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PUNTER V3.2R (C) 1994-96 Steve & Belinda Bye
Released 3 Feb 1996
Table of Contents:
-----------------
Distribution and credits
System notes
Installing To Hard Drive
Introduction
Starting the game
The Racecard
The Betting menu
Buying and selling horses
Getting a Loan
Hiring Jockeys
The race
The Tipsters
The Form Book
Special message
NOTE* If you are reading this text from inside Punter (press D on the
keyboard) then click on the up/down arrow keys to scroll through the text
and click on the close gadget to exit, top left hand corner of the screen.
PUNTER V2.0 upwards is Licenceware and I hold the copyright to this and any
other version past, present or future.
PUNTER V1.0 Was released into the Public Domain for reactions/ideas and
bug reports.
If you manage to damage your machine or yourself through the use of this
program then you must be some kind of plonker, but I nor F1 or the
distributor of this program can be held responsible for anything nasty
happening through the use of Punter. You use this program at your own risk.
In other words this program is sold As-is.
CREDITS
=======
Punter was designed and coded by Steve Bye. Horse graphics by Belinda Bye
Thanks to Dave of Mad P.D for some feedback.
Special thanks to Lee Bamber for help with some of the math parts.
THE ASSASSINS for putting Punter V1.0 on disk 214
17 Bit Software & other libraries for helping to spread V1.0
Title music is an old chip module I found on a PD disk, thanks to Martin
Wall, the author.
A big hi to all my Amoszine buddies, too long a list so just the editors:
Andy (Ock eye) Gibson
Lee Bamber
Andy Dobinson
Dave Martin
Paul Overy
Edmund Clay
etc. etc. you know who u r.
Thanks to Jonathan Low of Denmark for nagging (excuse the pun) me to
do a new version.
Also Des Wilkinson for pointing out the '80 race' bug, which incidentally
led to me discovering other annoying bugs that I would never had found
even if I was looking for them. These bugs led to a change in the form book.
======================
Steve and Belinda Bye
31 Wellington Road,
Exeter, Devon.
EX2-9DU
======================
Punter was written using the following tools:
Amos V1.36/Amos Pro V2
Amos Pro Compiler
Dpaint V3
Edword Pro V5 (registered version)
V2.0 Completed on December 5th 1994.
V3.0 Completed on June 9th 1995
V3.2 Completed Jan 2nd 1996
V3.2Q Completed Jan 20th 1996
V3.2R completed feb 3rd 1996
*NOTE: Punter will work on any WORKBENCH 2 or higher Amiga.
Sorry WB 1.X users UPGRADE OR DIE...
* Anything with 2 asterix around them are new features to this version *
SYSTEM NOTES:
=============
On the racecard screen pressing M will print up a memory free message.
Pressing L will allow you to pay off your loan in one go.
Press S to view how many saves you have left for that game.
* Pressing / on the keyboard will tell you how many bytes you have
available for saving punter games *
* Press D to read this doc file with Punter running in the background. *
(load Punter, go to racecard screen and press d on the keyboard)
* Press 0 to toggle music on/off *
* Pressing any key from 1 to 9 will load in different music modules. *
By the way the mods are pro-tracker chip mods, I used these because
they are very small, you can put your own favourite Pro-tracker mods
in their place if you wish as long as the mods are named 1 2 3 4 etc.
Just overwrite the old mod. Do this on a backup of your Punter disk.
* Pressing v gives you the version number of Punter and date of completion.
* Press x for available variable buffer space (for play testing purposes)
* press e to edit horses names, this was a quick implementation for a
customer (don't know name) who requested this feature before buying a
new version of Punter. Press e, type in horse name to change, type in new
name (no duplicate checking done in this version, so be careful)
press return. Remember unless you save the game these new names are lost.
Next version I will load the names in from an external text file so any
changes will stick for good.
You can multitask with Punter (Why would you want to?) by pressing
Left Amiga and M.
Pressing and holding down the SHIFT key and Q will quit the game back to
Workbench or wherever you ran Punter from.
There is a cheat mode for getting £millions of pounds, I won't spoil it by
telling you where the cheat is, but believe me, it's simple,
Cryptic clue: It's not right being rectangular and sounding like the bee on
a tennis bat.
If you can work out that clue then you deserve to be able to cheat :-)
INSTALLING TO HARD DRIVE:
=========================
Simply drag the Punter disk icon to a hard drive directory.
Punter will run from anywhere. The only way you can mess up a game is if you
change directories or devices when you save a game. Only save to the
directory offered to you. If you do change dir the game will exit, all you
need to do is re-load the game and load in your saved game and all will be
fine and dandy again :-)
PUNTER INTRODUCTION
If you owned an 8 bit jobbie, especially a Spectrum then you may remember a
game I wrote called Classic Trainer? No? What about classic Trainer 2,
Soccer Director, The Manager (Yes I was the first one to release a footy
game called The Manager, 1989) Cup Manager and PUNTER, yep, this is a
continuation of that Speccy cop out. All the above games were released
commercially on the GTI label and all got in WH.Smiths, which guarantees
you sales in the thousands. Soccer Director was the most successful of the
above games and got to number 2 in the CTW ship out charts (What the shops
buy for stock but don't necessarily sell!) Anyway, I got all nostalgic there
(mainly about all that lovely money) What I have been getting at, in a round
about sort of way is, that I have been fiddling with racing and football
games for years now but this is my first on the Amiga.
Up until four years ago (When I got married) I had a sad gambling addiction.
Being the type of chap that I am, I set out to study horse racing in every
detail, I did this for many years and although I am a bit out of touch with
the racing scene now days it's all still pretty much the same.
That's my credentials over with.
This section was supposed to introduce you to the game but I will do that as
we go through each part of this manual anyway so, let's do it...
Starting the game:
==================
Most of the options in Punter are self-explanatory, but I will give you a
brief run-down of each option just in case any non-racing people are
having a go. Also remember some screens in the game have on line help, so
you will probably only ever need to read this once or twice.
Once loaded the F1 title screen will appear.
Click the mouse after you have read the screen and the game will start.
The next screen will offer you a choice of * 0-999 Pre-run races *
click on the left and right arrows with the left mouse button to choose
how many races you want, the right mouse toggles 0 or 999 to save time.
What's a pre-run race? I hear you cry! I will explain. When you start Punter
all 100 horses are equal no races, no form etc. But they all have their own
individual characteristics. Pre-run races are a quick way of building up
some form, you can set the pre-runs then go have a bath, hairwash, shave,
pint down the pub then come back to to game with lots of form to work with.
What I advise is to do this once then save it so you can use it again.
Personally I think the races with no form are good for getting high priced
winners so there you go, each to his own I suspect.
The next option on this first screen is the difficulty level, select from
* NORM-MED-HARD *, to be honest I need to do more work on this option to make
it a lot more interesting, but for now harder levels mean you start with
less cash, have less game saves, lesss or no loans/tipsters available and a
couple of other little things.
The last thing you should select on this screen is the amount of players,
just click on 1 2 3 or 4. only select more than one player if you have that
amount of human equivalents available, asthe computer does not play as such.
If you selected more than 1 player you will then be presented with a game
type option screen. Click on your preferred game type (They are all
self-explanatory) then click on OK.
In the one player game the aim of the game is simply to survive,
ie. not going skint. Hopefully the next update will see some game types for
one player games. New to this version though is an overall * punter rating *
,alright a score then! When anyones game ends you get a brief rundown of how
you did and a score which can be negative as well as positive, I got -655
when my dead cert lost and I put all my wad on it!!
If you have chossen to pre-run some races then they will kick in now.
You can stop pre-runs by clicking the mouse between races and all the
built up form will be kept intact, so if you selected 999 races and changed
your mind after a few races just click away dude!
If you didn't select pre-runs or when they have finished you will be
presented with the main screen, the Racecard.
The racecard
============
At the top right of the screen is the season counter and RN (Race Number)
counter. Directly below will be the details of the next race,
here is a typical example:
Race 1 Doncaster £27000+ 7 Run 7F Going:Hard Draw:Low best
| | | | | | |
| | | runners | | Draw advantage
1st of 6 races | Total in race | State of
at meeting | prize money | the turf
Venue Distance of
race, in
Furlongs
Each meeting has six races, there are 15 different venues. The total prize
money is split between the winner, second and third horses. Runners range
from 4 to 8. The race distances range from 5 Furlongs to 16F (2 miles)
There are 4 differing going conditions Heavy, Soft, Firm and Hard. The
advantage differs with course going, and distance.
The only features here that may need closer inspection are:
Distance: Each horse has it's own optimum distance, it's part of your job to
discover what it is by studying previous form using the Form book and
listening to the expert form man's comments (see later) A horse may be head
and shoulders above the opposition in a race but if it cant make the distance
it will more than likely lose.
Going: The same applies here, each horse has a preferred going.
This is not quite as important as the distance but could effect the outcome
of a close race.
Draw: If the draw is, "Best Low", and your horse is drawn 8 of 8 then your
horse is running with a distinct disadvantage. A good horse and jockey
however may overcome this against weak opposition.
Just below the race info are the horses themselves:
000000 17 BIT BOY A.FOSTER 6-9-02 G.CARTER 3/1
| | | | | | |
| Horses Trainer | Weight to | Odds
last six races name | carry, Jockey
| (9 stone,
| 2 lbs)
|
Age
Form: gives the outcome of the last six races the horse has run in.
0=hasn't run or was unplaced, 1=Won race, 2=Come 2nd, 3=3rd, L=Last
Age: A 9 year old horses chance against a 4 year old with similar form would
give the younger horse an advantage.
Weight: Designed to stop long winning streaks and give bad horses a chance
of a bite of the perverbial cherry. 2lb is added for a win, 1lb for 2nd
place. 1lb is deducted for coming last.
Obviously the less weight a horse has to carry the faster it can run.
Just watch a heavy weighted horse in a real race to see the effect of weight.
Jockey: Jockeys get better the more they win and place. Jocks cost more
to hire as they get more winners.
Odds: If you bet £10 on a horse to win at 3/1 you will get back £40.
odds X Stake + your original stake back.
Betting tax has not been implemented in this version.
The bottom part of the main screen contains a menu, which consists of:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Player | | look | Ask | Run | Next | |
| | Place | at |tipster | the | players | Load a |
| Cash | a | form |for info | race | turn if | previously|
| | bet | book |costs £25| | applicable| saved game|
| ------------------------------------------------------------
|bet info | | | | | | |
| | Buy | sell | Loan | Jocks | Start a | Save the |
|if applic| a | a | | | newgame | current |
| | horse | horse | | | | game pos |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1) Shows whose turn it is, how much cash you have to spend and any bets made.
2) Click here to go to the Betting menu
3) Click here then on a horses name to view the last 6 races
4) Choose between three cool tippers. See later
5) Click here when all players have done, and watch The race unfold.
I have a LOT of work to do on the graphical side of the race, I am well
aware of that! I am looking for someone to offer some help for this.
6) If more than 1 player is playing then as each player has finished his/her
turn they must click this once. Note * V3+ allows right mouse click to
move back & forth between player turns in case a player has forgotten
or missed something.
7) Clicking this allows you to Load in a previously saved off game position
8 ) Minimal player statistics on cash and betting details.
9 ) Buy a horse (see later)
10) Sell a previously purchased horse.
11) Apply for a loan (see later)
12) View/hire Jockeys (see later)
13) Restart a new game from scratch
14) Save off the current game position to disk.
Two new button features on this screen are * HELP * and * STATS *
Just click on the HELP button for er, help I think!
STATS gives you lots of player info, like how you are doing betting wise
and how your horse dealings are going, loan situation etc. Useful.
BETTING MENU:
-------------
You will be presented with four different types of bet to choose from,
they are:
WIN, The horse must WIN the race outright or you lose your bet.
E/W, This is a two-part bet. Half your stake is a WIN bet, the other a place
bet. If your selection wins you get paid on both the win and place
parts of the bet. If your selection comes second or third then you
receive 1/4 of the odds of your placed horse. The place part has some
restrictions on runners.
4 and 5 runner races are WIN only (E/W bets not accepted)
6 and 7 runner races are Win and second place only
8 runner races are Win, second and third place for E/W bets.
SFC, (Straight Forcast) This bet entails you picking the winner AND the
the second placed horse in the CORRECT order. You are paid out on
a formula pertaining to the chances of each, so for example if you
picked two outsiders with big prices and your bet came up you would
be paid out at good odds. This is a good bet for making big cash from a
small outlay but the chances of winning are quite high. For example
there are 36 possible permutations of 1st and 2nd place in a 6 horse
race, giving you the odds of 35/1 of picking the correct two, where as
just trying to select a winner of a six horse race your odds are 5/1.
RFC, (Reversed Forcast) Exactly the same as the SFC except your selections
can come in 1st/2nd or 2nd/1st , reversed! The drawback to this bet is
it costs you twice as much as a SFC. Just like the E/W bet, the RFC is
in fact two bets, so a £10 SFC costs £10, and a £10 RFC costs £20.
When you have clicked on your chosen bet the mouse pointer will be
automatically moved into the runners area. Here, depending on your bet, you
must click on the horse or horses you wish to bet on. If you have to chose
two horses you will be prompted for the second, so don't worry if you are not
sure. When finished selecting your horse click on OK. The pointer will now
be moved to the STAKE part of the screen. Click on the + sign to add to your
stake, - takes it back of course. * ALL * will stake all of your money on
the best, you can still adjust your stake after using ALL, it makes for
easeir staking when betting large sums of dosh(this was a huge failing in
previous versions of Punter where it could take 10 minutes to stake a
million quid ouch!)
Look at the * Betting Slip * part of the screen to see what return your
bet will yeild.
When you are happy with your stake click on OK.
If everything went well then click on the ACCEPT button.
If you are not happy click on CANCEL.
If you get confused anywhere press the * HELP * key on your keyboard.
You will then be taken back to the racecard screen.
If you have made your bet there is no going back. You can only make one bet
per race. (In this version anyway) The bet you have made will be displayed
in the left-hand box of the race card screen to remind you.
BUYING AND SELLING HORSES:
=========================
Click on BUY A HORSE, you will be presented with a screen listing all the
current horses for sale (If any!) You will be given all the usual data on
each horse plus a few extra bits of useful info:
Wins/Runs
6/9
Means the horse has won 6 races from nine runs in its racing life.
PRIZEMONEY
Is the total amount of win and place money won the horse in its racing life.
Click on a horse you wish to buy and if you have enough money it's yours.
You are asked to confirm with a Y or a N when buying or selling a horse
so just press Y or N on your keyboard.
VALUE
This determines how much you will have to pay for a horse if buying it.
The sell a horse menu is also used to keep an eye on your beasts.
Take a look at their values etc. And make huge profits when you can.
Horses values go up and down according to performance.
To leave the Buy or Sell horse screens just click on EXIT at the top left
of the screen.
GETTING A LOAN
==============
Blimey! I wish it was this easy in real life. To get a loan, click on the
LOAN icon and you will be presented with (you guessed it) the Loan menu.
You can borrow * £25,000, £50,000, £75,000 or £100,000 *.
If you change your mind at this stage just click on CANCEL, otherwise click
on the sum required then click on OK. The money is now in your account.
You have to pay it back of course, with 10% interest. Payments are debited
automatically. You can only have one loan at a time.
Pressing L on the racecard screen allows you to pay off your loan in one
lump if you should wish to.
JOCKS:
======
On entering the Jocks screen you will see the following info:
NAME RIDES WINS RACE SEASON STATUS EXIT
Name and wins/rides are obvious. The race column tells you how much
that jockey charges to ride in one race for you. They are pretty competitive
these dudes and to start with they all charge the same, but their fee is
linked to their current form. This is where getting a retainer on a jockey
for a whole season can be a good deal, the SEASON column tells you how much
it will cost to have a jock ride all your horses. If you have more than one
horse in the race the jockey will chose which one HE wants to ride as is the
case in real life, well, most of the time anyway.
The STATUS column just lets you know which jocks are currently available
and which one's are tied up in the next race or for the season.
The RACE:
=========
In v1.0 the graphical side of the race was somewhat, how can I put it? CRAP!
I apologise for that. However, I have made it look a BIT better for this
new version and added a couple of useful features.
Sorry for this awful race, I just can't get it right, I will keep at it
though, so one day maybe.....
Before the race starts a screen will appear instructing that you can click
the mouse to continue or press the space bar for a quick race. I implemented
the quick race option for the times when you have no interest in that
particular race. Quick race speeds up the race 2-10 times faster dependant
on the amount of runners. I would have liked to have done a result only
option, but the way I had designed Punter this would of meant quite a large
job, maybe another time?
A new feature for V3.2 is the * race details screen *
This displays the runners draw,name and price, the race distance,going,
prize going etc. Every players bet placed on the race and the tipsters
selections for that race, all in a small window. I like it anyway:-)
I have also bunged in a Freeze race option, just press F on the keyboard.
Press F again to unfreeze.
THE TIPSTERS
============
You have a choice of three tippers:
DEAD CERT This dude costs £100 every time and usually you don't even get a
tip, BUT WHEN YOU DO bung your dsh on by the truck load.
TV MAN The housewifes choice (oerr) Costs £75 and gives you his 1-2-3
for the race every time without fail. This guy is your typical
Tabloid type tipster so take it all with a pinch of salt.
FORM MAN This guy does all the form book work for you and for only £25.
He gives a brief rundown on horses with a chance and sometimes
suggests a bet. The only difference with Form Man against you
using the FORM BOOK option from the racecard menu is that
Form Man can be subjective he sticks to a set of rules whereas
you can spot little pointers that could lead to big price
winners.
On the main tipsters screen is a * HELP * button and a EXIT button, I don't
need to explain them do I ?
Each tipster has the following info available about him:
* SELECTIONS * How many tips given in the game so far.
* WINNERS * How many of the tips actually won.
* STRIKE RATE * % of winners to selections.
* LEVEL STAKE * This is a standard way in the racing world of
displaying wether a tipster is worth following blindly.
A theoretical £1 is staked on EVERY selection and
Winnings calculated to make the total or loss.
So an LS of -£30 would be bad and £30 would be better.
This gives tipsters that give out good priced winners
as opposed to short priced winners a look in.
LOADING AND SAVING GAMES:
=========================
Loading and saving games of Punter is very easy. If you wish to save your
game position then first of all make sure the Punter disk is not write
protected. Now click on the SAVE icon. You can now click the mouse to
continue or press the space bar to cancel save.
To save a game you will need to type in a name for your saved file and
click on OK,
**WARNING** ONLY SAVE THE GAME TO THE DIRECTORY OFFERED TO YOU, IF YOU
OPEN A DRAWER OR DEVICE PUNTER WILL CRASH WHEN IT NEXT ACCESSES THE DISK.
YOUR SAVED GAME WILL BE OK, BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO RE-LOAD.
you will then be returned back to your current game where you can continue
playing.
Loading back your game position is even easier. Just click on the LOAD icon
and double click your saved game file and your game position will be
restored.
Depending on the difficulty level you selected you only have a limited
amount of saves for a game so be frifty. Press S on the racecard screen to
see how saves you have left.
FORM BOOK:
==========
Use this to check up on any horse about to race. Click on FORM BOOK then on
the horse you wish to look at. The form of each of the horses latest 6 races
will be displayed.
Name Distance Weight Jockey Runners
| | | | |
010032 FRONTLINE DONCASTER 8F HARD 9-00 7/1 PIGGOTT 2nd of 8
| | | | |
Last 6 Course Going Odds Finished
runs
You can use the information here to determine the horses favoured
conditions. But remember, horses are not machines. They have their good and
bad days, just like us. Another racing adage is:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DEAD CERT!
As far as explaining how to interpret form lines, no chance, I would need
at least 300K of text to do that properly (Oh, I feel a book coming on!)
What I will do is give you a VERY BRIEF and simplistic look at how to work
out form according to the way Punter uses it.
As far as this game (and myself) are concerned, Distance is one, if not THE
most important factor in a race. It doesn't matter how good the horse is,
if it isn't capable of lasting 16 furlongs it WON'T win, unless of course
the opposition is SO bad that the horse can simply trot up to the line, this
is why you sometimes see jockeys holding horses up in the rear waiting for
the final 2 furlongs for that last burst of energy. The opposite is true of
the stayer who needs, say, at least 14f to get going will not have the
slightest chance in a 5f sprint even against lowly opposition.
So, basically if the horses optimum distance is within a furlong
(or maybe 2f,if he is really good) and the opposition don't look too much
then you are on to a horse that will "Get the trip" as they say in racing.
The going is also quite important. A horse that needs a bit of "Give under
foot" i.e. SOFT going, will not like the leg jarring HARD ground, this will
go against him in a race. As a general rule though, if the going is FIRM I
wouldn't worry too much as most (not all though) horses can handle this.
Weight: "The great leveler of horses" is designed to theoretically give
every horse an equal chance in the race, based upon its previous races.
If this theory worked on horses, every race would see a photo finish between
all the runners on the the finishing line, but as I said earlier, horses are
not machines.
I have implemented my own "Handicap" system for punter, for now, as I have
not implemented grades of races as yet, for example, Maidens/Plates/
Handicaps/Stakes etc. All you need to know here is that the more weight a
horse has to carry, the slower it will run. If a horse is having a bad run
then it will have a few pounds taken off, if it's on a winning streak then
it will have weight added on.
Next on my importance list is current form: A horse and its jockey in form
can pull off some amazing wins at big prices, so keep an eye out.
In real life the venue (race course) can make quite a difference to some
horses. Some prefer left handed tracks, some can't race on left handed
tracks. Similarly, tight bendy tracks can offset huge weight burdens which
are nearly meaningless because of the slow pace of the race caused by the
tight bends. I recall, years ago picking a few good priced winners at
Edinburgh race course (Very tight bends, at the time) by backing the top
weighted horses in handicap races). I have not implemented track features in
Punter yet, but keep an eye out for any horse that seems to have a favoured
track.
I am not going to go any further into the mechanics of Punter, it's all part
of the fun in sussing it out for yourself.
And remember what my old mum always said:
"Don't bet what you can't afford"
Now why didn't I listen to her?
PLEASE REPORT ANY BUGS YOU FIND IN PUNTER, STATING EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS
AND ANY ERROR MESSAGES YOU GET.
============================================================================
ATTENTION AMOS USERS !!
***********************
F1 are proud to announce the release of AMOSZINE a quality programmers
disk magazine. For only £2.25 (1 disk issue) you get loads of EXCLUSIVE
SOURCE CODE written by some of the best Amos coders in the country, each
Issue contains the source code to at least one well known PD game/demo or
util.Not forgetting all the quality articles,extensions,tutorials,hints,tips
etc. Amoszine will equally benefit beginners and experts alike
IF YOU USE AMOS THEN AMOSZINE IS FOR YOU
ISSUES 10 OUT NOW!
On 3 disks only £5.99 +50p P+P
(DEC 95)
ISSUE 11 OUT 1st March 1996
(2 Disks £4.99 +50p P+P)
THE BEST VALUE AND FRIENDLIEST AMOS MAG IN THE UNIVERSE (Probably)
OVERSEAS: Payment in STERLING ONLY please, please add £1.50 P+P
Cheques/POs in sterling To F1 Licenceware please,
Steve and Belinda Bye
31 Wellington Road,
Exeter, Devon.
EX2-9DU
