---------------------------------------O--------------------------------------- ^ ARE YOU KIND, CARING, HONEST AND CHARMING? THEN ELECTION IS NOT THE GAME FOR YOU! ---------------------------------------O--------------------------------------- ^ HAVE YOUR VERY OWN 'ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL'* *ROBIN DAY NOT INCLUDED. ---------------------------------------O--------------------------------------- ^ WARNING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ELECTION GAME IS LIABLE TO CAUSE DEPRESSION IN PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES. PROGRAMMING AND GRAPHICS BY ORPHEUS. GAME DESIGN BY STEVE LEE AND IAN MATHIAS. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL CHARACTERS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. VIRGIN GAMES LIMITED, 2/4 VERNON YARD, PORTOBELLO ROAD, LONDON W11 2DX DESCRIPTION OF SCREEN The bottom of the screen is divided up as follows: on the left you have four empty pockets, below this is a CREDIBILITY score and an INCENTIVE score. In the middle you will see a "cameo" of a party leader and to the right (under the words "PARTY LEADER") is their name. There are four parties, Conservative, Labour, Alliance and Idealist (comprised of celebrities!). There are 5 leaders altogether as you must choose between the Davids if you want to opt for Alliance. To the right of this section there is an OPTION column with a choice of activities. Underneath you will see columns CON, LAB, ALLI, IDL with the current total of supporters, and UND (undecided) which shows the votes that all 4 parties will be fighting for. To select which party leader you want to be use RIGHT or LEFT and press FIRE to choose. You will have a choice of beginning play or selecting DEMO which you can use to see what happens in the game. To begin playing press FIRE when GAME is highlighted. You will begin at your party H.Q. The top of the screen is the main playing area. Directly underneath is a description of where you are and the line directly below that keeps you up-to- date on what's going on elsewhere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLAYING THE GAME You can move around the playing area with LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN and move between screens in each direction, where the scenery allows. There are 40 other characters going about their daily business and you can get involved with them in several ways by selecting one of the OPTIONS. Pressing FIRE at any time puts you in OPTION mode, LEFT and RIGHT allows you to choose and FIRE will select. There is a summary of the options later. For normal travelling around keep TAKE selected and you will automatically pick up any of the various tokens and objects lying around. Tokens will disappear after they have been picked up and will add to your INCENTIVE or CREDIBILITY score or will affect you in an unseen way by increasing your "slurrability" for example (more about personality later!). INCENTIVES can be used to encourage (or, let's be honest - bribe), potential voters to support you. Any object you will encounter will place itself in one of your pockets if you have room. The most useful object you can find is a manifesto token, when placed in one of the signposted locations (also shown on the first screen) this will win you votes immediately and you will see your party supporters' score increase. Other objects you will pocket can be given to others as straight bribes to get them to like you, or may in an unseen way affect their personality by, perhaps, making them more ambitious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE OBJECT OF THE GAME You must gain as much support as possible by placing manifestos, canvassing and getting people to like you. When you have gained 101 votes you are PRIME MINISTER! Don't forget that other party leaders will be out to move your manifestos and steal your supporters too. You can play dirty or clean and "slur" as well as be slurred. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPTIONS TAKE Stay in TAKE for normal wandering around and you should be able to pick up tokens and objects automatically. If you have been approached by another character you may have to reselect with FIRE. DROP This allows you to empty a pocket. GIVE This allows you to offer another character an object or some incentives. You must select between POCKET or INCENTIVE with FIRE. If you choose INCENTIVE you will be asked "How many?" You can adjust with UP and DOWN and select with FIRE. If POCKET is your choice you will be asked which one, RIGHT and LEFT will choose and FIRE will select. If there is more than one person on screen you will have to choose between them. Their image appears in the "cameo" with their name beside it, RIGHT and LEFT shows them all and you must select with FIRE. The person's response is shown on the comment line. ASK This will require you to select which on-screen character you wish to question about their voting intentions! Do this as for choosing which person in GIVE. Their response appears on the comment line. ORDER You may or may not be able to get characters to do your bidding. Select which person as for GIVE. If they agree you can instruct them to SLUR, CANVASS or HELP you and END to finish. PAUSE When you need a rest! CANVASS You can try to win people over to your side. Select which person as for GIVE. SLUR You can slur others (but watch out as you can be slurred too!) You need to select the person as for GIVE, quickly move to them on the screen and "bump" them. A successful slur will cause them to end up as a political banana and end their career, but you can end up in the same way. Your credibility rating will be used up in any slurring match. When you select SLUR, your hair will change colour, the border colour will change to yellow. If another character is slurring you, their hair will change colour. Run off that screen to ESCAPE or press FIRE to get the option to concede. You can stop and fight but if your CREDIBILITY rating drops to zero it's the end for you! If you concede you will lose all your valuables. NULL Allows you to cancel OPTION. SAVE Allows you to select SAVE to keep your game so far, to play another time, and LOAD when you wish to resume your saved game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BORDER COLOURS You can see how the various party leaders play in the demo game. To help understand what is going on, the border colour changes according to the leaders action. * CYAN Go and slur the character you dislike the most * BLACK Wait * WHITE Collect any object * RED Mingle, wander around and meet other characters * PURPLE Go and canvass another character * GREEN Help another character * BLUE Wait while being canvassed * YELLOW Defend, someone is slurring you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OTHER POINTS CREDIBILITY Maximum achievable is 255. When you are slurred your credibility diminishes and when it goes down to zero your political career has ended! INCENTIVES See under GIVE in the OPTION summary above. Now you're ready for an in-depth sight into politics - read the enclosed game manifesto! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOADING Press CTRL and small ENTER key. Press PLAY on tape and any key on the keyboard. If using a 6128 or 664 then type |TAPE, then RUN " ". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOVEMENT Joystick or keyboard, when using keyboard redefine keys from screen menu. ELECTION! (P) 1987 Virgin Games Ltd. (C) 1987 Virgin Games Ltd. All rights of the producer and owner of the work being produced are reserved. Unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this cassette is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, nor liability for damage arising from its use. WARNING: These programmes are sold according to Virgin Games Ltd's terms of trade and conditions of sales, copies of which are available on request. The Alternative ELECTION Game Manifesto ---------------------------------------------------------- | The characteristics and personalities ascribed to the | | characters in the game are for the purposes of the | | game only and are in no way held out to represent | | the characteristics and personalities of any persons | | living or dead. Any similarity is purely coincidental. | ---------------------------------------------------------- Virgin ELECTION MANIFESTO EVER WANTED TO BE PRIME MINISTER? Now is your chance to try your hand at the art of electioneering. Win votes by getting a loyal following behind you and pit your wits against some very intelligent opposition in this clever arcade simulation. Liberally spiced with the humour that real-life politics is lacking, you can charm or slur your way to 10 Downing Street. There are around 40 intelligent characters featured in ELECTION. From lowly minion to charismatic party leader, each one varies in intelligence and various other personality attributes. Remember many of the others are just as ambitious as you and while you go about the business of rallying support, you must keep a careful eye on all the others. Social status in ELECTION works its way up from Minion through Mr or Mrs, Celebrities, Extremists or Miss, Busy Bodies and MP, Newshounds and finally the highest form of life - Party Leader. The total electorate is comprised of 199 votes, 39 belong to the computer- controlled players and won by your persuasion, the other 160 votes are won by careful placement of manifestos. This game incorporates clever simulations of the human personality! The computer-controlled characters' personality attributes are: intelligence, loyalty, emotion, aggression, changeability, ambition and gullibility. Characters' intelligence increases throughout the game (yes - even that of the minions!). Feelings of loyalty are simulated too, although characters do change ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | N.B. THERE IS A PAUSE BETWEEN SELECTING WHICH PARTY LEADER YOU WISH TO BE | | AND THE BEGINNING OF PLAY. THIS IS BECAUSE RANDOM ELEMENTS ARE SET UP AT | | THE BEGINNING OF EACH GAME. | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- their allegiance you can win them over if you try often enough and hard enough. Loyalty has an interesting side-effect in that characters feel a certain loyalty for other characters of their "kind" (e.g. extremists have a degree of loyalty for one another regardless of which party they follow). Emotions are portrayed by how friendly a character is. The aggression factor measures the likelihood of the character to enter into slurring matches with others. Changeability reflects each character's likelihood of changing political allegiance and contributes to their loyalty rating. Initial ambition varies depending on the 'status' of the characters, it can be fuelled by your actions and those of other characters. The more ambitious a character becomes, the bigger threat they are to you if they are not on your side. High ambition does enable any player to become respected by voters and some may even take orders! The more likely a voter is to take a bribe the more gullible he or she is however, the more you give the less gullible they will become! Well, you've been warned what the opposition is like. There are a few other factors that the game takes into account. Slurrability indicates the effectiveness of any smear attack that you may bestow on the opposition. You all have a social status and are either male or female (the Undecided column refers to voting persuasion!). As Party Leader credibility is of the essence, you must keep it high, if it reaches zero, the game is up. Incentives are built up too and can be used for exactly what the name suggests. (More about these under objects). An interesting exception to quite a few of these rules is The Quoon. She doesn't compete for followers and will not stoop to slurring under any circumstances. Likewise she does not respond well to these tactics. OBJECTS AND TOKENS You must remember computer-controlled players have access to these items too. As you pick an object or token up it will be described under the main playing area. Tokens take immediate effect. Sincerity and Hope increase your Credibility, which is your life-blood. Objects include Gossip, Scam and Untruths which increase your unseen 'slurring power'. When you have decided slurring is the only way to proceed make sure you are armed! The Peerage, Rosette, Knighthood and Shares don't affect you but when given to your supporters will increase their ambition, and their ability to carry out your orders. You will find Manifestos (clearly marked "M") which you must take to your party H.Q. and drop there to adopt party colours, pick it up again then take it to any of the 16 special named locations in the game, this will immediately gain you 10 votes. OPTIONS Detailed instructions of how to use the Options are on the inside of the inlay. This section outlines their uses. TAKE This option is automatic from the beginning of play but you may need to re-select after using another option, or after certain approaches by other characters. You can lift tokens or objects this way, but you can only carry 4 objects at any time. DROP You may deposit Manifestos in special locations or merely drop objects you no longer require to make room for new ones. N.B. Only 4 objects can be placed on the screen at any time. Also be careful not to place two manifestos on a special location at any time or you will lose one! GIVE You can choose to give incentives or objects to a character. You can control how much you give, remember you can increase supporters' ambitions and make them more able to give orders on your behalf, but you don't want to increase the ambitions of a supporter of any other party! Computer-controlled people will sometimes be quite generous when canvassing you, so keep a pocket empty for contributions! ASK Simple questioning can help you find out about a character, perhaps they may indicate how they intend to vote. Alternatively they may not wish to discuss anything with you. ORDER This is a fairly complex option and extremely useful! People will only take orders from you if: (a) They are members of your party and they like you. However if your behaviour upsets them in any way they may not co-operate for a while but ailing loyalty can often be fixed by canvassing or a little gift. (b) They may be upset with their own party leader at that moment in time and be swayed to your cause, or they may just be a "changeable" person. The loyalty of such a person may be as weak to you as it was to their original leader though! (c) People will not take your orders when they're busy instigating their own orders or are in the process of "slurring". You may have to wait until they are less occupied. Don't take any curt remarks too much to heart, it could be you've just caught them at a bad moment. Slur: You may persuade a person to slur another on your behalf. You must first select who you wish to order, then once they have agreed to comply you must select the person you wish to receive the slurring. This may or may not work for a number of reasons, the character's loyalty is important and they will be meeting others all the time who are bribing and canvassing just like you. Each order has a built-in boredom rating but luckily slurring is the most interesting order you can give. Very intelligent supporters will automatically collect Scam or Gossip or some such "weapon" to aid their slur campaign, but with a less intelligent person you may have to give them such an object. Canvass: Send your supporters out to rally support for you in this way. You must select a supporter to give the order to and then indicate who the receipient is to be. You can delegate a lot of political leg-work this way. An "undecided" voter will be much easier to persuade than someone committed to another party. You could try sending several people to canvass such a character. When other characters canvass you they may be willing to give you objects they are carrying so keep a spare pocket. Help: You may ask a supporter for help. After selecting the help option you can select yourself as the "helpee". This means you can perhaps get loyal supporters to follow you and even step in to help you if you are slurred. You may alternatively try to get them to help another person rather than yourself, they will protect this person against slurring. Unfortunately, the helping order has the lowest boredom factor, so don't be surprised if even your most loyal supporter gets bored after a while and will generate their own orders!. End: If you change your mind about issuing an order use this. Next Order: You can give two orders at any time. If the first order becomes too boring they will at least go on to the second. A useful second order is to get them to help you. They (hopefully) will return to you after they have completed their first task (if they don't get bored or otherwise distracted that is!). Ambition, intelligence and loyalty all affect a character's ability to carry out an order. As everyone's personality is made of different levels of these things, they will all behave in a truly individual way. Pause: As well as giving you a rest, the display at the bottom of the screen cycles through each party and its members which is a useful interlude allowing you to see how the game is progressing. CANVASS You may gain support by charm and friendliness. It can't do any harm anyway, though you may have to be persistent. You can only canvass a character on screen which you must select, but ordering a supporter to canvass may enable you to get to others outside of your immediate area. You will know you are canvassing as your face appears "flashing", press FIRE to terminate. Some characters who don't particularly care for you will simply walk away, but those who stay are building up a healthy respect for you! Top up even your closest supporter's loyalty every now and again, just to be on the safe side! SLUR You can force a character to actually resign by reducing their credibility to zero, of course this will happen to you too. (Computer controlled characters will be regenerated eventually, but at a lower social status!) Any valuables carried by the hapless candidate will be deposited on the screen they resigned on or elsewhere on the map (resigned candidates are conspicuous by their resemblance to bananas!). When you select slur and the person that you are attacking, the screen border will turn yellow for the duration of the attack. Get as close as possible and follow them so you are continually making contact but keep a close eye on your credibility rating! If you wish to cease you can either run away (but will lose some face in the form of your future slur rating) or press FIRE which allows you to concede. Doing so will cause you to lose your valuables, but at least you'll have some credibility at the end of the day! Computer-controlled characters can also concede and will relinquish their valuables (if the slurrer has enough empty pockets there may be an unexpected bonus!). Each character is different. Some will never become your followers despite defeat, others will do so grudgingly and others would rather resign than give in! NULL Cancel for those moments of panicked FIRE pressing when you've gone into Options by mistake! SAVE/LOAD For preserving your current game and reloading at a later date. Follow the instructions on-screen. DEMO GAME Select this and watch the other party leaders' strategy. The border will change colour to indicate what is happening (see inlay). ERRATUM ELECTION AMSTRAD CPC There are a few errors in the instruction inlay supplied with the Amstrad CPC version of Election. We apologise for these mistakes, corrections are as follows: Demo There is no demo mode in this version of the game. Press FIRE to start. The section titled 'Border Colours' is not relevant. Movement You can't redefine the keys as stated, use the cursor keys and space to FIRE if you are not using a joystick. Options To enter 'Option Mode' you must press FIRE, then RIGHT or LEFT to choose and FIRE to select. You are not automatically in TAKE as stated, you must select it with FIRE.