Management games

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Juan F. Ramirez
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Management games

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

From a football team to a brewery, they are a lot of management games for the Spectrum, diverse topics,...

The first that comes to my mind are (no need to explain them):

Football Manager
Dictator


R-Tape suggested The Brewery in the 'Game of the day' thread.

How many do you know?
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PeteProdge
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Re: Management games

Post by PeteProdge »

Let's get all three* pop music management games out there...

It's Only Rock And Roll by K-Tel.
The Biz by Virgin Games.
Rock Star Ate My Hamster by Code Masters.

* = I hope I'm wrong and there are more.
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Re: Management games

Post by Dark »

Football Manager, Formula 1 and Rock Star Ate My Hamster are the three management games I played loads.
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Re: Management games

Post by Wall_Axe »

yeah i played a lot of formula one, even though i didnt have any interest in racing or cars

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1845
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Re: Management games

Post by Ralf »

I suppose Simcity counts as management game. It was a big hit on all computers when it was released. I didn't play it much on Spectrum but Speccy version looks really decent:

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druellan
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Re: Management games

Post by druellan »

I remember Software House - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=4620
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And recently I discovered (testing games one by one):

Cargo, more like an education software by Macmillan - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=821
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The Powerbox series, a train management - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=17514
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There is also a Russian stock market game, that looked very complex. I can't remember the name, but I have it recorded, I can look into it if there is interest.
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R-Tape
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Re: Management games

Post by R-Tape »

I like my simple Space Trader games:

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Space Trader from Sinclair User. It's good but not very challenging. Once you've sussed out a few rules it's easy to repeat the same actions and make a fortune.

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A good one to play that doesn't have this design flaw is Einar & Eduardo's Cosmic Commerce.
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Re: Management games

Post by Ralf »

If we include trading games into management genre then I used to be a big fan of Taipan. And I don't mean here the title from Ocean but less known this one:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=10292
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It is a simple game written in Basic where you travel by ship around a few ports in Far East, sell and buy things. At first you trade with cheap goods, later when you have more cash you can purchase more expensive and profitable ones. Expect also quite a lot of random events on your travels which can be good or bad for your purse.

As I said it's simple but somehow it really sucked me in. I played it into completion which happens when you earn 100000$

It had an Polish unofficial translation (present on WOS but somehow not on Spectrum Computing) and at that moment everybody here believed it was a Polish game. Only after many years I learnt about the original.
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druellan
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Re: Management games

Post by druellan »

I was checking some Outlet Magazines tonight (live :D) and found this one:

Nuclear Reactor - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=23177
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Ersh
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Re: Management games

Post by Ersh »

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BREAK/SPACE by Blerkotron is a great trading/management/RPG game, highly recommended.
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R-Tape
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Re: Management games

Post by R-Tape »

Ersh wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 4:05 pm BREAK/SPACE by Blerkotron is a great trading/management/RPG game, highly recommended.
That is great, I finally got around to playing this today. I kept meaning to check it out as I thought its genre was wrong, but I think Management and RPG/dungeon crawler could equally apply here. (No we shouldn't make a new genre!)
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Re: Management games

Post by Ralf »

Yes, in general you can mix management and RPG and even management and RPG dungeons.

Some very classic titles on PC (and I'd like to see any of them on Spectrum) would be:

Dungeon Keeper:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dungeon-keeper

Horde:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/horde

Master of Magic:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/master-of-magic
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Ersh
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Re: Management games

Post by Ersh »

R-Tape wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 6:44 pm That is great, I finally got around to playing this today. I kept meaning to check it out as I thought its genre was wrong, but I think Management and RPG/dungeon crawler could equally apply here. (No we shouldn't make a new genre!)
Yes it's a great little game. Minimalistic in many ways but it still offers a good deal of depth. The available resources to trade are just three, but the game features politics which affects the market. There are different ways to play the game as well, you could be a pirate and exploit a friendly but weaker race or gear up your ship and take on stronger hostiles. You could also be a total pacifist, avoiding combat all together, focusing on trading/mining and/or missions. The fact that the game is basically on a timer means that a game won't take all that long to complete either, around 10-15 minutes on average. That together with the replayability that comes with a procedural generated universe makes it a perfect pick-up-and-play kind of game.
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Re: Management games

Post by Alone Coder »

I recorded the gameplay of a little-known RPG-management game King's Bounty 3 (2001) (with low score, I had more points back at the time, and completed the game several times):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK_5tle5AKw
There also were other versions of King's Bounty for Speccy, and also Land of Myths (that AFAIK nobody has completed).
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Re: Management games

Post by Alessandro »

I don't want to sound like I am blowing my own trumpet, but there are these two titles I'd recommend to anyone interested into management games :)
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Andre Leao
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Re: Management games

Post by Andre Leao »

Welcome to Hollywood, a great game recovered more than 30 years after beind developed...
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Mpk
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Re: Management games

Post by Mpk »

I used to love this genre, much to my family's irritation.
'Put on a proper game', they'd say.
'No', I'd say, 'the weather has been bad and now I have to dump all this beer. You don't understand how the entire workforce of my imaginary brewery is at risk.'
They're more like role-playing games than actual cRPGs, if you ask me.

Some notables, not yet mentioned :
1984 by Incentive is an interesting UK Government (mis)management game, where you get to worry about GDP and inflation.
Software Star is software company manager, by Kevin 'Football Manager' Toms. Not as good as Software House, as I recall.
Millionaire is about a software house as well. Write what you know, I suppose.
Master Mariner has you bringing coals to Newcastle, and otherwise dragging cargo between UK ports. This one has a lovely cover.

I'm at 80% of my learning-ASM machine code conversion of It's Only Rock and Roll. Somehow, it remains 80% done no matter how much work I do on it.
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Re: Management games

Post by Turtle_Quality »

Mpk wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:54 pm I used to love this genre, much to my family's irritation.
'Put on a proper game', they'd say.
'No', I'd say, 'the weather has been bad and now I have to dump all this beer. You don't understand how the entire workforce of my imaginary brewery is at risk.'
They're more like role-playing games than actual cRPGs, if you ask me.

Some notables, not yet mentioned :
1984 by Incentive is an interesting UK Government (mis)management game, where you get to worry about GDP and inflation.
Software Star is software company manager, by Kevin 'Football Manager' Toms. Not as good as Software House, as I recall.
Millionaire is about a software house as well. Write what you know, I suppose.
Master Mariner has you bringing coals to Newcastle, and otherwise dragging cargo between UK ports. This one has a lovely cover.

I'm at 80% of my learning-ASM machine code conversion of It's Only Rock and Roll. Somehow, it remains 80% done no matter how much work I do on it.
I was going to point out Software Star, it's lacking depth but it was oddly compelling watching your games slowly climb the charts (or not). It wouldn't be hard to edit and improve it though.

As for being stuck at nearly complete, sounds like your project is suffering from the 90/90 rule of software, 90% of your time is taken by the first 90% of the code, and another 90% by completing the last 10%
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Re: Management games

Post by toot_toot »

Ah, this was one of my favourite styles (did we call them genres back then)? of games when I was a nipper. The amount of different management style games was incredible, plus it really meant you used your imagination to fill in the blanks! Here's some of my favourites

Mugsy/Mugsy's Revenge (Melbourne house)

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I loved gangster style management games, these are still great fun to play but the problem is that there really isn't that much depth past the (well back then) fancy graphics. But just look at the graphics, those looked so good when reading the magazine review.

Gangsters! (CCS)

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Ah, now imagine Mugsy but with really basic graphics.. well, no graphics really, but with a lot more depth. This is a lot more like it! Build up your mafia underworld and become "capo dei tuti capi" by taking out the other gangs. Still really holds up today. This was written by the same guy that did brewery, which I've never played so I'll give that one a try!

Psi-5 Trading Company

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I'd have to admit, I prefer the C64 version, but this is like Elite but pure management and strategy. You can't "fly" the ship, you issue commands to each of the crew - which you get to pick. If you like Star Trek strategy and management style games, then you should definitely give this a try.
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Re: Management games

Post by jdanddiet »

My favourite footie management game on the Speccy is Tracksuit Manager, closely followed by The Double
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Re: Management games

Post by Twig »

Ah, this is the thread for me. I've been playing Dictator, The Biz and FM and I'm looking for more games like them.

I tried Britain Ltd., but I don't really know what I'm doing. I'll look at some of the others suggested here.
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Re: Management games

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Re: Management games

Post by Evil Genius »

Twig wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 7:27 pmI tried Britain Ltd., but I don't really know what I'm doing.
You sound ideally qualified for the real job!
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Re: Management games

Post by Nick »

Planetfall by Argus Press Software, it was on their 30 Games compilation. It was simple but quite fun. The same compilation also had Stock Market on it.

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Re: Management games

Post by lexi »

Mpk wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:54 pm Some notables, not yet mentioned :
Software Star is software company manager, by Kevin 'Football Manager' Toms. Not as good as Software House, as I recall.
Millionaire is about a software house as well. Write what you know, I suppose.
Millionaire is a perfect rainy-day game. My sister and i would play it for hours, never finished it, but always came back to it. I didn't play any of the other "software house" sims, but I'm curious to check them out :)
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