Zoom 2/Zoom - Release 2 (1996)(Active Software)[!].iso/games/misc/punter31/punter.doc

Text File | 1995-11-25 | 24KB | 561 lines

          PUNTER V3.1 Demo Version (C) 1994-95 Steve & Belinda Bye

          Table of Contents:
          -----------------
          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 Form Book
          Special message


DISCLAIMER:
If you manage to damage your machine or yourself through the use of this
program then you must be some kind of plonker.
I, F1 or the distributor of this program cannot 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
Andrew Campbell

etc. etc. you know who u r.

Also thanks to Jonathan Low of Denmark for nagging (excuse the pun) me to
do a new version.

======================
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

V3.1 Completed on Nov 25th 1995



SYSTEM NOTES:
=============

This demo version has an annoying requester and no Load/Save Game,
apart from that this is the full version.

To get the full version send £3.99 +50p P+P as a cheque/Po made
payable to F1 Licenceware to:

F1 Licenceware (DV)
31 Wellington Road,
Exeter, Devon.
EX2-9DU


On the racecard screen pressing m will print up a memory free message.

You can multitask with Punter (Why would you want to?) by pressing
Left Amiga and A.

Pressing Shift and Q will quit the game back to Workbench

Press l to pay off a loan.

press s for save game counter.

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,


INSTALLING TO HARD DRIVE:
=========================
Simply drag the Punter disk icon to a hard drive directory.


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 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.

Once loaded a title screen will appear. Click the mouse.

The first screen will offer you a choice of 1-4 players, only select more
than one player if you have that amount of human equivalents available, as
the computer does no play as such. You can also select Easy, Hard or Pro.
Select Easy if this is your first try at Punter. A selection is made by
clicking on the preferred option which will then be highlighted, click on OK
when ready.

If you selected more than 1 player you will 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.

Next up is the "Pre-Run race screen. As all the horses and stats start off
clean it can get tiresome playing for three days to get the form built up.
Using the left and right mouse buttons choose how many races you want
pre-run for you (0-100) then press return. If you don't want any just press
return. If you selected more than 5 or so pre-run races then go make a
cuppa, have a bath,watch a film then come back. Alternatively you could
watch in fasination as the horses build up their form. You can cancel this
feature if you get bored by simply clicking the mouse between each race,
the game will continue with the form you have built up so far.


The racecard
============
This is the main menu screen. At the top right of the screen
will be 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 can make the distance
it will more than likely lose.

Going: The same applies here, each horse has a preferred going, not quite as
important as the distance but could effect the outcome of a close race.

Draw: The draw is only relevant over distances up to 8F. 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, 4=4th, 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, 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.

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 previous form

4) Each time you select Tipster costs you £25, but it is well worth it if
   you intend to have a bet, especially in tricky races. The tipster will
   give you his expert opinion on the horses with the best chances and
   why. And may surmise on the race conditions itself.

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 ) 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.

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. Using the right mouse button lets you add
or subtract from your stake in units of 100 where as the left mouse button
moves in units of 10. The right mouse button feature is disabled in certain
bets. 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.
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 to remind you.

NOTE: A quick patch here. BEFORE clicking on the "+" & "-" counters
      to input your stake, press "i" on the keyboard instead.
      You can now type in the amount you want to bet, press return.
      Thiscan save hours waiting to input a huge bet.



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 it's racing life.

                                  PRIZEMONEY
Is the total amount of win and place money won the horse in it's 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.

                                    VALUE
This determines how much you will have to pay for a horse if buying it (or
how much you will get if selling)

The sell a horse menu is also used to keep an eye on your beasts. so take a
look at their values etc. And make huge profits when you can.

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 £1000, £50,000 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.


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 let's 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, amatuer,
I apologise for that. However, I have made it look a BIT better for this
new version and added a couple of useful features: *V3 no changes, but
looking back V1 race was probably better. Sorry for this awful race, I just
can't get it right, if I ever do I will release a new version.

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 next time?

During the race you can press B to see which players have bet on which horse
Very useful if you have a memory like mine and forget which horse you have
backed! Horse one is the one nearest the top of the screen by the way.

I have also bunged in a Freeze race option, just press F on the keyboard.


LOADING AND SAVING GAMES:
=========================

*DISABLED IN THIS DEMO VERSION*

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 cancel
or press the space bar to save the game position to disk. 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.



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 races
(up to a maximum of 15) 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 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) 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 it's previous races.
If this theory worked on horses, every handicap 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.
You could buy the source code and find out I suppose....

And remember what my old mum always said:

"Don't bet what you can't afford"

Very wise!




============================================================================

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              Cheques/POs in sterling To F1 Licenceware please,

                            Steve and Belinda Bye
                             31 Wellington Road,
                                Exeter, Devon.
                                   EX2-9DU