in the new year. Well, maybe not on the Tuesday. But that week, certainly. Which will give you ten days or so to get your squad sorted for the first competition of the 2012 season, the Tour Down Under.

So what's new? Well, lots of stuff. We've re-engineered the game engine to make it easier to use, and there'll be some rule changes. We're not going to let on what those are just yet, sorry. Suffice to say that your team selection can be a bit more flexible, and you'll be able to make all your transfers at once, instead of one at a time.

The other thing that will be changing is the game emphasis: we'll be running it more as a series of competitions, and less as a season-long game. That doesn't mean that there won't be an overall season winner – there will – but we'll be focusing on each competition separately, and there's 11 to play. Eleven! There'll be bigger and better prizes for winning a stage, too, so everyone's in the hat for a decent prize on every stage. So that's good.

The consistency league is out, replaced by an overall high stage score table. So you only need one good week and you could find yourself in the top ten of that one...

There'll be lots more to tell you but it's all hush hush for now, we'll give you the full run down when the game is launched in the new year. We're excited and we hope you are too... stay tuned.

That's not the official 2012 logo above, by the way.