International Bridge Contractors
Simulating an industrial concern a bit more high-stakes than a lemonade stand,
this game puts the player behind the accounting ledger of a company that
builds bridges, which are large, complicated objects whose construction
requires many resources and much labour. Coordinating supplies of both leaves
a bit of money left over for research & development, which may yield one-time
dividends or permanently lower some costs — if not necessarily paying for
itself except on a long-term scale. Random events in the business world may
find their way to the player’s desk, arbitrarily benefiting or penalizing
their company — some ~25 events in the original TRS-80 BASIC listing,
increased to over 65 in the MS-DOS BASICA version.
All of this is a sideshow to the main business of winning contracts to build
bridges. To even be considered for eligibility the player’s company must have
all necessary elements ready to go. Then there is a gentle art to a winning
bid, striking some point on a Laffer curve not too high to be accepted but not
too low to yield significant profits. Random factors are tempered with general
rules, such as the documentation’s suggestion to “`Make note that usually the
more expensive bridges will mean bigger costs, hence you are capable of making
larger bids, and therefore make larger profits.`”
Once the player successfully amasses $500 million in profits, they are
declared chairman of the board and the game concludes. Much more likely,
however, is falling into bankruptcy, which ends the game a whole different
way.
International Bridge Contractors