Previous Next

OIL STRIKE is a strategy game for eight to fourteen year-olds based on the oil industry search for new resources.

The action takes place on a screen grid and the object of the game is to search likely squares for supplies of oil. A player can choose to survey a square which will show the geological strata beneath and, if the survey is favourable, drilling can take place.

Drilling is not always successful as a survey may show conditions likely to produce oil, whereas in fact water is the end result. On the first two concessions squares are numbered as to their potential for oil bearing, but after that players have only the strata to guide them.

Once found the oil gushes and a production level can be set. As the months pass messages scroll up on the screen, such as 'Oil price drops', and it will be time for the budding oil magnate to reduce production.

Other messages include money spent on cleaning up the environment after an oil spill or a well has dried up. Scoring is in the form of a bank balance and a monthly totalling of income and expenditure.

Oil Strike is a valuable introduction to the interactive forces of the world commodities market and the language of the business world, as well as an exploration of geological maps. Its appeal lies in the strategic decision making which has to be revised continuously as world market conditions change, a heinously difficult task.