Dope Wars

In Dope Wars you are a drug dealer in New York, moving around the districts, buying and selling drugs.

The aim of the game is to make lots and lots of money. Unfortunately the cops take a rather dim view of drug dealing, competition is murderous and your financiers are not always cooperative.

1. Dealing drugs and moving around

The New York of Dope Wars is divided into 5 locations. At each of these locations, a variety of drugs, with fluctuating prices, are on sale.

Not all of the drugs are necessarily on sale at each location all of the time, and the normally gentle fluctuations may be affected by such events as other dealers flooding the market with drugs, or the cops making a big drugs bust (which will drive the price up).

On arriving at a new location, you will be told if any of these events have occurred

The main way to make money in Dope Wars is to buy and sell drugs, buying cheaply at one location, moving to a new location, and then selling for a profit at this new location.

Bear in mind that you may not be able to afford or carry these drugs! You have limited space to carry drugs, which can be increased by buying a bigger bag.

2. Who is located where

In different locations, there are special facilities you can visit

• El Toro, the loan shark, in the Bronx

• Lieman Brothers Inc., the bank, in Manhattan.

3. Your finances: loans and banks

You start the game being completely broke, but fortunately el Toro, the loan shark, offers to lend you some money.

Every turn this debt accumulates interest, and counts against your total amount of money (which is used as your high score, so it's quite possible to have a negative score). Once a day extra interest is accumulated.

To pay off the loan, you must visit the loan shark by moving to the Bronx. Don't wait too long or the debt might eat up all of your profits soon!

You can also deposit or withdraw money from the bank, which is located in Manhattan.

Putting your money in the bank lets you accumulate interest on it, and prevents it from being stolen if you are mugged or confronted by the police (which does occasionally happen). Interest on your bank account is added only once a day. Money in the bank also contributes to your high score.

If you have a very large amount of money (hundreds of thousands) on your bank account you risk forfeiture of a sum of money by the tax investigators.

4. Cops, other dealers and weaponry

When you move to a new location, you may encounter the cops or another dealer.

When you bought guns, you can attack the cops or the other dealer, otherwise you will have to run. When you've killed all opponents you will receive the money/drugs they were carrying.

You may also surrender to the cops. Your time in jail will depend on the amount of drugs you were carrying and your behaviour during the fight. You lose any drugs or guns you might have.

If you have sufficient cash, you can also bribe the cops. You also have to give half of the drugs you are carrying.

The chance to hit an opponent and the damage you afflict depends on the type of weapon you own.

To increase your chances of winning a fight, it is also advantageous to buy armor, which decreases the damage you take from hostile projectiles.

There are also a number of other beneficial, useless, or just plain annoying random events, when you move to a new location.

Dope Wars is an adaptation of the original Drugwars created by John E. Dell in 1984.