Rags to Riches will only work on systems with MORE than 1MB of memory!
My apologies for those less fortunate. I wrote the game on a 4MB system and it wasn't until I'd finished that I found out it wouldn't run in 1MB. I thought of removing some of the 'extra' touches but decided I liked it as it was. If enough people request a 1MB version, I'll consider re-programming it!
LEGAL STUFF:
Rags to Riches is a shareware game. If you like the game then send £5 cheque or International money order to:-
Jim Campey
41, Charlton House
Albany Road
Brentford
Middlesex
TW8 0NG.
ENGLAND
Considering the amount of time we've spent on this game, I think £5 is a reasonable amount. The source code is available, free, for those who are interested. Let me know when you register if you want a copy. The first 50 people who register will receive a copy of "Wots-its-Name", and anything else we've completed!
The program may be freely copied providing this document is included. The
source code remains copyright of Genetix FX and it's members.
What is Rags to Riches?
The idea of the game is to build hotels in any of the four
Countries on the board. Those countries being; Spain, Africa, England,
and America. The winner of the game will be the person who has earned in
excess of £10,000,000 and has no outstanding loans. Apart from Hotel
income there are various other ways to increase your Bank balance.
Players start with £25000. When a players turn has ended he can either
click on the CONTINUE icon or press the space bar.
GAME ICONS
There are 7 different icons on the board and these are explained below.
SELF-DESTRUCT
Much better than END, STOP, or QUIT but it does just that. You will
be asked if that's what you want to do.
STATS
Opens a seperate screen showing the various statistics such as:-
How many Hotels you own
Whether you have automatic planning permision etc.
Current Bank Account Status
What materials are needed for your Hotel
LOAD
Fairly obvious really.
SAVE
Another obvious one.
ABOUT
Brings up a screen telling you about us (Oh, and it reminds players
about the shareware fee as well!!)
KEY
Opens a screen showing what all the different board squares mean,
whilst playing a tune.
CONTINUE
Ends a players turn. You can also press the Spacebar instead.
THE GENERAL IDEA OF THE GAME
In order to build a hotel the players must obtain the necessary
items in the following order:-
a) Blueprints
b) Planning permission
c) Materials (in any order) which are:-
Electrical supplies
Plumbing
Bricks & Mortar
d) Workforce (Staff) for the hotel
On the next monthly update the hotel will be liable for costs and
income.
The game is played in rounds of one week. At the end of the
month (4 weekly period) the following will take place:-
a) Income will be paid to any player who has a hotel built.
b) Running costs will be deducted for any hotels built.
c) Staff wages will be deducted from Players who own hotels.
d) Interest on Bank loans will be deducted from the players
Bank accounts. As will any interest on overdrafts.
PLANNING
Blueprints:
When a player lands on this square he will be given the opportunity
to buy plans for any available hotels, or upgrade Hotels already built.
Once the plans have been bought nobody else can build on the plot. The
cost of the plans will depend on the location of the Hotel and it's
star rating. Initially, players will only be able to buy 1 star plans.
If a player has already built a Hotel he will be given the opportunity
to upgrade it by 1 star (up to the maximum 4 Star). There is no
restriction on the number of hotels a player can own (providing he can
get them before other players!) but players have to finish one building
project before starting another.
There are 8 Hotels which are graded as follows:-
Spain:
Miguel's Inn = Grade 1
Costa Lotta = Grade 2
Africa:
Toot&Cum Inn = Grade 3
Swazi Hilton = Grade 4
England:
Park Road = Grade 5
London Hitlon = Grade 6
America:
Okla Home = Grade 7
White House = Grade 8
A Grade 1 Hotel is cheaper to build but earns less income.
Planning Permission:
If a player has Blueprints when he lands here, he will be able to
seek planning permission. However, the officials are not always
obliging!
There are also two squares which will give the player 'Automatic
Planning Permission' . If a player lands on one of these he will
automatically obtain planning permission when he lands on the 'Planning
Permission' square.
Not wishing to make the game too easy, there are also two squares
that will cause players to lose their blueprints if they have any.
On the board (and in the Commerce Cards), there is the opportunity
to buy the blueprints at half the normal cost. This only counts once
per blueprint (you can't land twice and get them for a quarter of the
cost!). However, if a player loses his plans he may buy new ones at
half price providing he lands on this square AFTER he loses his plans.
FINANCE
On landing on the Town Hall the player will receive a grant
towards the cost of building his hotel. Only one grant will be allowed
per building project, but there is nothing to stop a player receiving
a grant for building a Hotel, and another grant when he upgrades it,
providing he lands on the Town Hall at the right times!
There are several 'Government Grant' cards in the Commerce card
pack (See Commerce and Destiny cards). This card will enable a player
to receive double the amount should he land on the Town Hall square.
Only one 'card' can be held at a time.
There is a Casino square where players can gamble on the turn of
the number reel. 1 2 or 3 loses, 4 5 or 6 pays the amount gambled
(plus his stake). There is a House limit of £100,000 and players
cannot exceed that, or the amount in their Bank account.
There is a Race Course square where players can gamble on one of
four horses. There is also a house limit of £100,000 and the same
restrictions apply.
The Bank and Start squares enable players to get or repay loans.
There is no restriction on the number of loans but there is a maximum
loan limit of £2,000,000. All loans and overdrafts are subject to
interest which can increase or decrease during the game.
There are a number of other squares which will increase or
decrease the size of your Bank balance. You'll just have to play the
game to find out about them!
MATERIALS
The materials are divided into 3 main types. Electrical Supplies,
Plumbing, and Bricks & Mortar. Providing the player has the
following:-
a) Blueprints
b) Planning permission
c) Sufficient cash
then the required amount will be deducted from his Bank balance when
he lands on the squares, and the materials will be bought.
There are also three squares which will raise the cost of the
building materials by 10%. The increase only applies to the first
material that is bought, after that the prices are normal (unless a
player lands on the square again!)
STAFF
When a player lands here he will be asked if he wants to Upgrade
current Staff levels, enlist New staff, or Quit. Pressing the
appropriate key will open the relevant screen.
There are four different levels of staff that can be hired from
the Staff squares. The Higher the level the more income is generated
but the higher the cost of the monthly wages and the higher the initial
recruitment fee.
If a player upgrades his hotel the current staff's contracts are
cancelled and he must therefore re-enlist new Staff before the income
on the upgraded Hotel will be generated. Until such times, income will
be for the previous setup (Grade and Staff level).
COMMERCE AND DESTINY CARDS
When a player lands on one these squares the contents of the card
will be displayed and acted upon. Commerce cards generally affect your
Bank balance (obvious really), and Destiny cards affect other aspects
of the game (lose plans, get free materials etc.)
GENERAL SQUARES
The following is a list of squares that affect the general game.
Arrow Squares:
The Arrow squares point to the different Hotel areas. If a player
lands on one of these squares and a hotel, owned by another player, has
been built on the site to which the arrow points, he will be liable for
a small amount of money which will be paid to the player owning the
hotel.
Start square:
This is obviously where the players start! It is also where
players can Increase or pay off existing loans. If a player's Interest
rate has been increased it will be dropped to the base rate of 5% when
he lands here. A player must land here to drop the Interest rate,
passing over the square doesn't affect the rate.
Bank:
Here a player can Increase or pay off existing loans. As
mentioned before, there is a maximum loan limit of £2,000,000
HISTORY
V0.9 Pre-release version sent out for playtesting
V1.0 - Bought Amos Professional and used a ST Module for the game tune
instead of Amos .abk file because it sounds better.
- Added Bobs for Hotel Star rating so players could see at a
glance what Star their Hotel was.
- Changed the colours on the Country squares. Originally they
were all brown!
- Changed the bobs for the player tokens. The original graphics
were pretty naff (are these any better?).
- Restricted pointer movement to the Game Icons. Didn't see any
need for it to move anywhere else.
- Added the use of the spacebar to continue the game as well as
clicking the mouse.
- Changed the INDEX icon to KEY for better clarification.
- Added the players Bank Account to the STATS screen.
- Added a flashing square to show where the players token was.
(better clarification when more than one token is on the same
square).
- Added sound effects (I didn't bother for the playtest version).
- Upgraded the graphics slightly. They're still not exactly
state-of-the-art but better than before.
- Animated the horses in the Racecourse sub-game.
- Added 'extra cost' type cards to the commerce pack. Once a player
had built a couple of Hotels there was no stopping him. These
helped slow the increase of wealth.
- Amos Professional has a bug(?) that adds spaces when you use
the INPUT command. I had to remove the graphics from the right
hand side of the information screen as it was being overwritten
by the spaces. It doesn't look quite as nice but there's nothing
I can do about it. I have to use INPUT!
- Added a simple error trapping routing in the load and save
procedures (a BAD oversight on my part!!)
- Changed the calculations for Income and Expenses because the
players earned too much money. I think I've got it right now.
If not let me know!!
- Added some animation when a player takes too long deciding
what to do.
- Renamed the Hotels to something more amusing (at least I
think so!!)
- Fixed a bug in the 'Stats' screen. It didn't show what was
needed when a Hotel was being upgraded.
- Added Recruitment costs to Staff screen.
- The changes/additions meant that the program needed more than 1MB
to play it (Didn't find out untill I'd finished!)
ABOUT GENETIC FX
Genetic FX consists of three members. Me (Jim Campey), who does
the coding. Steve Howard, who does most of the graphics. Scampz, who
does the music and sound effects. Our first game "Wots-its-Name" was
released in August 1992 and received a good review in Amiga Shopper
(Hey, we're allowed to boast a bit aren't we?). Our next game
"Splash" is under development (I actually started coding it before
"Rags" but had problems with a few routines so I shelved it until
"Rags" was completed. Splash is based on the cartridge-game CLOWNS that
ran on the CBM64 and was one of the first games I ever bought (bit of
nostalgia?). However, our version has several levels and is (hopefully)
more involved than the original. It is a 1 or 2 player game which I hope
to finish by early 1993!
BUGS, COMMENTS etc.
If you find any bugs (surely not!) or have any comments,
criticisms, or just want to say hello. Write to:
Jim Campey
41, Charlton House
Albany Road
Brentford
Middlesex
TW8 0NG.
ENGLAND
All letters will be answered so feel free to drop me a line, I
like receiving mail (especially from overseas). It's interesting to see
how far and wide our programs are spread!!
Hope you enjoy the game as much as we did programming it.
