Space Trader is a complex game, in which the player's aim is to amass enough money to be able to buy a moon to retire to. The player starts out with a small space ship, armed with one simple laser, and 1000 credits in cash.
The safest and easiest way to earn money is to trade goods between neighbouring solar systems. If the player chooses the goods to trade wisely, it isn't too difficult to sell them with a profit. There are other ways to get rich, though. You might become a bounty hunter and hunt down pirates.
It is also possible to become a pirate yourself and rob honest traders of their cargo. Beware, though: pirating is a way to get rich quickly, but the police force will go after you.
Some of the features of Space Trader are:
- Ten different trade goods are available, two of which are considered to be illegal but can bring great profits.
- Ten different ship types are available, some of which are especially suitable for trading, some for pirating, and others for both. Ships differ in size, the distance they can travel, their hull strength, the number of weapons, shields and gadgets they can carry, the number of cargo bays and the number of crew quarters that are available.
- Ships can be equipped with different selections of equipment, among which are several types of lasers, several types of shields, an escape pod and certain special gadgets like a cloaking device.
- You can distribute skill points over your character at the start of the game, to allow you to function well in your chosen role. For the skills your character lacks, mercenaries can be hired which may have different skills.
- There are more than a hundred solar systems in the galaxy, with different sizes, tech levels, governments, resources and special situations. These are not just for background color, but play a vital role in the game.
- While travelling to another solar system, you might encounter police ships, pirates and other traders. There are several ways to handle such encounters. You can even force a trader to allow you to plunder his ship.
- There are about a dozen unique missions and offers available, some of which may bring great special rewards.
- There is support for color, grayscale and black&white Palms, with OS version 2.0 and higher. OS 5.0 is supported.
- The ships are displayed graphically during an encounter. There are also large pictures during key moments of the game.
An enjoyable, addictive game for your Palm PDA.
