Dallas By CC Games

Ahh, the 80s.  Shoulder Pads, beautiful women and a tv phenomenon called Dallas.  Set in the exotic city of Dalllas Texas it told the story of hte Euings and the Barnes and their never ending strife set against the backdrop of the Texas Oil Industry.  For those of us living in the UK at the time it was one of the most stunning tv series of its age.  And, when one of the main characters, though dead for whole season, suddenly re-appeared in the shower as if nothing had ever happened, a whole series of television was wiped from the canon of Dallas.  It was also one of the first tv series that led to the rise of the water cooler moments.  "Who Shot JR?" made the front page of most newspapers in the UK, as one series was left hanging at the edge of the cliff edge.

And so comes along the inevitable tie-in game.  Dallas.  A simple premise, you need to build up your oil company before Euing Oil takes you over.  So how do we do this?  The game takes place on a map of the surrounding area of Dallas City.

The main controls run along the bottom of the screen.  The game follows a set cycle

• Concession Sales
• Move your Rig
• Drill
• Hopefully Strike Oil
• Build Production Facilities
• Lay a Pipeline
• repeat

Concession sales allow you to purchase lane upon which to drill.  From here the game takes on a random chance, you drill down through the levels, either drilling through rock, striking oil, or sometimes the dreaded dry hole.

Once oil has been struck, to make it profitable, you need to create production facilities and lay pipelines from the facility back into Dallas.  The quicker you drill, and produce the facilities, the quicker your total assets build up.  While it is possible to get into debt, this makes it harder to ultimately beat the game.  As you are paying interest on the loans that you are taking out, which leaves you less money for the purchase of new assets and the drilling for oil.  As the game progresses, you lay more and more pipework.  The shot below shows a late stage of the game.

You do not always need to purchase assets, but if you run out of land to drill on, you will struggle.  The game has 3 difficulty levels, which affect the speed at which Euing Associates grow their assets.  I will be honest I have managed to beat the game on the first two levels, but the hardest level is beyond me.  Perhaps I am not as ruthless I would need to be to win the game there.

If you are successful, and I would say, it is less often than more often, you will receive a nice telex (for the young ones out there, this was after the invention of the telephone and before emails) informing you that you have taken over Euing Associates.