Like!!!

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Like!!!
Publisher Greenwood Entertainment
Senior Developer Holger Kuchling
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1996
platform DOS , Amiga , CD³²
genre Economic simulation
Game mode Single player
control Keyboard , mouse
medium 5 floppy disks or 1 CD-ROM
language German

Like!!! (also called Mag! ) is a business simulation by Greenwood Entertainment from 1996. In this computer game , the player slips into the role of the head of a computer game magazine.

Gameplay

In contrast to Mad News , in which the player takes over the management of a newspaper, Mag !!! simulated a publishing house for computer game magazines. The game magazines can either be specialized in a special system (e.g. pure PC magazine) or deal with different computer systems. The player's tasks are diverse: In addition to personnel planning (e.g. hiring new employees), the main task is mainly the resource management of their own employees: In addition to test samples of computer games (from which the editors write test reports), the various categories (tips & Tricks, hardware corner, etc.) of your own magazine can be distributed to the individual editors. As a player you have to try to get exclusive reviews, as well as to manage advertisers and subscribers, to advertise and to look after the publisher's own shop, in which you can sell games as well as merchandise. Furthermore, random events can happen during the course of the game. For example, that you get an award for one of your magazines, that the employees are frustrated or get sick, or that you get caught trying to manipulate the circulation number. These events have an impact on the morale of the employed editors as well as on the competition and the readers.

At the end of a simulated month (which takes between 13 and 5 minutes in real time, depending on the selected level of difficulty), the entire editorial team meets for an editorial conference, in which the tested games are rated. As a player, you can influence the rating of the editors in order to give an exclusive review a better rating. The conference also occasionally votes on the introduction of new sections (such as fun sections, shareware, etc.), a publisher's shop or gimmicks (posters, CD-ROM). In addition, the player must determine the size of the issue, the circulation and the sales price.

Graphics and technology

The game's graphics consist of individual images that correspond to the rooms of your own publisher. They are drawn in "typically German" comic graphics and do not contain any animations. Movements are occasionally created by switching two images back and forth. The game itself has an extensive database with the sales charts of various computer systems and magazines about it (the original names such as ASM or PC Games are used), and it also includes most of the computer games that were published between 1985 and 1995. There is a patch on the data carriers with which the initially fictional computer game titles can be converted into the original ones. This data is actively used by the game; H. The game uses this to calculate the maximum target group for a magazine, for example (a pure PC magazine therefore has little chance of survival due to the low distribution of PCs in 1986, whereas a pure C64 magazine will have sales difficulties from around the beginning of the 90s ).

A comprehensive editor is included with the game, with the help of which all database entries (competitor magazines, game names, employee names and their skills, sales charts, etc.) can be edited. In addition, there is an undocumented program on the data carrier with which all corrupted data can be converted into original names.

The CD-ROM version also contains some test reports and news from ASM magazine, which were scanned and integrated into the game. The intro also contains a video in which the PC games editorial team at the time presented their daily work in a humorous way.

The PC version requires an extended DOS system environment, which nowadays can be created using a DOS emulator such as DOSBox .

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