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Remembering an old (early 90s?) space trading sim. [SOLVED I THINK]

Ashaman42Ashaman42 Registered User regular
edited December 2011 in Help / Advice Forum
As ever I figure this is the place to ask, someone usually comes up with a decent answer to these sorts of threads.

I'm trying to remember a game I played back in the day on my cousin's computer. At a guess I'd say it was the early 90s (in the UK) and I think the game may have been freeware/shareware.

Was a space trading sim, no combat or flying, you told your ship which planet to goto next and do stuff when it got there. There may have been 'events' enroute but if so I think you were just informed of them upon arrival.

I remember you started off by getting a loan via a banker/gangster/mobster who I think was a very shark looking alien. And you had a certain amount of game time to pay him back (which I never managed).

You could make money by shipping goods or carrying passengers. The initial choice of ships you could afford were either pure cargo, mixed mode or pure passenger. I can't remember if you could modify the ships but I think you could set the passenger ticket price, too low and you made too little profit, too high and you didn't attract many passengers.

I think it was quite a cartoony style games but not really sure.

I'm afraid that's all I can think of for the moment, not much to go on I know.

Or failing anyone figuring out what game it was does anyone have any suggestions for something similar and preferably free?

Ta.

Ashaman42 on

Posts

  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    This is a whole genre of games, with and without combat. The earliest game I can find is one written in BASIC (of all things) called Star Trader. It led to the development of TradeWars and Yankee Trader. The most famous older version of this game is probably Elite, but most folks have played Wing Commander: Privateer or the X series, but these involve space flying and combat. The game most like what you described that I've played is the Palm OS Space Trader game. It could possibly be Space Rangers or Space Rangers 2.

    For a more modern freeware remake which is straight-up trading, there's Via Galactica, which has nothing to do with the Broadway Musical of the same name, for PC and Dark Nova for iPhone/Android. There's also Space Trader: Merchant Marine (which has first person shooter elements for bounty hunting). For space trading with a fun overhead view pew-pew action (like Star Control), I'd recommend Space Pirates and Zombies (SPAZ). Space Rangers 2 is excellent, despite its age, and is well worth the price of admission. For another take on Elite (with procedural generation and great graphics), there's Evochron.

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  • halkunhalkun Registered User regular
    edited December 2011
    That sounds like a space version of "drug wars" and there have been many clones of it. The one it strikes me as being the closest to it is Space trader. That was based on the same game for the C64.. Like the post above, the current incarnation of the game is Dark Nova.

    halkun on
  • Fuzzy1Fuzzy1 Registered User new member
    Ashaman42 wrote:
    As ever I figure this is the place to ask, someone usually comes up with a decent answer to these sorts of threads.

    I'm trying to remember a game I played back in the day on my cousin's computer. At a guess I'd say it was the early 90s (in the UK) and I think the game may have been freeware/shareware.

    Was a space trading sim, no combat or flying, you told your ship which planet to goto next and do stuff when it got there. There may have been 'events' enroute but if so I think you were just informed of them upon arrival.

    I remember you started off by getting a loan via a banker/gangster/mobster who I think was a very shark looking alien. And you had a certain amount of game time to pay him back (which I never managed).

    You could make money by shipping goods or carrying passengers. The initial choice of ships you could afford were either pure cargo, mixed mode or pure passenger. I can't remember if you could modify the ships but I think you could set the passenger ticket price, too low and you made too little profit, too high and you didn't attract many passengers.

    I think it was quite a cartoony style games but not really sure.

    I'm afraid that's all I can think of for the moment, not much to go on I know.

    Or failing anyone figuring out what game it was does anyone have any suggestions for something similar and preferably free?

    Ta.

    Are you looking for Gazillionaire? It was one of my favorite games growing up. It looks like there's a free browser based version out there somewhere.

  • Ashaman42Ashaman42 Registered User regular
    Fuzzy1 wrote:

    Are you looking for Gazillionaire? It was one of my favorite games growing up. It looks like there's a free browser based version out there somewhere.

    I think this may well be it. Had a potter round one of the browser versions, not as good as I remember but glad to find it again. Cheers Fuzzy (and everyone else).

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