Trolley Follies

puzzle game for Commodore 64, 2018

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WELCOME TO TROLLEY FOLLIES!

Welcome new hire to the Trolley division of Convoluted Rail Road
(CRR) Incorporated! This new employee packet will help you familiarize
yourself with the day to day operations of the company and your role as a
conductor of one of our trolleys!

YOUR JOB

Your job here at CRR is to operate one of our trolleys to pick up awaiting
passengers and deliver them to their desired destinations.

PASSENGERS AND DESTINATIONS

There are five types of people in this world: Green People, Yellow People,
Cyan People, Purple People, and Pink People. Green people always want to go
to green stations and yellow people always want to go to yellow stations. Can
you guess where cyan, purple, and pink people want to go? Yes, that’s right
they want to go to cyan, purple, and pink stations(respectively).

Amazingly a traveler of a particular color will be happy arriving at any
station of the matching color even if there are other stations of the same
color. For example, a cyan person will disembark when you pull into a cyan
station, any cyan station.

STATION PLATFORMS

The station platforms are where passengers disembark (get off) the trolley and
new passengers wait to get on to a trolley. To allow this pick-up and
drop-off process to happen you must stop your trolley at a platform. You
cannot expect people to jump off or onto a moving trolley! Pull into a
station and come to a full stop.

OUR CUSTOMER HAPPINESS GUARANTEE

Unlike most public transportation entities, we only collect payments from
passengers as they disembark the trolley. They are asked to pay the full fare
if they are completely satisfied with their trolley ride. If they are less
than completely satisfied then they may opt to pay less than the full fare.

Our crack research team has determined that the happiness of our passengers is
directly related to how quickly they get to where they are going. A customer
waiting at a station platform may become dissatisfied with the wait and if
left waiting long enough may even leave before the trolley arrives. However,
once they board the trolley their mood typically improves and you have ample
time to deliver them to their destination before they start to feel
impatient.

Customers left waiting at a station for too long will eventually give up and
leave. Our station monitoring system will be made aware of this and if it
happens during your shift your pay will be docked! (Your score will go
down).

GOALS

Each neighborhood we operate in (game level) has a set goal (amount of money
we’d like to collect, reflected by your score) and a time limit to collect
that amount of money. Pick up awaiting passengers and deliver them to their
corresponding destinations in a safe and timely manner.

Once you have reached the goal amount you may continue on to the next
neighborhood. If there is time remaining you may stay in the current
neighborhood and try to earn a few extra bucks. Be warned, however, if you
have not progressed to the next neighborhood before the time limit expires
you will be reprimanded! (You will have to play the level again).

HOW TO DRIVE A TROLLEY

Trolleys are very easy to drive! All you need to do is push the joystick in
the direction you want the trolley to go. If you release the joystick, or if
you are pushing it in a direction the trolley cannot move, then the trolley
will remain stationary.

SWITCHES

You may notice that some of the track pieces are red. These are called
switches. They can be rotated to connect to different parts of the track and
allow the trolley to travel along different lines. To operate switches stop
the trolley near the switch and hold the fire button on your joystick until
the switch is in the desired position. Be careful that the switch is
connected to another track segment otherwise when you try to drive over it
your trolley will de-rail!

DAMAGED SECTIONS

These rail lines are very old and often need repairs. Occasionally you may
notice this icon on the track. This indicates that this section of track is
damaged and attempting to drive on it will de-rail your trolley. Don’t worry
we do have a repair crew that will get around to fixing it eventually but
this may take a while.

If you do de-rail your trolley on a damaged track piece, however, the team
which comes to fix up your trolley, help the traumatized passengers
disembark, and deduct your pay, will also repair the broken track piece at
that time.

Also note that, because of the age of our rail lines, switches sometimes have
a tendency to randomly switch on their own, usually when you least expect
it.

DE - RAILINGS

De-railing (crashing) the trolley is very bad for business. It costs money to
repair the trolley and get it back on the track. This money will come out of
the funds you have collected so far.

Additionally each passenger on board will become uncomfortable with the idea
of continuing their journey on the trolley and will disembark. Since you’re
new here we’ve allocated three spare trolleys for you. If you manage to
derail all of your trolleys you will be subject to disciplinary action up-to
and including termination! (Game Over!)

De-railings can happen in three different ways: You drive the trolley off the
rails at a switch which is not connected to the line you’re on, you collide
with your opponent (in a two player game), or you run into a damaged section
of track.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT

We like employees dedicated to self-improvement. Each time you exit a
particular neighborhood (game level) your score for that level will be
recorded. In the future you will need to exceed your previous best score in
order to achieve the goal for that level.

The ledger of your achievements will be kept safely on the floppy disk. If you
want to reset this back to default there is an option to do that from the
main menu.

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Some useful keyboard shortcuts
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       [PAUSE] - stop/continue game
          [F9] - quick load game state
         [F12] - quick save game state (still stored after leaving the site)
         [F10] - toggle performance meter
         [F11] - toggle fullscreen mode
  [ScrollLock] - quick switch control ports
    [PageDown] - make a screenshot (320x200)