Jones in the Fast Lane

aka: Keeping Up With Jones
Moby ID: 370
Special Edition

Description official description

Jones in the Fast Lane is a simulation of a person's life, presented as a turn-based strategy game. You can play by yourself, or compete with other human players or the computer-controlled Jones. At the beginning of the game you determine what your goals are, in four categories - Money, Happiness, Education and Career: the higher your goals, the longer the game.

The game itself is presented as something akin to a board game. The board represents the city where you live. Each turn (here, a turn represents a week of your life) you have limited time to act, and you have to choose how to spend it. Walking somewhere else costs you time, as well as working, learning, and looking for a job.

The first thing you should do is looking for a job at an employment center. Since initially you have no education, experience or work history, you can only choose the simplest, lowest-paying jobs - such as a janitor or a cook. Later on, as you enroll into various courses at an university, you'll get smart enough to get the high-ranking jobs. But remember that some jobs require you to buy and wear expensive clothes.

Work isn't mandatory, and you can dedicate time to working whenever you feel like it. The money you get can be spent in many ways. You can buy a snack at a fast food restaurant (you should eat something each week, or next week you'll have less time due to hunger). You can buy some appliances for your house, lottery tickets, newspapers and more. You can also store your money in the bank (a wise choice, considering the ubiquity of pickpockets) or invest into stock market. Remember that you have to pay rent for your house - if you don't pay for a long time, your landlord will garnish some amount from the money you earn at work. But if you get enough cash, you can rent a luxury apartment and move out of the stinky hole inside which you've been spending your life earlier!

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Credits (DOS version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 67% (based on 9 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 44 ratings with 5 reviews)

A great game to play with friends and/or family!

The Good
The chance to live out a "fantasy" life. It's also fun seeing what others decide to do. The graphics are very good, and the little witticisms scattered throughout the game are funny.

The Bad
It's fun to play with 3 or 4 people, but it can be hard sharing the mouse/trackball and all crowding around the computer.

The Bottom Line
In Jones in the Fast Lane, all players start with basically nothing, and have to start their "lives" from scratch - you can be a teacher or an engineer, play the stock market, or work at a fast food joint. You win by being the most successful person first, and success is measured not just by financial worth but by happiness factors as well.

DOS · by Melissa Leonard (100) · 1999

An ingenius alternative to computerized monopoly.

The Good
Ahh, Jones in the Fast Lane... I remember playing this game on a neighbour's 286, thinking to myself, "God! Now THAT'S a game!" then playing the CD version on my 386 and thinking to myself, "Holy shit! It's even better!"

Jones is a classic, and will always be. It's hillarious - the ridiculous weekends, the idiotic comments, the incredibly stupid animations and the hours of endless gameplay.

This game rules!

The Bad
Nothing! There's not a single thing I would change in Jones.

The Bottom Line
You're going to like this, so why not go ahead and play it?

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

A fun multiplayer or single player game where you get jobs and buy stuff.

The Good
It's fun because you can get neat jobs at weird places (that have weird people) and collect lot's of money, then go buy hot tubs and computers and TV's. You can get some competition in the form of a weird dude named Jones who is a computer player.

The Bad
The graphics aren't astounding, and the sound didn't work with the sound card, I had to play with PC Speaker sound (ugh). Also you can't buy cars!!!(you drive around in a huge marble)

The Bottom Line
It's a nice game that is fun for a while.

DOS · by Jon Buder (8) · 2001

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Development

This game was developed externally, and shopped around a few publishers before Sierra picked it up. At that time, all the game mechanics were there, but the presentation was all very "comicy", and there was no music or sound at all. Sierra added the whole yuppie look and feel, and this game was one of the first to include digitized actors and superior Roland Sound (which was ported to the CD version).

Title

Jones in the Fast Lane was originally titled Keeping up with Jones for the obvious reference to the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses", which refers to the desire to have at least as much wealth and success as your neighbours/peers (which is exactly what the game is about). The details are unclear, but someone somewhere owned a trademark on the phrase, so Sierra changed it.

Different DOS versions

At least three different versions of the game for DOS are known to exist: Floppy with VGA graphics, floppy with EGA / Tandy graphics and CD-ROM with VGA graphics and Audio CD.

Information also contributed by Tony Van and Trixter

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  • MobyGames ID: 370
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MajorDad.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Tony Van, Neville, Patrick Bregger.

Game added November 3, 1999. Last modified December 13, 2023.