This is a very boring game, and it looks like it. However, it is
easy to play and the control mechanism is easy to understand.
Your mission is to survive as long as you can, from January
1986 until December 2002, after which tha game is finished.
The game is a very simplistic presentation how the economy works. I chose the Soviet Union / Russian Federation because it's economic system is the most simply. It would have been more interesting to create similar game about Italy, Japan, Argentina or United States (all these countries have similar problems) but these are market economies with large private sector, and for it would have been (almost) impossible trying to make similar presentation because these economic systems are much more complex and it is very difficult to try simulate how individual persons behave at the certain situations; are they investing money to stock market, are they going to buy gold, etc. And at the market economies there are companies who buy goods outside and sell these at homeland; those who manufacture goods at homeland and sell outside, and currency rate affects different way these companies.
So, even if Russia today is a market economy, it behaves like Soviet Union: large public sector, huge state-owned companies and very small private sector, which I have omitted from this game.
The game starts in the year 1986. Your foreign debt is 50,000 million (actually, Soviet Union had foreign debt between 15 and 55 billion), and you have to pay 500 million each month. Then you have income from export, starting fron 1,833 million and you have to pay 440 Roubles to 100,000,000 citizens, together 44,000 million. At the Main Directory you see that you don't have so many Roubles, but before you are asked to pay, you get back money from last salary, circulating in the country.
How much of the money returns back?
1986: 98 %
1987: 98 %
1988: 98 %
1989: 97 %
1990: 95 %
1991: 90 %
1992: 85 %
1993: 80 %
1994: 80 %
1995: 80 %
1996: 80 %
1997: 80 %
1998: 80 %
1999: 82 %
2000: 84 %
2001: 86 %
2002: 88 %
Rest are floating away...
Then you are asked do you want to buy food with Dollars. These numbers I found fron the Internet. At first year it is 1,333 million USD, but in the year 2002 only 83 million. If you say 'NO', your popularity shrinks and mortality rises because of malnutrition, which is very bad because it also diminishes your score. And same if you refuse to buy medicine. If you do things correctly, for example buying 'vital components', the mortality might become negative, meaning you actually save lives. Thus, the negative mortality rate is not a Bug.
And if your popularity shrinks below 10 % the game is over.
Deaths by malnutrition by year if not buying food:
1986: 700 people.
1988: 800 "
1989: 1000 "
1990: 900 "
1991: 900 "
1992: 700 "
1993: 500 "
1994: 300 "
1995: 100 "
1996: 0 "
Your popularity climps by 5 % if you decide to increase wages. If you decide to pay only half of the wages, your popularity shrinks a lot.
You must have Dollars for imported goods and Roubles for salary. At the Rosbank you can buy Dollars or Roubles. You can take a 20,000 USD loan for eight times and you can 'create money out of thin air' for nine times. Each time you create money, the value shrinks to half; so finally it is 1 USD / 1,024 RUB.
(In fact, as soon as Gorby came in to power, he started to print money: 63 billion Roubles in 1989 and 60 billion in 1990. Maybe this gave the last boost for Soviet economy and was also one reason why it collapsed.)
And if you have created money more than 4 times, trust to RUB is gone, and you can't take any more loan or buy Dollars. But you can still buy Roubles if you have Dollars at the Bank.
After first loan, the interest is 700 (million), after eight loan, it is 4,900 (million) USD.
If you want to proceed, you must go to 'Summary'.
There you pay your bills and skip to next month.
LAST HOPE
To make the code a little longer I created an option where you can sell State owned companies to get more money (if you have taken loans more than six times and if you have less than 6,000 (million) Dollars at the Bank. If you sell these companies, the income from export shrinks. These are the only things that are randomized (how much you get and how much the export shrinks). Theoretically, income from export can fall into negative, but practically it can not fall below 1 (million) which is already bad enough. Every month gives you 1,000 points, and the final score depends on worker's salary. (If it is 57 USD, the score 57 %, if it is 150 USD, the score is 150 %.)
REAL FIGURES
I made careful background research, but I found that with these numbers, it is impossible to play this game for more than few years. So I made five levels; my original plan is the level 5, at the level 1 - 4, I added more income from export: 40 %, 30 %, 20 %, and 10 % respectively. I am not sure about the precise numbers, but I am pretty sure that level 1 and 2 are not in line with the reality. This presentation might not be very good it seems that Russia overcome my presentation...
Person who is smarter than me, could make better game, but I do not think it will became a huge success. The code is included.
Enjoy.
April, 2025
Pasi Toivonen
Mänttä-Vilppula
FINLAND
email: hurricaneharvey64@gmail.com
https://vk.com/pasitoivonen
