This is a great little game. I have over a hundred games in my catalog and this scratches a very particular itch that none of the others do. There are a few small improvements that can be made. But what really impressed me was at first I couldn't save without a crash. It didn't take the developer very long to fix that. I wouldn't have expected that quickness from a AAA title, let alone a small, inde like this.

It can get repetitive. If you like RNG space trading games, though, you really have nothing to lose with this game. I paid more for my coffee this morning than I paid for this game. (And I'm enjoying this game far more than the coffee ;) )

I'm hoping the developer will put in an unlimited mode in the future. Perhaps even a way to re-roll (progress) the planets. More options are always welcome. But right now the game is a hoot. Have certainly got my money's worth.

4/10.

Give this game an award!

Not because it has deep and engaging gameplay.

Give it an award because it is the shallowest game I've ever seen.

So, you are a trader who buys and sells stuff IN SPACE. Your job is simply to get rich, and collect X "credits" (something you select on start) in order to "win." You'd think this would be quite an interesting, varied job. Nope!

Well, it is varied. In that everything's random. It's just that everything's too random. The fuel price varies from 40 / unit to 400 / unit, without any predictability. "Shares" in the market are hilariously random, jumping from 1 credit/share to 100 credits/share in a matter of turns (one planetary visit = one turn).

The Prime Minister, who you can sometimes see for free stuff, is more than not unavailable.


You also get some random events, like merchants appearing out of nowhere and selling you stuff or trying to buy your stuff. Generally they're not worth it, as you can find a better price elsewhere.

In addition, every, oh, 10 planets or so you can go to a planet and pick 1 of 3 spots to "look for a special item." These have hilariously terrible names taken straight out of sci-fi garbage. There's no plot to them or anything - you get money if you find them, or nothing if you don't.

And there's pirates! except... they're also terribly random. All fights are measured in damage - you do more damage than them, you win. Losing simply means they take some money and your stuff. Winning means nothing.

Money is not made by careful, well-planned decisions. No, money is made by buying stuff when it's <10 and selling it when it's >20. The inherent randomness means it's quite possible to fill my upgraded cargo of 2500 with Roses bought at 1 each, then sell them all on another planet for 50 each.

To be fair, this could be borderline interesting if it had engaging graphics, some voiceover. It doesn't. It has the single worst graphics I've seen - and I've played a couple of games from 1999.

As an example, consider the supernova random free credits event. There is just one bitmap image as a background, that's always the same. Not a zoomable bitmap or anything, or a 3D object - just a bitmap.

Then there's some random number text. This doesn't have any fancy casino-esque spinny dials. Rather, every 1/4 second or so it simply updates to another number, without anything.

Buttons have no "hover-over" or "depressed" sprites - consider your Steam UI as an example. When you hover your cursor over LIBRARY, it lights up. Click on it, and it lights up even more.

Not in this game. It all looks the same. For every button.

The graphics are terrible. Flash games have better graphics. Scratch games have better graphics. Hell, games designed to mimic CMD's interface have better graphics.

The freaking default Windows Movie Maker has better graphics.

All this game's graphics consist of text and bitmaps. There's a reason why it's only 57 MB in size.

Pirate battles consist of one screen of non-unique sprites and that's all there is to it.



After 73 minutes in the game, I've seen everything. There's nothing new, just some different names for some stuff.




Star Merchant has one bonus. And that is that everything happens when you click. There is no time problem, ever, not even in space battles or exploration, everything happens on one click. This means that it is a very play-at-your-own pace game. Unfortunately this is neutered by the fact that because this game runs in a beserk sort of forced-resolution fullscreen, you can't actually Alt+Tab (or Win+D) out of it.



How To Win:
-> go to a planet
-> pick up passengers (which are essentially free revenue per planet - you don't have to drop them off, presumably they're happy to hop off at the next planet)
-> if fuel price per unit is less than 200, fill to max
-> visit the Prime Minister to see if he has anything to say (usually he can't see you, but visiting him is cheap)
-> upgrade your cargo by 50
-> repair your ship every so often
-> up until here the passengers typically pay most of the above off
-> visit the main Trading Section
-> see if anything can be bought for less than 10 / unit - if so, fill your cargo with it
-> see if anything can be sold for more than 20/unit - if so, sell it
-> next planet


Oh, and there's no tutorial. Not that it takes more than 3min to learn. It's also basically impossible to fail even if you randomly do everything, and it is absolutely impossible to fail if you do the above.

In addition, the game isn't integrated with Steam and the Steam Overlay doesn't work. Else I'd show you some screenshots to show you how terrible it is.

And it insists on running in fullscreen without showing on the taskbar, making it absolutely impossible to Alt+Tab out of.

And the "win" screen is the single most unsatisfying I have seen in the game - just another bitmap with the text "You have recieved fame and honor throughout the galaxy," and an option to go back to the Main Menu.



I wouldn't even reccomend this game if it was free.

Windows 7 users beware. This game altered my graphics setting. Then didn't even fit in the window it created for its self so I couldn't exit. On top of that it does not show up as an application or a process in Task Manager so forced restart is the only way out then you have to manually fix your graphics. I just paid 3 bucks to fix my computer of a problem it didnt have and never got to play the game because was the same result for round 2 and I'm not giving it a 3rd try.

WARNING: Due a development with an old codification, this product have not any graphic configuration options and ONLY RUN IN 1024x768 resolution for a 4:3 screen aspect relation, so its unplayable in others like 16:9.

[Played for 1.7 hrs acording to steam]
So When I looked at this game and gave it my first few mins I really enjoyed it. I found the mechancis of the game to be fun and the randomness to give it replayability. But as the game dragged on I started to see it's flaws. Spending money to upgrade your ship seems lack luster as you really don't make your value back with most upgrades. Not all routes to make money (and thus different play styles) are viable options to win the game. So you end up doing to old buy small sell big strategy. But you have to fight off pirates. Ok cool no problem, or it shouldn't be when you buy an escourt of ships to protect you to have them litterly destroyed by only 2 pirate ships of the lowest class ship... Yes I expect randomness to have it's way and there to be crazy things like a T1 ship taking on a T3 but I have like 8 ships (from building up over time) and had upgraded my weapons on my ship but got taken out by 2 of the lowest class ship? Some things just don't add up.

TLDR; Could be a great game if it were more blanced and a little more control on the randomness. Random is not bad but a 8 v 2 battles should end as expected. A victory with little, to no loss. not a complete failure.

Game "won" in 22 mins and I still have no real idea if what I was doing was right or not. Buy at 6, sell at 350? Rinse and repeat? Some planets sell everything at 300+ so give them a miss. Occasionally I could buy weapons, and choose to use them in fights, but most of the time my fleet of battlecruises would wipe out pirates anyway. Clicking on "prime minister" every time it was lit up just gave me free money, sometimes completing "quests" by accident or winning lotteries I never entered. A bit of a jumbled mess.

Ahhh... I feel like I've been transported back to the 80's. Games like this were relatively common on old computers (I remember something very similar on my BBC model B).
Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. I love this game, and I mean Love it! OK so it's simple, there isn't three thousand keyboard shortcuts to learn, the graphics are simple but effective. The rules, well I suppose it could be explained better but to be honest, the game is so straight forward that a single play-through will teach you everything you need to know.
This game is fun, simple, pure, easy and, well fun. Yup I said it twice.
I have had no issues running it (Win 7 x64, nvidia, triple head) but I know others have had problems. I have no idea why, I have not experienced one single crash.
So, if you fancy playing something quick, easy (although sometimes tricky), and just for the laughs, then this should be in your library of top games.
This is my goto game when I can't decide what to play from the massive choice I have.
Recommended.... Big time!

The game works on a Windows 7 OS. Purchased this game in spite of the "Doesn't work" posts. Ignore those posts.

I have started 3 games. One is a mid game save. The seoonc crashed to the desktop. The third I finished the game trying to replicate the crash to the desktop.

Aside from an unrepeatable CTD, the game is simple but fun. You move from planet to planet (you do not pilot your ship), any battles are auto resolved based off of the fleet strengths.

Your choices involve Trading, Ship upgrades, investments and where to go next.

There are multiple mini-games, but none of them require any thought.

The game is very short, it could benefit from the addition of acheivements.

0.3 hours of my life I'm not getting back. If you want a space trading game try Endless Sky. Its far better and also free.