The BBC and Master Computer Public Domain Library

MILLIONAIRE

Professional, Originally Released On Cassette Only

Game Type          : Simulation; Make A Million Selling Computer Games

Authors            : John Hunt and Steve Benfield

Standalone Release(s)  : 1984: MILLIONAIRE, Incentive, £7.95

Compilation Release(s) : 1985: 5 COMPUTER HITS, Beau Jolly, £6.95

Stated compatibility    : BBC Side A, Electron Side B

Actual compatibility    : As stated

Supplier            : INCENTIVE, 54 London Street, READING RG1 4SQ

Disc compatibility     : CDFS E00, DFS E00

Instructions

"MILLIONAIRE is a new experience in getting rich!! From a small humble home to a magnificient estate? Take on one of life's little challenges and become a millionaire! Start up a Software Co, Buy, Sell, Advertise and Wheel and Deal with Honest Harry. Full Screen Graphic Representation of your current residence and many other features. Who wants to be a MILLIONAIRE?!!"

You own a home computer and have written a program which you consider to be of sufficient quality to market. You are willing to put £500 of your own money into the project. The decisions are up to you and these will directly influence whether or not you make it to the top and become a MILLIONAIRE.

First, you must choose whether or not you wish to specialise, and if so, in what area. Your first program can be sold if required to boost your initial capital.

The section entitled "What makes a good Program?" occurs at the start of the game and periodically thereafter. This section is very important as regards sales.

You will be presented with a graphic illustration of the offices belonging to your company, Software Inc. The buildings will become more impressive as your assets grow. However, at the start of the game, you will be working in a mid-terraced house. The game rotates in monthly cycles. First will appear a display of the company's programs, sales, tapes in stock, rates, assets and money borrowed. Next will appear a graph showing the monthly progress (only sales of 100+ will appear),

followed by the news sheet. Often these pieces of news have a direct effect on the company and its sales. When news is beneficial, sales should be boosted and vice-versa.

You must decide on which main area you are going to work.

The following options are open to you...

1. Programming. This will add one new program to your sales.

2. See Honest Harry. If you want to get rich quick, or money is short then H.H. can provide very cheap programs and cassettes but there is always the risk of finding yourself on the wrong side of the law.

3. Try to sell products to retailers. This will, of course, help to boost sales.

4. Convert existing programs to other machines. This will increase the number of programs by one.

5. Try to obtain a loan. Loans of £1,000 can be obtained each month, with an interest replayment of 10% per month. If your loans exceed your assets by £10,000 then you will be considered to be bankcrupt.

6. Sell out. If you've had enough and want to see how well you've done then you can sell out. A score sheet will be revealed showing assets, sale price, popularity rating and a score 0-100.

In order to boost sales, you have five ideas, but be careful how you use these because each can be used only once. Some are free and others will cost you. However all will, to a certain extent, boost sales.

When you have programs on the market you will be asked how much you wish to spend on advertising; how much you wish to spend on duplicating per cassette (if you choose the cheapest option then you may find that programs are faulty and this will adversely affect sales) and how many cassettes you are duplicating for the next month.

Points to note:

If assets reach -£100 or lower then you will be considered bankrupt.

When a fair number of cassettes are on the market, occasionally one will disappear. The idea behind this is that the programs have a limited lifespan and may well be taken off the market if they are not selling well.

The profit margins for the first 18 months are quite high. After that period, there will be a cut in profits to compete with others. After 30 months, selling will become gradually more difficult, but the effect of this is only slight.

Prove you can reach £250,000+ for a few months and then relax. The hard work of getting the company off the ground and becoming a stable organisation has been done. From here on, the computer will assume that you have the capability to make a MILLION and will assess the time taken to reach your goal based on your performance so far.

The Program starts fairly easily for all to gain some measure of success, but as your assets grow - so do all the problems!!

WILL YOU BECOME A MILLIONAIRE? Good Luck.

Instructions' Source   : MILLIONAIRE (Incentive) Back and Inner Inlay

Review (Electron User)

Here you play a home computer programmer who has decided to go into business selling your own products. Since the program typifies the decisions that have to be made in real life you'll soon be wishing you hadn't bothered!

You start by deciding what kind of programs you want to write - arcade games, adventures, educational programs and so on. Naturally I decided on adventures. You then have to decide what aspects of your programming you want to highlight. To do this you have twenty points that have to be allocated to different features, quality of programming, addictiveness, packaging and such like.

Since I had chosen adventures, I gave the maximum eight points to programming, five to packaging and seven to addictiveness. I can definitely say that judging from my performance this is not the right way to allocate your points.

You are then given an option to sell your program to raise money to add to your original investment of five hundred pounds. The decision made, you enter into the game.

The game is cycled monthly until you are either bankrupt or have made a quarter of a million pounds profit. If this figure is reached, the Electron assumes you have the financial acumen to be a millionaire and ends the game.

At least I assume it does. I couldn't get that far. Each month you make decisions which are totalled to give a monthly run down on the state of your business.

This shows the number of programs you have on the market, your sales, stock, rates payable, assets and any outstanding loans. You are then given the options for the month. You can write a program, sell your products to retailers, convert your existing programs to other computers, try to obtain a loan, sell out - which will give you your score - or see Honest Harry, who will undoubtedly try to sell you a
load of cheap cassettes at a bargain price.

To increase your profit, you are asked how much you wish to spend on advertising, how much you wish to spend on duplicating cassettes and how many you want duplicated. Your decisions are evaluated and the program then gives you a news
sheet - which in my case always seemed to mean bad news.

Then you are shown a graph displaying your sales figures for the year, and finally the run down of your business again.

It generally took me between one and two years to need a bank loan. This is where I discovered the only bug in an otherwise professional program. You are allowed to borrow a thousand pounds each month.

Once you take out a loan you are charged ten per cent interest each month. I borrowed £1,000 and six months later owed £7,600! I've heard of inflation but this is ridiculous! It appears that if you borrow money one month and do not pay it off
the next you are treated as if you borrow money EACH month, though you don't, at least, pay interest on all of it.

This program has been available on at least one other computer for a while. Although a truly professional job it is not that different from other similar games already available.

Overall, somewhat marred by that bug discussed earlier. The rest of the program is superior, though similar, to other strategy games currently available.

Merlin, ELECTRON USER 2. 8