Cashman

Please note: I plan on eventually putting a screen shot for EVERY screen of Cashman here, so people can see how many there are, and how diverse they were. I know of at least 45 screens...

Cashman Intro Cashman Screen 1

Cashman intro screen, and Screen 1
Cashman Screen 2 Cashman Screen 3

Cashman Screens 2 & 3

Cashman is thought to be a clone of the smash cross-platform hit Jumpman (I am not sure, though - both were release in 1983 by mid-year, so for one to clone the other that fast would have been quite the feat), for one or 2 players (2 players play simultaneously). It had more screens than the original Jumpman, though... the original C64/Atari 400/800/PC, etc. version had 30 levels, while Cashman has at least 45 that I know about. In this game, you have to collect the cash (signified by dollar signs), while dodging cats, birds, and navigating the various screens of obstacles. Different sets of levels introduce new things to the game play, like Super-jump screens, No-jump screens, screens with conveyor belts, trampolines, disintegrators, invisible platforms, and more. A really nice feature of the game is that it allows you to skip chunks of screens if you have already mastered them.

Depending on when one bought the game, it would have been sold under the name Computer Shack (which started with TRS-80 Model 1/2/3 games, and was quite successful there as well), or later Michtron, which is what they renamed to in 1983. They put out a lot of the most popular Coco 1/2 games, and usually the ones with innovative game play and concepts, and several (including Cashman) were huge and gave the player a lot of diversity to keep them busy. Cashman was also one of the 'European/Australian' friendly games, in that you could change the color set so that the game could be played in color on PAL TV sets (PMODE 4 artifact colors show up as just black and white on PAL TV's... similiar to running the same game on a Coco 3 with a CM-8 RGB monitor).

Another innovation by Computer Shack/Michtron is that they sold other companies games as well (including Spectral Associates, Tom Mix, Med Systems, Computerware, etc.), and their magazine ads had screenshots of most of them, and they also did a top 10 most popular games each month. Of course, their own usually were near the top...

Title: Cashman

Author: Bill Dunlevy and Doug Frayer

Publisher: Computer Shack (later Michtron)

Released: July, 1983

Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 32K RAM, cassette or disk, joystick.

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