Star Merchant

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Genre: Strategy - Trading
Year: ?
Language: BASIC
Publisher: [no publisher]
Controls: Keyboard
Developer: [n/a]
Players: 1
Country
Programmer(s): Burr, Stefan / Johnson, Lloyd
License: PD / Freeware / Shareware
Graphic Artist(s): [n/a]
Medium
Sound: [n/a]
Rarity
Cover Artist(s): [n/a]
Serial: -
Dump: Download

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Adapted from the type-in program which originally appeared in volume 7, issue 8 of Creative Computing dated August 1981.

VOTES / STATISTICS

Rating7.3/10

Hits: 3,919
Downloads: 602
Votes: 3

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COMMENTS (1)

Andreas Koch21 Feb 2021
This might be the forerunner or inspiration to "Star Vagrant" by Madrafi. The Creative Computing game was converted to the Atari in simple Atari Basic and is text only. Nevertheless the game is very playable and errmm, it is not easy. The cargo that is available at the various star systems is chosen randomly it seems, so you never know before hand what cargo you can buy or sell there (in my eyes it would have been better to have the cargo pre-set for each star system so you can plan your strategy). Therefore you need some luck to buy the cheapest cargo and find the star system where you can sell it at a much higher price. If you are unlucky, you have to sell the cargo at a lower price and doing this 2-3 times (or not selling cargo at all) will most of the time lead to a bankrupt. Another problematic point is the salary of the crew which starts at 500,000 and gets higher and higher during the game. It happened to me (after warping to three different star systems) that I could not pay off the crew anymore and then also ended with a bankrupt and game over. But evil as I am, I simply removed this part of the program listing, so the game is now easier and I can play much longer. There seems to be no real ending or final goal of the game, either you end up going bankrupt or you try to end with more money than you started the game with. This means you can end the game after two years of leasing your spaceship, but you can also continue the game as long as you wish (as long as you do not get bankrupt) and renew the lease of your spaceship almost endlessly. A final goal would have been much better in my opinion (e.g. reach 10 million, 100 million or whatever), but hey this is just a type-in listing. Star Vagrant offers many enhancements and improvements compared to this game, first it has great gfx (not text only), second there is music during the game (which can be switched off), there are different types of spaceships (with different speeds, varying sizes of cargo hold, etc.), many more star systems, pirates and thieves, pre-set cargo types for each star (so you can make plans what to buy where and to sell where) and a final goal (reach x million of cash).