Platform: Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Region: Region Not Set
Publishers(s): dk’tronics
ReleaseDate: 1985-02-11
Co-op: No
Minder
To those of you who already know the popular Thames T.V. series, the character, language and habits of those people in "Minder" will need no in- troduction. For the rest of us this booklet will try to explain a little about the world we are about to enter. The real skills, however, can only be found by play- ing "Minder" for yourself and learning as you go. The game is about trading: the buying and selling of any goods, however suspect or strange, in order to make a profit for our hero, Arthur Daley. In Arthur's world a "Minder" is a bodyguard, but Arthur's lad Terry does a lot more than just protect him from aggro. He also delivers goods (for which he has to be paid) and is the carrier of news, good and bad. Finding Terry can be a problem sometimes, but it's usually worth the bother. Stepping into Arthur's shoes, you have 14 days to make as much money as possible. You start off with £2000 and a small selection of goods to sell. The way in which you trade to make the most cash in such a short time depends on experience, knowledge and how many risks you're prepared to take. LOCATIONS Your starting point for each day. Your home is a Great Mystery. Just use it for resting. THE LOCK UP The Lock-up is used for storing your goods. You can buy and sell at the Lock-up but usually you will only be there to give instructions to Terry or to make an inventory of goods. TERRY'S FLAT Bachelor quarters for sleeping, either alone or usually with some female company. If you call at his flat at unsociable hours he will be decidedly unco- operative. THE WINCHESTER CLUB The membership of this small private bar is fairly exclusive. You can use the Winchester Club to buy or sell, or get information or meet up with Terry. Gets very busy, and blokes trying to sell you stuff are a pest. DEALER'S PREMISES Visit these to sell your goods. GOING AND DOING Most of your input will be conversational but there are a few commands. Usually the command mode will appear unannounced. If you "GO" places, the space bar or any key pressed will immediately get you to your chosen destination. You will always get a glimpse of the doorway to premises before you go in. If the place is closed (e.g. a dealer is out) that's all you will get. Either go elsewhere or wait. Every time you press "W" the time will move an hour, and all the comings and goings will corre- spondingly happen. Occasionally strange things may happen. If for example you're in the Winchester Club and decide to WAIT, and the Club closes, then everyone will be gone or you may find yourself out- side on the pavementl If you press "G" to GO then "ENTER" will allow you to change your command. PEOPLE All the characters move about from place to place. There are two types, the regulars and the casuals. The regulars all have fairly predictable movements so once you have an idea where they are at certain times you’ll be able to do more deals and spend less time rushing about to find them. As a guide only:- Dealers spend some time at their premises, or they may be found at the Club, otherwise they're "out of town". Dave is always at the club when it’s open. Terry spends his time in most locations except dealers, but you can get him to stay with you all the time. The Law, in the person of Sgt. Chisholm, is a constant menace and can be a severe setback to your plans. All these characters will have and keep the same recognisable faces. The casuals are strangers you will meet either at the Club, or dealers’ premises. If they introduce themselves to you they will be trying to sell you something. Once "established" they will be as "real"”as the regulars, complete with names and habitual move- ments. When they've sold you something they will probably disappear, but there will be plenty more to replace them. Some of the strangers you meet are merely members of Joe Public, and have nothing to do with you. At any place you will have a view of place and a "rogue's gallery" of the characters who are there. At many places there will be one face or none at all. At the club there may be more characters than spaces available, i.e. somebody may be there but you can't see them. When a new set of characters appears, one of them, a seller or perhaps Sgt. Chisholm, will pop down and start talking whether you like it or not. If this doesn't happen, then pressing the correct number (1-6) will get you into the conversation of your choice. You have only a few seconds to do this, and if you miss your chance someone else may take it. This happens mostly at the Winchester Club. MEMORIES All the characters, as well as moving about, have memories. The way in which they react to you may depend on your last meeting. Dealers can be unco-operative for a few days if you waste their time or sell them faulty or stolen goods. Occasionally they get violent! This is some- thing you have to bear in mind before making a visit. TIME HOURS Time is in hours only. All scenes have a clock. You’ll find that the more you get familiar with the characters and their habits the more useful it will become. Accelerating the Time with "WAIT" will also accelerate other charac- ters' movements. Going from place to place always takes an hour. Going home at any time automatically puts the time to 7 a.m. the next day. All separate conversations, however long or short, hoewever one-sided, take an hour. You can't stay up later than 3 a.m. DAYS The day and your current bankroll are displayed in a lighter colour for daytime (6am to 6pm) and in a darker shade for nights. THE GOODS Your Lock-up will have a few goods in it when you start. In COMMAND mode you can get an "INVEN- TORY", which lists your prized possessions. There are three categories of goods. (1) Those which are yours in stock. (2) Those which are in stock but promised to someone (sold). (3) Those which have to be collected from some- one (bought). Note that (2) and (3) are only shown when you're at the Lock-up. In (2) and (3) the number after the "*" is the day those goods will disappear from the list because you didn't get Terry to collect or deliver them. The list can cover a number of screens. Any key will jump to the next screen. After collecting or delivering the list will be instantly updated. You can collect as much stock as you want but re- member, it's not stock you’re after but a fat bank- roll. A full Lock-up means you're not selling and you'll probably grind to a halt flat broke! Another problem is that the goods you buy may either have a nasty fault, or worse, be well and truly bent! If they're faulty you will only find this out when they've been sold and delivered and Terry returns either with the goods or a lot less money than you expected! You can try to sell them again. If they're stolen Sgt. Chisholm will get very active and make enquiries. He may catch you in the Lock- up with them; this can be very costly. Either sell them off quickly or get Terry to dump them. CONVERSATIONS GETTING STARTED Sometimes you won't need to. They will make the approach. All the faces will have numbers from 1 to 6. Pressing a number will put you into conversation with that person, who may be a dealer to sell to, someone with something to sell, or some bod who's just wandered in off the street! KEEPING IT GOING There are different types of conversation, but all follow the same general pattern. All conversations have a purpose: to buy, sell, or give instructions etc. and provided you stick to the point you should man- age well. Your particular pearls of wisdom fit into the bot- tom two lines of the screen . Although there are no "rules" about what to enter, there are some defined ways of making specific entries. Don't bother stringing sentences together. Try small sentences to get a response (and it's a lot less work!). Delete in the usual way. If you are very wordy and get to the end of the second line, the sentence will be entered anyway. Don't bother with punctuation, just concentrate on what you mean to say, e.g. for "I'M OFFERING 50 QUID" type "IM OFFERING 50 QUID". It's best not to enter numbers or money by them- selves, although you can do in some cases, e.g. if you are asked: "HOW MANY HAVE YOU GOT?" you might answer: "100" "IVE GOT 100" or “"I CAN LET YOU HAVE 100" or even “"HOWEVER MANY YOU WANT 100 IS ALL I CAN LET YOU HAVE" If you are asked "HOW MUCH?" you could answer: "I WANT 25 QUID" or “ "25 POUNDS IS MY ASKING PRICE" or even "IM ASKING A PONY"!! Al! dealings are in whole pounds and all numbers must be in digits, i.e. "99 POUNDS", never "NINETY NINE POUNDS". You can also try QUID, SOV, MONKEY, GRAND, FIVER, and TENNER. An alternative way to enter "£" is "XX"’(try it). Don't enter two amounts in one sentence, e.g. "ILL TAKE 100 FOR £36 EACH". You will have noticed that you can say what you have to say in just about any way you fancy. If your partner doesn't understand you, only rarely will he tell you directly that you're not getting through. He will usually let you know in some way though! HINTS ON BUYING AND SELLING BUYING Buying is a relatively easy operation. It will take a little experience of trying to sell the goods you've bought before you can judge the prices. In the end, all you're after is the price (HOW MUCH) and the quantity (HOW MANY). You don't have to buy. Often sellers will start a conversation. A general rule for bargaining with a seller is to make your OFFER as low as possible without of- fence, and then to increase it by reasonable amounts. Without upping your offer he will probably stick to his price and, if it goes on too long, make a final offer for you to ACCEPT. If you're NOT INTERESTED in the goods you can get rid of him. (BYE). Alternatively you can tell him you're LOOKING FOR some particular item. (Maybe some goods pro- mised to another dealer which you haven't got!). If he has them you then restart the dealing. SELLING Only the regular dealers will buy goods. You can sell goods at the Winchester Club, but this is not the best place as you normally get pest- ered by other characters and you also have to recog- nise the dealer! Going to the dealer's premises is better but of course you need to know when they're in. Start with "IVE GOT SOME ..." or”"ARE YOU INTERESTED IN ..." or”"WANT TO BUY ANY ..." Your bargaining can then follow a pattern similar to that of buying, but in reverse, of course. Don't expect success first time. Getting the amounts and raises takes a bit of practice. Another problem is quantity. Let's say you have 30 videos (anyway, that's what you've told him!). The price is fixed at £80 each and he says: "AT 80 QUID EACH ILL TAKE 10 VIDEOS" Then you can try "WHAT ABOUT THE LOT FOR £2200" If he accepts you have managed to sell the whole batch, but notice that your price has had to come down. You can only do this at the time he has agreed to both the number and cost of the goods. A dealer may tell you he's after some other goods. It's quite likely that you won't have them but there's nothing to stop you going ahead and selling goods you haven't got! You will have to fulfil the order by buying them in as soon as possible. This makes things a bit more complicated but can be very profitable. If you fail to deliver in time you will have to leave that particular dealer to cool off for a few days. TALKING TO TERRY You can instruct Terry to do four things: If you've bought goods you can ask him to collect them, pay for them and put them in the Lock-up. It's quite simple. Just say "COLLECT TVS" or "GO AND PICK UP THOSE TELLIES". He will get the de- tails from the inventory and report back to you when you next see him. In the same way he will DELIVER goods you have sold. If you have some goods to GET RID OF in a hurry you can ask him to DUMP them. Finally you can ask him to be your MINDER, and he will STAY WITH you all the time unless you send him on a job. Remember, if Terry delivers goods, you don't get the money until you see him again, and to collect goods you have to give him the right amount plus an amount for his services (he'll take it!). END The end is Day 15. It's best to sell off your goods as quickly as possible towards the end as the Lock- up contents don't count towards the final score, which is quite simply your bankroll. There are a few surprises for you during your fort- night which haven't been mentioned. They are for you to discover and avoid in future! WORDS Although you can use a wide variety of words and phrases, you may find the following a help in your dealings. SELLING BUYING TERRY INTERESTED IN.. NOT INTERESTED COLLECT.. HOW MUCH HOW MUCH DELIVER.. ASK.. OFFER.. DUMP.. NOT ENOUGH TOO MUCH ..MINDER.. YES YES BYE NO NO ACCEPT ACCEPT IVE GOT.. HOW MANY THE LOT FOR.. I WANT NOT INTERESTED IM LOOKING FOR (different goods) BYE BYE Minder is a Euston Films Production for THAMES TELEVISION Created by Leon Griffiths Produced by Lloyd Shirley and George Taylor