RAGS TO RICHES Copyright (c) GENETIC FX 1992 ** IMPORTANT NOTE ** 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. Jim Campey Steve Howard Scampz.