Paint Your Spaceship

May 3, 2009 7:11 PM

Another "what was this C64 game"? You're a crash-landed alien, and you need to paint your broken windshield with your antennae for your broken spaceship...and somehow there are monkeys involved.

I had this game when I was a kid, which I thought was called "Business Tycoon" or something similar, but I just can't remember the title. You're an alien who's crash-landed on a planet and you need to repair your shield. You make money by selling bananas to monkeys, and you use the money to buy raw materials..or something. Then you paint the shield on your spaceship with your antennae. It's either 1- or 2-player, and I remember the auctioneer's name was "Hiyam Mighty." Thanks in advance!

posted by ostranenie to computers & internet (4 comments total)

It was on Macintosh as "Run for the Money." I would really like to play it again.
posted by Mr. Justice at 7:59 PM on May 3

That was it! You can get the C64 version here and an emulator for Mac here. Happy painting!
posted by ostranenie at 8:05 PM on May 3

I just came here to say that, whatever it is, it sounds awesome.

Indeed, "and somehow there are monkeys involved" makes anything sound awesome.
posted by Mephisto at 8:38 PM on May 3 [2 favorites]

Well, I played it last night, and of course it was pretty awesome. I don't have the book so it was somewhat of a re-learning experience. I'm sure I'll figure it out but for the sake of anyone else who stumbles upon this question:

You're one of the yellow aliens (port 1 = player 1). You get raw materials to produce "synannas" (synthetic bananas..for the simians..cause you're crash-landed on the planet Simian) by going to the bottom of the screen, holding the joystick button and pressing down, then up on the joystick. Then you collect the diamonds (raw materials or 'rufs') by hovering over them and tapping the joystick button. The numbers are the price per ruf. Then once you've got several, head over to the button left-hand side of your spaceship and to start synnana production. The right-hand object is for advertising. You position your guy so his antennae are right below the white sign-looking thing (which I guess is a button) and tap the joystick button. Then it's monkey banana raffle time! Carbonite gun.

To buy paint to paint your windshield, you have to wait until the 'P' bucket appears under Hiyam Mighty's ship (at which point a fanfare will play) and stand on the left-hand side if you're player 1 or the right-hand side if you're player 2, and tap the button to bid. When you've got paint, walk over to your ship and go across your windshield and you'll paint it. I think you need about 80% covered to take off, and you can only take off between turns. After each turn the game will show you your profit margin based on how many rufs you bought, synannas you sold and advertising you commissioned.

There's a way to play against the computer but I forget what it is. Magic key combination, maybe? If I ever figure it out I'll post back here.

I looked for a few minutes online and couldn't find a text version of the book, and eBay was no help either (although I did buy the book for another C64 program, "Delta Drawing," from there).
posted by ostranenie at 11:26 AM on May 4