This is one of the most interesting, odd and peculiar games that I have ever played. Somehow, I figured out how to do things in it.
In this game, you play as John Q. Public, and in the span of a year - which is a few minutes in game time - you have to score a million dollars all while keeping your money safe from the I.R.S. (the Internal Revenue Service, which collects most of the taxes in the United States) and avoiding being audited. Interestingly, this game was made by a licensed tax consultant who used to work for the IRS as a revenue agent and an independent investment advisor registered with the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission, which enforces laws against market manipulation).
The action is split in-between two screens: the earning phase and the penalty phase. Your score is at the top, while the current day of the year is in the lower-left corner. As you play through the game, you'll breeze through the year, and the color of the background will change depending on which month you're on. The phases last for a certain range of the calendar, and with practice, you'll know when you're leaving one phase and going through the next. You'll be playing both phases four times to signify the four quarters of the year. Once you make it to December 31st, the game is over. Here are the calendar ranges for the eight sections of the game.
1st Earning: Ja 1 - Fe 9
1st Penalty: Fe 10 - Ap 10
2nd Earning: Ap 11 - My 20
2nd Penalty: My 21 - Jl 20
3rd Earning: Jl 21 - Ag 28
3rd Penalty: Ag 29 - Oc 27
4th Earning: Oc 28 - De 6
4th Penalty: De 7 - De 31
In the earning phase, you'll need to use Left and Right on the joystick to move and the fire button to jump. You'll need to grab the green dollar signs that are worth $2000, and you'll also need to avoid the red tape that takes away $2000. There is an elevator in the center of the screen that moves up and down, but you won't be able to see where it is unless you're riding on it.
After the earning phase is done, you'll enter the penalty phase. Here, you'll not only be running and jumping, but climbing up and down ladders with Up and Down on the joystick. Getting at just the right distance between yourself and the ladder take a bit of doing, but once you have stuff figured out, you can get around pretty easily.
There is another man who changes colors moving around on the screen. If he is black, he is an IRS revenue agent, and touching him will mean losing half your earnings and you being sent to the next earning phase immediately. If he is pink, he is a CPA. You'll lose $1000 if you touch him, but he will provide an investment, which is the name for any object on the screen that you can collect. By grabbing an investment, you will immediately either slowly gain money on it or slowly lose money on it at the rate of $1000 a day. When that happens, a briefcase will appear in the bottom-left corner; you'll want to touch it to put it in a tax shelter and avoid getting it audited. Once it's in the tax shelter, you will either slowly gain or slowly lose money. If he is green, he is an independent tax adviser who does the work for free and will usually lead you to the best possible investment (usually the television set).
The TV set is usually worth the most, and I end up grabbing that and putting it in the briefcase all throughout the run. Once you put something in the briefcase, you'll need to touch the running man when he is pink for another investment. This stops the daily earning/losing of money, but this is a good thing if you're slowly losing money on an investment. If you want the best one, you'll have to wait until he is green again to touch him a second time and get the best investment.
When the penalty phase is about to end, make sure there are no investments out on the screen. If any investments are on the screen when the phase ends, you will be audited and you will lose half your money.
This is one game that is better if you get it than if you don't. If you get it, you'll probably be playing this game a few more times to see how much money you can get. If you don't, you probably won't play it ever again. Either way, this is a curious piece of early 1980s videogaming, where there wasn't much in the way of established rules and just about anything could be made into an arcade-style video game if you were bold and crazy enough. Either way, this is one weird game, and I'm glad to have played it.
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