PUNTER V1.0 PUBLIC DOMAIN (C)1994 Steve & Belinda Bye ========================================================= * See the end of this doc for a special message * Most of the options in Punter are self-explanatory, but I will give you a breif run-down of each option just in case any non-racing people are having a go. On booting you should get a short intro showing the credits. Click the mouse when it tells you and the main game will load. Once loaded a text screen will appear. Click the mouse after you have read the screen and the game will start proper. 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 equivelents 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 highligted, 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 gametype (They are all self-explanatory) then click on OK. You should now be on 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 typicle 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 (results) 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 relevent 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 dis-advantage. 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 thorse 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: Jocks get better the more they win and place. To get an idea of the jocks skill look at the jockeys list (later). Odds: If you put £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 implented in this version. The bottom part of the main screen contains the a menu, which consists of: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Player | | look | Ask | Run | Next | Menu 2 | | cash+ | Place | at |tipster | the | players | go to | | bet | a | form |for info | race | turn if | next | | info | bet | book |costs £25| | applicable| menu | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 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 (see later) 3) Click here then on a horses name to view previous form. (see later) 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. 6) If more than 1 player is playing then as each player has finished his/her turn they must click this once. 7) Clicking this takes you to a second menu, which consists of: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Player | | | | | | Menu 1 | | cash+ | Buy | sell | Loan | Jocks | Start a | go to | | bet | a | a | | | newgame | prev | | info | horse | horse | | | | menu | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 8 ) See 1 9 ) Purchase a hore (see later) 10) Sell a previously purchased horse 11) Borrow some dosh (see later) 12) View/hire jockey (see later) 13) Restart a new game from scratch 14) Return to menu 1 This is the SEE LATER part: ============================ 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 recieve 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 a good odds. 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, anda £10 RFC costs £20. When you have clicked on your choosen 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 haveto choose two horses you will be prompted for the second, so don't worry ifyou 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 10 where as the left mouse button moves in single units. 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 on the racecard screen to remind you. BUYING AND SELLING HORSES: ========================= Click on BUY A HORSE, you will be presented with 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 thesum 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 choose which he wants to ride. The STATUS column just let's you know which jocks are currently available. 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 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! I am not going to go into detail of the mechanics of how I have made the horses react to race conditions, it's allpart of thr fun in sussing it out. You could buy the source code and find out I suppose.... There are other nick-nacks and odds'n sods in the game. But the rest is all quite explanatory. So I will finish this here a bid you good luck. ============================================================================ ATTENTION AMOS USERS !! *********************** F1 are proud to announce the release of AMOSZINE a quality programmers disk magazine. For only £2.25 you get loads of EXCLUSIVE SOURCE CODE written by some of the best Amos coders in the country, Issue one contains the source code to BRAINSHAVE the famous arcade puzzler. 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