THE MANAGER
EL GERENTE (2.1) (Remake 2022)
«The Manager» is a game originally developed by DIMensionNEW and edited by Idealogic between 1984 and 1985, on Amstrad CPC. It is a strategy video game or business management simulator, of an industrial type, where we have to run a company that manufactures articles and where we can make the most typical decisions that can occur within the world of finance, as well as suffer its adversities.
Unlike other Monopoly™-type business strategy games, The Manager has no board, but spreads its choices across multiple screens. There is also a component of luck (dice, where each roll corresponds to a month) and help or subsidy when going through the starting box, or in this case in each month of January when going through the Balance screen.
Get the Latest Version (REMAKE) of
«The Manager»
The Manager 2.1 (Remake) (Oct. 2022).
Change Log:
-Spanish and English (new) versions.
-Loading Screen.
-Compressed Graphics in Mode 2.
-Music from Targhan.
-Selectable letter Font.
-Selectable Difficulty.
-Game last state saving/loading (only on disk).
GAME OVERVIEW (remake)
KIND
Business Strategy
Coder/Graphics
Enrique Buzón
Beta Tester
Alberto Mejías
Publication date
August 2022
Music
Targhan
Platform
Amstrad CPC
We start with a capital of $10,000 and a company, where in a 1st main screen, of internal data of the same, almost everything is shown to us at 0.
Now we must buy stock of raw material to be able to manufacture, reduce production costs by installing a computer, increase the number of manual or automatic machines, hire personnel, bank loans, expenses, etc.
Remake 2022 changes
The changes with respect to the original version are:
-English version, added translation, selectable on disk load (or two tape versions).
-Changed Randomness on the Decisions, Vicissitudes, Advice screens: 45%-14%-37% respectively. And automatic switching to Council or Decisions screens if any of them is repeated 3 consecutive times.
-Selectable difficulty + $2500 subsidy from the 3rd year and half fines (in Easy level).
-Selectable letter fonts (Standard or Light)
-Compressed graphics with CPCTelera (Mode 2)
-Targhan music
-Frame on credits screen.
-Recording of data of the current game played.
In the case of The Manager there are 3 screens (Decision, Vicissitudes and Advice) with a modified algorithm in this remake so that the randomness of the dice loads more possibilities in some screens than in others, in order to make the game more agile and fairer.
The options that the player can take have been divided into 2 of these screens, and the 3 will appear randomly every spin, every month.
That weighting, in this remake, has been reprogrammed by 45%-14%-37% respectively.
At the end of the year we get a subvention (like Monopoly™ startbox).
Although originally it only lasted the first years, in the remake it has been extended to all years. Also the fines have been halved at the «Easy» level, because, by calculation, it was impossible to produce enough to be able to advance in the game several years, even with all the luck on your face.
The original program is made in Locomotive BASIC 1.0, for CPC464 and compatible, which left about 9KB free for the remake.
TECHNICAL Characteristics of the Game
At a technical level, the graphics have been made with Photoshop in PNG format, converted to binary and compressed with CPCTelera and Assembler language. No buffer is used for decompression, since there is no available memory (about 400Bytes left), being in the VRAM video memory itself, with inks off (in black), where it decompresses disorderly in a high area &FFFF up to half the screen . Finally, with CPCTelera, that information, already decompressed as an sorted sprite, is copied to another area at the beginning of the screen and the rest is deleted.
As for the music, the CPCTelera player alone occupies about 2KB, with the title “Danger Ahead” by Targhan being only 403Bytes. It is a reuse of this piece, coming from another game: «Orion Prime». In my opinion today, in the real world, there are few things more challenging and dangerous for one’s finances than starting a business. Therefore, from the beginning I wanted to incorporate this kind of musical atmosphere in the game.
Finally, I would like to thank Chema’s Cepeceros Podcast program and his guest in one of them, Alberto Mejías, who discovered the existence of this game for me in that episode and Alberto himself for his participation in the betatesting with his contribution of ideas, gaming experience and modifications, to do in this remake.
Difficulty
It allows the selection of standard or easy difficulty, with the fines of the «Vicissitudes» screen at half. And game recording.
Music
Music, by Targhan, added in Menu and Year Balance screens.
Graphics
Graphics, compressed with CPCTelera (Mode 2), making the most of the remaining 9KB.
Technology
Made mainly with Locomotive BASIC 1.0 language (90%), Z80 assembler and CPCTelera framework (10%).
Randomness
Changed randomness on the Decisions, Vicissitudes, Advice screens: weights 45%-14%-37% respectively. And automatic switching algorithm to the Advice or Decisions screen, if any of them is repeated 3 consecutive times.
Dual
A video game in Spanish and translated to English; only 64KB for the Amstrad CPC 464, 472, 664, 6128 range, on tape or disk.
CONTACT FORM
To report bugs, suggestions to this game:
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Each project involves several months of work.
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