Difference between revisions of "Black Gold"

Revision as of 07:25, 14 August 2011

Black Gold (German title: Schwarzes Gold/Öl-Manager) is a 1987 business simulation by Alex Borst, published as a type-in in the July 1989 issue of CPC Schneider International. The timing is interesting, because the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened in March 1989, so perhaps CPCSI thought the topic rather fit the moment. (Quite a few tankers in the game never make it to their destinations.)

The game is about running an oil company, which mainly means drilling for oil, buying oil tankers and selling to the highest bidder. But the goal is not only to make tons of money, but also defeat the competition, either fairly or unfairly (i.e., by sabotage). Typical playing time for a game is about 45 minutes to an hour.

Black Gold was originally published in German; the disk image below also has an English version and a language selection loading screen. The English translation might still have some minor text alignment issues here and there.

In 1989, a remarkably similar game was published for the Amiga and C64. It's also called Black Gold, also by German programmers, and has more or less the same gameplay, with some added arcade/puzzle sequences for e.g. drilling for oil or laying pipelines. Because the CPC game is from 1987, it's certainly possible that the Amiga game was inspired by it.

Screenshots

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  Language selection

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  Title screen

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  Main menu in the game

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  Buying an oil field

Download

• DSK image

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