Release Date: September, 1973
Platform: Mainframe (BASIC type-in)
Genre: Educational
Developer(s): Howie Franklin
Publisher(s): People's Computer Company
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the Taxman
Yeah I'm the Taxman...
Revolver is the best Beatles album. Change my mind.
Unfortunately, this game is not about The Beatles. Rather, it's about one of life's inevitabilities: taxes. Except, not really. Taxman is, in fact, an educational puzzle game about numerical factors. Sounds fun, right?
Before getting into the game, let's start with the game's author. This one's a tricky one to figure out. MobyGames has the author listed as a Howie Franklin. Now, I couldn't find much of any information about him online. What to Do After You Hit Return references him as a PCC employee, but other than that, crickets. The only reference I found to him as the author of Taxman comes from a very old PCC alumni website that appeared to be maintained by Bob Albrecht. He has a page listing all the games included in the PCC newsletters over the years, and Taxman is listed there with a comment in parenthesis, which says,
"(by Howie Franklin? Great game!)"
...and that's all the information there is on him. That same site lists all PCC contributors, including Franklin, but his page is basically empty. It's kind of frustrating, seeing as there were a few opportunities to name the author, as Taxman appears in three editions of the PCC newsletter: September '73, November '73, and January '74. The newsletter created a little story surrounding the game centred on two characters, Max and Minnie, who represented different ways to play Taxman throughout the articles in each newsletter.
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| Should five percent appear to small, be thankful I don't take it all. |
An interesting tidbit PCC gives us via What to Do After You Hit Return, is that Franklin wasn't the originator of the idea for Taxman. At the back of that book, it provides the code for all the games, and on Taxman's page, a comment is given stating that the concept for Taxman originated at the Lawrence Hall of Science - a place that's come up a few times before on this blog. Battle and the original form of Bagels originate from there. What to Do also states that the Hall didn't know who the idea came from. So that's just fantastic. I have no certain author, nor a certain originator. History is fun.
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| If you drive a car, I'll tax the street. |
Just to complicate things further, there's the source code from the Sol20 website. This one has two names attached to it: J. Stewart and Dave Skrove. One of these two could also be the original author. This code is dated to January 11, 1974, though, so these my be the two who converted the game from the "Mankato Library," as noted by the game code itself.
Considering the evidence, I'm inclined to go with what Bob Albrecht said on the PCC Alumni site, as his statement is effectively an eyewitness account.
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| If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. |
With that settled, let's get into the game. As I said at the beginning, Taxman is about mathematical factors. The game does quite a good job of explaining itself, so I'll allow it to do so for me (courtesy of the Archive's "modern" version port):
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| If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat. |
Understood? If not, maybe my playthrough will help. I mulled over how to approach a 10-number game before playing, and decided on what I thought was a pretty air-tight strategy to win. The basic premise is to try and not have the Taxman take more than one factor with each of my moves.
My first thought was to get rid of 1 as soon as possible, with it being a factor of every number. The only real viable choices for this are 2, 3, 5 and 7. 2 and 3 are factors of several other numbers on the list, and 5 is a factor of 10. That leaves 7, being a prime number, as the most logical first choice. It's not the only prime number on the list, but it is the only one that isn't a factor of any other number.
I take 7, the Taxman takes 1. Next move.
This next move took a little bit of thought. Again, wanting to make sure that Mr. Taxman only takes one number. I could've taken 4, and he take 2 - but that would leave 8 all alone for the Taxman to swoop up at the end. 6 would have him take 2 and 3 - but I need to keep 3 for 9. Taking 10 now would mean I lose 2, which I need to keep also. This really only left 9 as the only viable move, as the only number that would be taken was 3. 6 would still have 2, and 8 would still have 4, so it works perfectly.
9 is taken. Taxman gets 3.
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| If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet. |
The game opens up significantly from here, as there remains three pairs of numbers: 6 and 2, 8 and 4, and finally 10 and 5. It's pretty much routine from here, and I win by a significant margin: 40 to 15.
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| Don't ask me what I want it for (Ha-Ha, Mr. Wilson) |
That turned out to be a fun, but simple brain exercise. However, I wondered how the game would change when more numbers get added into the mix.
Starting with 11 numbers, things don't change much. Instead of taking 7 first, I take 11. 7 has to be left for the Taxman at the end, as there's no way to remove it after taking 11. The rest of the round plays out exactly the same as a 10-number game. Thinking forward, though, things will get more and more challenging with every prime number that is added.
12 numbers makes the game much more complicated, since it's another number with 2, 3 and 4 as factors. Taking 11 and leaving 7 is still a necessary choice, as is taking 9 and losing 3 to the Taxman. It gets tricky after this. There's no real way to have Mr. Taxman only take one number here. What ends up making the most sense is having him take two of the lowest numbers, which at this point are 2 and 4. Therefore, 8 becomes the best next choice. It removes 2 and 4, while leaving 6 as a factor of 12, alongside 10 and 5. Doing this results in a 50-28 win.
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| If you don't want to pay some more (Ha-Ha, Mr. Heath) |
13 numbers actually doesn't change much. I have to take 13 instead of 11, which leaves both it and 7 for the Taxman at the end. The strategy remains the same as the 12-number game, for a 52-39 win.
14 numbers is actually easier since there's now a way to get rid of the 7. The overall strategy doesn't change from 13 or 12 number games, I can now just take 14 at the end to have a bigger winning margin of 66-39.
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| Now my advice for those who die... |
15 numbers is the last round I tried for this blog. Can't ruin all the fun if you want to try this at home. 15 is the next major difficulty spike, as it adds another number with 3 and 5 as factors, which takes away 9 and 10's monopoly on 3 and 5, respectively. What I decided was the best option was to leave the 9 for Taxman, and have 3 be taken by 15. This results in a win of 72-48.
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| Declare the pennies on your eyes. |
For those who are curious, I did have a look at what the largest game that can be played in Taxman. Turns out to be 50 numbers. This is quite a scary proposition, but I gave it a go, and it is possible to beat. I'll leave it to you, reader, to discover how.
For now, we'll have a look at how Taxman rates. Is it as good as its Beatles' namesake, or is it a tax fraud?
Difficulty: 4/10 (Mild)
Controls: 5
Visual: 5
Functionality: 5
Accessibility: 3
Fun Factor: 7
Get your driving helmets ready for the next game - we're going out to the drag strip. You can drive my car, and yes, I'm gonna be a star.
[P.S. As a small nitpick, PCC gets the date for "Taxman" the song wrong. It's a 1966 track, not 1967. Sorry, my inner music snob just had to get that out before I finish here.]
And you're working for no one but me...
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