HSC Season 15 Round 9: C'est La Vie

[+therealbountybob]

C'est La Vie

OK you're on your own, good job there's Atarimania and possibly some other HSCers who can tell us more about this one?! Any problems please post. My only question is is it as good as Thank God It's Friday ? (often played in this house in 4 player mode or even 5 players if they let Atari play!)

Fandal XEX Atarimania Info (7.4)

Settings Take the default settings, see carlssons' post below for instructions and hints

Scoring based on "Score" shown on the Final Statement at the end of your go.

Round Closes Sunday 27th sometime before that but it will be in May at 10am UK time

Round 10 will be a chance to "Catch-up and Improve scores" but we'll have something else to keep us busy too

 

Join in and get rich probably

Edited May 19, 2018 by therealbountybob

[McKong]

Lets hope it's better than it looks.

 

Edit: I just watched a video on youtube, and it looks boring as hell!

Edited May 13, 2018 by McKong

[+therealbountybob]

Lets hope it's better than it looks.

 

Edit: I just watched a video on youtube, and it looks boring as hell!

The people have spoken

My creaking joystick will be glad of the rest after the last round's action

[carlsson]

I found this manual on the Project 64 site. It was once published on Morbid Guy's Atari 8-bit Manual Archive, which no longer exists.

 

 

C'est La Vie by Gordon Eastman

Published by Adventure International, a division of Scott Adams, Inc.

© Copyright 1983 by Scott Adams, Inc. All Rights Reserved

C'est La Vie -- Object Of The Game

Ten, twenty and fifty dollar bills are scattered on the streets. The idea is for Jacques -- your electronic "counterpart" -- to gather as much cash as possible before time runs out. After Jacques has collected the bucks, deposit your cash into the bank before you get mugged or stopped by a tax collector. Avoid obstacles and get as rich as you can. With a little luck, you may become one of the players to post a high score!

Options

After the program loads, the title screen and a demo game will appear. You will have several options to consider before beginning play. The options listed below will not appear on your screen; just press the appropriate key to select.

Speed: Press [1]-[5] to select speed. This option is also available during play

Time: Press [T] to display the playing time in months. You can increase or decrease the time with the joystick.

Date: Press [D] to display the starting date (month and year). Change the date using the joystick as for the time. This option has no effect on play but helps you keep the game current.

Beginning The Game

After setting the above options as desired, press the joystick button to begin. Jacques will appear at center screen. Move him up, down, left or right with the joystick. A "status display" appears to screen right, and includes the following information.

RADAR -- shows Jacques' position in relation to his pursuers. The RADAR display includes representations of the five buildings that appear on the main screen. The positions of the buildings remain constant, although the maze will change with each new game. The five buildings are: (1) Home, (2) the hospital, (3) the bank, (4) Wall Street, and (5) the loan shark's establishment.

Stock Chart -- shows four weeks of stock action, with the most current activity appearing at the far right edge of the graph. This indicates when you should buy or sell. Additionally, your speed and the months remaining in the game are located under the stock chart.

Assets -- the cash you've gathered is listed first. Savings (the amount you've stored in the bank), and stocks (the number of shares in your possession) are listed next. The value of your shares is determined by the stock chart and is subject to change without notice.

Debts -- money owed for mortgage payments, medical bills and loans appear next. It is important to settle your debts as quickly as possible. A mortgage payment of $750 is automatically deducted from your savings account each month. Pay your other bills monthly or an interest charge will be added to each payment.

Date -- the correct date is displayed relative to the selected starting date.

Taking Care Of Business

During a typical game, you'll conduct business transactions in all of the building except "home." (Home only provides shelter from your pursuers.) To conduct a business transaction, walk into the building, press your joystick button and follow the prompt; it will direct you to enter a command such as BUY or SELL (at Wall Street), DEPOSIT or WITHDRAW (from the bank), PAY YOUR BILLS (at the hospital), or BORROW MONEY (from the loan shark's office).

Choose from the available commands by using the joystick. After selecting a command you are prompted to enter the amount for the transaction.

The default amount is the maximum transaction value. Move the joystick left or right to decrease or increase the amount by increments of $1 (straight), $10 (diagonally back), or $100 (diagonally forward). Press the joystick button to complete the transaction or [ESC] to abort the transaction.

Obstacles

Tax Collectors And Muggers -- These monetary menaces prowl the streets in search of victims. Unless you can help Jacques to give them the slip, they will pursue him relentlessly until he is caught. Once Jacques is caught, a tax collector will take half his cash; a mugger will take it all.

Walls -- Avoid these concrete monsters! Failure to do so will result in a trip to the hospital and a hospital bill.

Goons -- Should you borrow from your friendly neighborhood loan shark, he must be repaid within two months. If not a contingent of "goons" will be dispatched to persuade you of your folly. Be careful! These guys will not only relieve you of your cash, they'll put you into the hospital as well.

Saving A High Score

If you manage to accumulate sufficient wealth, you can record your score. When time is up and the final statement is displayed, the high-score board will appear at screen right. The high-score position is indicated by a single horizontal line instead of double horizontal lines. Enter the three characters (your initials, we suggest) you wish to record and press your joystick button.

Additional Controls

Finances: Press [F] to display a financial statement which lists your net worth (assets minus debts) and score (net worth divided by months played).

Pause: Press [ESC] to pause game if you need a break from the action. Press any key to resume play.

Sound: Press to toggle sound on and off.

Restart: Press [R] to abort game in progress and return to demo mode.

Special Options And Hints

After gathering up the last bill, you will receive a $500 bonus. Finishing the maze the first time allows you to start again and gather more money or a higher score.

If you are being pursued, stay close to the walls

A good starting speed is 3, but slow down should you experience problems (running into walls, and so on).

If you have the available cash, you can buy up to 999 shares of stock in one game. You may make a killing on Wall Street -- but remember to keep an eye on the stock chart, located to the right of your screen.

Up to $10,000 can be borrowed from the loan shark if necessary. But be sure to pay him back within 2 months or interest is added and his goons will come after you.

[carlsson]

Ok, it doesn't appear this game goes on for hours and hours. I played at default settings speed 3, time 6 months. Unlike the instructions I posted above, I can't find a way to change either speed or duration of the game.

 

I suppose we should count the final score in green, not the net worth in blue. In that case, I'll start off with a positive amount of $260 (and yes, it is very easy to end up with negative scores if you end up in the hospital a lot, take an expensive loan and get mugged by robbers and tax men all the time before you get to any house). It may take some time to read the radar while keep moving.

 

 

I wouldn't mind combining this round with another game, perhaps Star Raiders which ended up in second place though it was unclear how to count scoring in that game.

[Fingolfin]

Give it a try...you may like it...and maybe not...

 

Cool, simple sfx; much less intense than the two games just being played.

Kind of like Pac-Man -- distantly -- meets a little bit of very light stock market/banking/home and personal financing simulation.

Ya gotta like the way the guy strolls about town/the maze rocking his arms without a care in the world...or again maybe you'll hate that.

And it is goofy, light hearted and even ridiculous. It is kind of hard too to get a good score/make a lot of money by the end of the game.

 

Thank you for the game instructions carlsson.

 

Suggestions for gameplay:

Try to stay away from the walls and both the taxman and robber (who, being green and blocky looks like Frankenstein a little).

Try to stay out of the hospital by staying away from the walls.

The maze/layout changes slightly every time (at least there are many variations).

 

Edit/addition:

For my limited experience playing C'est la Vie any positive money total at the end is a good thing; great score and start carlsson.

A couple edits/revisions.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Fingolfin

[Deteacher]

C'est La Vie: $553.

 

 

Meh...

[carlsson]

I don't think C'est la Vie is a bad game for one that takes 10-15 minutes per round. I'm sure there are many ways to play it which should open for some exploration, even if it probably won't reach 60 minutes per session (think a 12 round game of M.U.L.E. for comparison).

Edited May 14, 2018 by carlsson

[RedThunder]

$228

[carlsson]

Small improvement. I tried to be bold, but so far being careful seems to pay off best, a little depending on where in the maze the bank is located.

 

C'est la Vie - $328

[+therealbountybob]

Had a couple of goes so far, first go XEX locked up with corrupt display, resetted ok . Then played game to end screen (wasn't too long a go) - got greedy and grabbed a 10k loan and got mugged on my way to the stock market! Score -3,832 ! Figured out most things, I think (running into walls to avoid baddies helps) but will now digest info above

 

We'll keep this a single game round but perhaps end it sooner than planned; I'll think of something for the next poll to accompany the catch-up round and get that started mid week

[Fingolfin]

I believe the bank is always in the upper left quadrant, Wall St. in the upper right, loan sharks bottom right and hospital lower left; the layout of the maze does change/vary so the locations of bank, Wall St., loan sharks and hospital-- or how you arrive at/find each of these four buildings -- is a little different each game based on maze layout randomization.

 

Home is always in the center but although you start from there you can never enter: it would be good if you could escape taxman and mugger by dodging them here as well as the other 4 buildings: bank, Wall St., loan sharks and hospital can all be used to escape the clutches of these greedy pursuers.

 

You guys have all beaten my top score (a little over $200 once so far, a few more with very small positive balances but with most games ending in the red).

Off to a great start but hopefully there's some fun in it too...

 

questions:

1) Do you find C'est la Vie humorous or even a little goofy?/Can you smile and play C'est la Vie at the same time?

2) Is C'est la Vie growing on you at all? Even a little?

3) Has anyone taken out a loan from the loan sharks yet?

4) Why are the months chosen the months that are chosen for the game's completion??? What is unique about October 1st to March 31st?

 

Good luck, beware the taxman ("beware the pennies on you eyes"), the mugger (aka Frankenstein) and all those sharp, hard walls!

Edited May 14, 2018 by Fingolfin

[+therealbountybob]

Score $126

I'm in the money

I figure there's some shennanegins (?!) to be had with this game! Not quite the excitment of Gettaway but it's not bad, I've had three goes already and the poll was to play "Something Different" so we can tick that box.

 

I think you can stand on your home to avoid the baddies - they go under it.

 

Has anyone escaped from them by walking nearer to the walls as mentioned above? My strategy of premptively walking into a wall is ok but sometimes they still get you as well!

 

How / Can you pay down the mortgage?

[carlsson]

You pay mortgage by putting money into your savings account, then it gets automatically deducted. If you have no savings, your mortgage will keep increasing.

 

To answer Fingolfin's questions:

 

1. Well, the game has some charm but not like I'm smiling from ear to ear or laugh while playing.

2. Sure, the more times I get to play it, hopefully it will grow on me, trying different tactics.

3. I took a loan once, but by mistake it was for the full sum of $10,000 which was impossible to pay back. I suppose if the stock price is low, it can be worthwhile taking a loan and hopefully pay back within three months but it would take some planning.

4. No idea about the time frame, supposedly it should be possible to change (as the instructions origin from the Atari version) but perhaps it has to do with the tax declaration period?

 

I would like the game a little more if it had some strategy moments like a limited number of teleports to the bank, Wall Street, hospital and loan shark so you could go there directly without passing the maze. Perhaps something that will make you temporarily invisible to tax men and muggers, something that lets you bump into the wall a limited number of times without ending up in the hospital. I'm not really asking for guns to shoot the tax man (and I doubt Adventureland International had released the game with a such feature) but something more than just escaping and running to the various locations.

 

Actually just for fun, I might try to run for the money once or twice, even if it is not a HSC game.

Edited May 14, 2018 by carlsson

[jblenkle]

C'est La Vie -$408

 

Not sure how I can have a score of -$408 when my Net Worth is -$2,451

Edited May 15, 2018 by jblenkle

[carlsson]

$-2451 / 6 months of play time = $-408.50 rounded down.

 

Supposedly it should be possible to select longer or shorter games, though nobody seems to have figured out how yet. I'm sure that if one can play for 12 months, the game doesn't end so suddenly when you start to get things under control, though it neccessarily doesn't mean the end score will be higher as the net worth is divided by a longer time period. Actually playing for just 1 month if possible and grab as much cash as you can without getting caught might yield high scores.

Edited May 15, 2018 by carlsson

[RedThunder]

$812

[+therealbountybob]

$-2451 / 6 months of play time = $-408.50 rounded down.

 

Supposedly it should be possible to select longer or shorter games, though nobody seems to have figured out how yet. I'm sure that if one can play for 12 months, the game doesn't end so suddenly when you start to get things under control, though it neccessarily doesn't mean the end score will be higher as the net worth is divided by a longer time period. Actually playing for just 1 month if possible and grab as much cash as you can without getting caught might yield high scores.

You sort of hope the defaults are the best (most fun) setting but if anyone wants to try a longer game and report back please do

 

After a few goes you start to think of some cunning plans...

[RedThunder]

 

 

$887

Edited May 15, 2018 by RedThunder

[jblenkle]

$343

[McKong]

-616

-371

348

[RedThunder]

 

 

$960

 

[McKong]

627

876

2714

 

I'm glad to say that this game is better than it looks! It does have an element of Getaway to it

Edited May 16, 2018 by McKong

[+therealbountybob]

627

876

2714

 

I'm glad to say that this game is better than it looks! It does have an element of Getaway to it

That's good to hear

 

Anyone tried a longer game period yet? I'll have a look at the weekend (and try my cunning plan) - see instructions on Post #4 to set this

[carlsson]

I tried to make a longer game earlier in the week, but I didn't get it to make a difference so either I didn't do it right, the instructions are wrong or the dumped file does not support it.