Paperboy

Who would have thought that millions of American children would fall so deeply in love with a videogame that mimicked their day job.  It would be like an adult videogame called Chartered Accountant or OBGYN 2.

But they did and many kids rushed home for their real paper routes to live the experience al over again, in digital form.  It guess it’s the revenge factor.  There are man things you can do in Paperboy that you couldn’t get away with as a real paperboy.

The main idea in Paperboy is pretty simple; you are a Paperboy who has been assigned the toughest route in the whole neighborhood. Now, by tough, I mean you’re going against the Grim Reaper in some situations. At the beginning of the week, you are given a map of the street that you must deliver to. The houses that you must deliver too are painted rather bright, while the houses that don’t require a paper are painted an unwelcoming red. They make it ridiculously easy to distinguish one house from the next, which I guess is good.

The goal of Paperboy is to go a whole week on the toughest street without taking too much damage to your self (which is basically three incidents and you call it quits, you damn underachiever) or losing all of your customers.

You lose a customer by failing to deliver them a paper for a few days. When you lose a customer, they paint their house red in a form of some sort of protest. Anyways, if you manage to make it all the way through the week without giving up (lazy ass) or losing all of your customers, then you…well, you beat the game. Want more? Well, err...you can earn a high score. Isn’t that compelling?

Everything and anything will happen to you while you are on your daily route. Many obstacles will hamper your dreams of Paperboy glory and fame. Anything from tires rolling down a driveway to an angry man in his robe chasing you to a tornado that is on a path of destruction, you will always have to be aware of your surroundings. Some obstacles emerge from the houses or driveways while others are simply placed along the sidewalk or street.

One thing that torments me to no extent is the parked car. It’s a car parked next to the road, but the thing is, you can’t avoid it once on the street. It’s impossible to get from the street to the sidewalk without using a ramp, so you’ll end up losing all of your lives running into the damn thing. This is one part of the course that will put you to your doom quicker than you can say ”I hate this damn job.”