August 2024’s Monthly Game Club is Mad TV for Amiga, MS-DOS, and Atari ST!
Nominated by @Mnemogenic, here’s what they have to say about it:
I played this game for the first time last year and it really stuck in my head because I found it fun to play, but impossible to do well at. Maybe if we put our heads together, we can crack it. Or we can just swap stories about how our stations are failing and we’re airing Citizen Kane three times a day because it’s public domain.
It appears to be freeware now and easy enough to search online to find and play.
What’s your background with this game? I hadn’t heard of it until today! Looking forward to trying it out alongside y’all.
I’ve been dreading this because I made a mistake when I submitted it and it’s been haunting me ever since. Citizen Kane is obviously not public domain. What I should have said is that it’s cheap and eats up a lot of time. There, finally got that off my chest. I also forgot to actually describe the game. Whoops. I was all caught up in the ‘starting the list again from scratch’ excitement.
Anyway yeah, this game is cool! You manage a TV station. You purchase and select the programming, manage the news feed, and handle the expansion of the station, among other things.
Something I couldn’t find when I first played, but can now, is a manual in English (Maybe add this to the OP?):
For the Amiga version, which I haven’t played, but it’s probably fine for all versions. Which will maybe make the game less impenetrable, but I eventually felt comfortable with everything and was still face-planting on easy. So.
Interested to hear how this goes for people! I think about this game all the time. Once you get the hang of it, it flows well in that way good simulation games do.
Alright, felt like playing it this evening, and tried a few times. Here’s how they went:
First Run
I forgot how to play the game. Should have looked at the manual. Oops.
Second Run
Had the manual with me this time, so I knew how to operate the game.
Unfortunately, I overspent on programming and newswires immediately, fell into debt, news became outdated, ratings fell, ad contracts stopped being fulfilled. Utter failure by Day 3.
Third Run
Okay. I spent more sensibly this time. Only bought a few new programs and only signed ad deals I was sure I could fulfill. I ended up signing for all the news wires more or less right away, but the news seemed to help with ratings so it was good to have a variety.
On day three, this had an unexpected payoff. At the start, the game sets you up to win a Sammy (award statuette) in cultural programming. But instead I got the news Sammy! Sammies don’t give you a monetary reward directly, but they raise your image, which helps ratings.
As day three went on, I started to get nervous about my expenses and unsubscribed from one of the newswires. Near the end of the day, some ad contracts started paying out and my income went up. I had a cushion!
At the start of day 4, I was still in the black. Could it be the run? I’ll report back again.
It was not the run. I made a huge error and failed to fulfill a couple advertising contracts, leaving me with 150,000 dollars in penalties. I tried to hang on, but it was a lost cause.
I did three more runs after that, all of which ended quickly and dramatically.
On the fourth run, I decided to play very conservatively, focusing on ad contracts I can fulfill, keeping the news up, and more or less ignoring the quality of the programming unless an ad contract wanted a specific genre I didn’t have.
I stopped on day 5 of this run still having a positive number in funds. I don’t have ads planned for the end of the day though, so I have to keep an eye on the ad agency and pray that they get contracts I can fulfill. Balancing on the head of a pin.
I have played a few runs on this game - managed to get it running on the MiSTer though it was harder than I expected!
I dig the aesthetic, and the whacky sense of humour. The MS Paint style cutscenes are quite charming.
It is, of course, kicking my ass. I managed to get a few days in a couple times. I get the sense that slow and steady is the way forward, but there is definitely a balance here as money dries up pretty fast even if you aren’t actively spending that much.
It hasn’t quite made me a sim game convert, but it’s fun to get out of my comfort zone from time to time. I could see myself getting into a game like this at the right moment, but I’ve got lots of other games burning a hole in my brain right now so I don’t quite have the energy to fully invest in this one.
I tried both the DOS and Amiga versions out. Broadly they are the same, although the DOS version has the cool animated intro (and possibly more animations deeper into the game) but they seem to be absent in the Amiga version.
However, the Amiga version has waaay better music imo. It’s the same compositions, just sounds a lot better on the Amiga. Not sure if the DOS version has support for MIDI or anything.
