Previous Next

Not, as you might think from the title, the latest arcade game with Winston Smith being pursued by man-eating rats and Thought Police. Instead, 1984 is about the rather mundane task of running the nation's finances, with you as Prime Minister.

Using the 1982/83 economic figures as a basis, you have to decide on the levels of Government spending, income tax rates and wage settlements for 1984. Unless you make a complete mess of the first year and are forced to resign, you can then go on to balance the books for subsequent years - the ultimate goal being to stay in office until the 21st century.

The program itself is loaded using four different sections - an increasingly common device designed to stop piracy. The first section - the 'loader' - draws a rather nice Houses of Parliament and then, to the chimes of Big Ben, loads in the rest of the program. The next thing you see is the Government's balance sheet showing expenditure and revenue. For 1982/83 these balance at £140bn and ideally they should balance each year. Then you get the eight major economic indicators: inflation rate, unemployment, gross domestic product, gold reserves, industrial output, balance of trade, average wage and exchange rate. Together these show how the economy is faring each year, but you can also see a graph of how each indicator has changed during your years in office.

At the beginning of each year, the first thing you have to set is the Minimum Lending Rate, which affects bank interest rates. Only small changes are allowed, so if it stands at 9 per cent you can't change it to 5 or 20 per cent - the effect on the economy would be devastating!

Next you negotiate the year's wage settlements for the Civil Servants, the Public Sector and the Private Sector. Outlandish settlements are not allowed; if the Civil Servants ask for 8.7 per cent and you offer 100 per cent you will be forced to resign - end of game. On the other hand, if you offer only 2 per cent, such a derisory figure will be rejected, and their claim will go through. Unlike real life, though, you only get one round of bargaining.

The level of funding for the various Government departments is decided next, and this is where party policy can be put into practice. You might, for example, want to increase spending on Social Security and Housing at the expense of Defence and Transport. You cannot make really drastic cuts, and if any departments are seriously underfunded a warning message appears. Huge increases will be greeted by the message 'Public Spending out of Hand' and again you will be forced to resign.

Next, you temporarily become the Chancellor. In your Budget you can raise extra money from VAT, income tax, etc, or increase unemployment benefit, child benefit, etc. I noticed a rather drastic bug here: if you reduce any of the tax rates - VAT for example - to zero, it *cannot be raised again*, because you cannot increase any rate by more than 10 per cent, and a 10 per cent increase on zero is still zero!

If survive the year you get an opinion poll of your popularity; if it falls below 45 per cent, you're in trouble! Before going on to 1985 you can see the balance sheet and major indicators showing how well you managed 1984.

Playing 1984 gives you quite an insight into how the country's finances work. For example, it is very difficult to stop inflation spiralling away - from an initial figure of 4.8 per cent I had it topping 20 per cent by the end 1986. Included with the program is a little booklet entitled 'A Pocket Guide To Running Britain'. Perhaps a complementary copy should go to 10 Downing Street?