[Prototype] Bacchus Bank
Bacchus Bank (working title) is a banking management game; manage client loans, acquire new clients, and invest their hard-earned money, while making sure you have enough cash reserves. The idea is that your decisions have a more direct impact on your clients’ lives when you approve or reject their loans. Sometimes you need to take past client behaviour into account, while other times the bank has to come first.
The game is currently in an early prototype phase, but you can already try it out. Note that the interface is still very rough and difficult to use; this version should only be used as a proof-of-concept.
Play Flash Build: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/bacchus-bank/flash/
More Info: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/bacchus-bank/
Instructions
The current interface is text-based with a steep learning curve (you have been warned). At the top you will always see an overview of your current bank situation. The date starts at 0001-01-01 and time advances as you play. Your balance is the balance of your internal bank account and can be negative if you lend out money or invest it. Your reserves is the money your clients have in their current accounts. Your total funds is a combination of your balance and reserves. If your total funds ever drops below zero you lose, because your bank has gone bankrupt. Legislation prevents you from directly losing, by ensuring you have at least 10% reserves on hand, and your available funds show how much money you can directly work with. At the end of each month (a month is currently 10 days) you will be charged per client you currently manage, so you better make sure you manage to make a profit from them!
Normally you will see an overview of your entire bank, including your clients and their balances, your investments, and a statement of and transactions affecting your bank balance for the day. You can press space to toggle between this view and a more detailed view of your clients. In this view, you can see the statements for a client, and potentially approve or reject loans that clients are requesting.
There is a lot of data for you to consider, but not very much time! Client loan applications are only valid for a few days. If you wait too long your clients will go bankrupt, and if you accept them too easily it could end up costing you if your clients default on their repayments. When you are ready, you can press P to toggle pause and start playing. How will you manage your bank?
Play Flash Build: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/bacchus-bank/flash/
Side note: this is the first in a series of prototypes from our company, Clockwork Acorn, that will hopefully help us identify a promising project to tackle "full-time." The plan is to internally generate a number of prototypes and post the best one (maybe more) each week (more info). Stay tuned for a space-combat game (subject to change) next week!
The game is currently in an early prototype phase, but you can already try it out. Note that the interface is still very rough and difficult to use; this version should only be used as a proof-of-concept.
Play Flash Build: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/bacchus-bank/flash/
More Info: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/bacchus-bank/
Instructions
The current interface is text-based with a steep learning curve (you have been warned). At the top you will always see an overview of your current bank situation. The date starts at 0001-01-01 and time advances as you play. Your balance is the balance of your internal bank account and can be negative if you lend out money or invest it. Your reserves is the money your clients have in their current accounts. Your total funds is a combination of your balance and reserves. If your total funds ever drops below zero you lose, because your bank has gone bankrupt. Legislation prevents you from directly losing, by ensuring you have at least 10% reserves on hand, and your available funds show how much money you can directly work with. At the end of each month (a month is currently 10 days) you will be charged per client you currently manage, so you better make sure you manage to make a profit from them!
Normally you will see an overview of your entire bank, including your clients and their balances, your investments, and a statement of and transactions affecting your bank balance for the day. You can press space to toggle between this view and a more detailed view of your clients. In this view, you can see the statements for a client, and potentially approve or reject loans that clients are requesting.
There is a lot of data for you to consider, but not very much time! Client loan applications are only valid for a few days. If you wait too long your clients will go bankrupt, and if you accept them too easily it could end up costing you if your clients default on their repayments. When you are ready, you can press P to toggle pause and start playing. How will you manage your bank?
Play Flash Build: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/bacchus-bank/flash/
Side note: this is the first in a series of prototypes from our company, Clockwork Acorn, that will hopefully help us identify a promising project to tackle "full-time." The plan is to internally generate a number of prototypes and post the best one (maybe more) each week (more info). Stay tuned for a space-combat game (subject to change) next week!
Thanked by 1DraughtVader
Comments
I'm not trying to ask for a tutorial, rather I want to be able to do something meaningful in the game before I commit to reading pages of text.
As it stands, I'm not too sure what the controls are and what happens when I press things. Some letters with square brackets seem to do things, other letters with square brackets don't seem to do anything.
I might not be the best tester for a text based game though :/
@BlackShipsFilltheSky: There are a few elements that could be removed and added gradually, but not much, and there is still quite a bit you need to understand before being able to do anything meaningful.
Unfortunately, creating a better UI, whether it's still text-based or has graphical elements, will take a fair amount of time that I don't really have right now (I'd rather work on other prototypes).
The original inspiration was to try take a "boring" activity and make it into a game, but it turns out (at least in this prototype) that running a small successful bank isn't actually that interesting (even after the wall of text). Once you've determined a client is a lost cause, there's little incentive to give them a loan, and clients that are well-off only occasionally ask for loans. The primary inspiration for this, Papers Please, had a much stronger incentive for completing the relatively mundane actions. So, before I invest time in improving the UI, I think I need to work on improving the game loop.
So yeah, not a very positive reply, but thanks for having a look anyway :)
I'm sure there's a way to make managing the decisions of a small business bank interesting. Like Game Dev Story, only with more people going bankrupt.
@Denzil: Thanks, I'd be keen to see what you come up with :)
I enjoyed it, far from a master though. I'm bit sure that a more graphic approach is necessary. The current interface adds a certain dimension, which i feel did not take away from the game
So game goes on while your not playing.
http://www.indiedb.com/games/banking-tycoon/news/banking-tycoon-pre-alpha-4-is-now-available
Similar theme as what you went for.