Jones in the Fast Lane

Development

The game's working title was Keeping Up with Jones.

Jones in the Fast Lane was entirely developed as a set of storyboards before artwork or coding commenced. The "board game" interface was aimed at ensuring the rules were intuitive and accessible to younger or inexperienced players.

The 256-color VGA graphics were impressive for the time, with most computer games still produced in 16-color EGA. Produced in 1990, it was also one of the first games to run in Windows 3.0 which was released in May 1990.

Gameplay

The game world is represented by a board game-like ring of buildings in squares, resembling a cross between Monopoly and Careers. The game can be played by up to four players, who take turns "living" their respective weeks. If only one player is present, he or she may play against the titular "Jones".

Each player is represented by a coloured marble on the board. Players are free to move around in either direction, only limited by the time remaining per turn. Time is used up by moving to a new location and by performing actions like working, attending class, or resting. Each turn represents a week of the character's life, during which the player decides what the character does.

On weekends, each character experiences an "Oh What a Weekend" event, which uses up some money (usually less than $200), or, if the player has got a computer, creates some money in the form of earnings. These events are usually based on a purchase that the player made during his or her previous week, such as attending a show if the player purchased theater or concert tickets. The event can also be random, described to the player with traditional Sierra humor, e.g. "You went to Las Vegas in a $20,000 car and came back in a $200,000 Greyhound bus." If the player chooses to deposit all his or her cash in the bank at the end of week or simply ends the week with no cash then no money will be spent over the weekend.

The object of the game is to be the first player to achieve 100% success, this is achieved by reaching the top of four goals. The goals are wealth, happiness, education and career. Wealth is achieved by having a certain level of money in the bank, shares and cash in the hand, the player normally would earn this money by going to work. Happiness is achieved by achieving other goals, acquiring goods and taking time off work. Education is achieved by completing the available university qualifications, the number of qualifications the player must complete will be dependent on how high the goal level is set. Career is achieved by climbing the career ladder into a management position in a particular job.

The game does have several fail states such as when a player exits the bank or Black's Market the player may have his or her money stolen by Wild Willy. Wild Willy from time to time may also rip off the Low Cost Housing apartments taking items from all players living there such as TV sets and VCRs, Wild Willy will never rip off the Security Apartments. Other fail states may include a bank glitch causing the loss of savings in the banks and also the loss of the players jobs. The game also has a changing economy where prices may increase or drop including rents and wages. If prices drop the player will normally stay on the same wage but if the player changes jobs he or she may be forced to take a pay cut. The player can also choose to lock in a lower rent when prices are low and continue to pay that price for the remainder of the game regardless of increases to prices.

Most buildings feature a live-action clerk or store person who greets the player with a variety of humorous phrases, complete with lip syncing.

Critical reception

Despite its intuitive design and use of color, the game was not a sales success. Contemporary reviews described the game as a "humorous romp through modern life" and praised the graphics and clever wordplay, but noted it was essentially a computerised board game.