A trading game of the Spanish Main · 1715
Start with a small boat and a little silver. Buy low, sell high, outrun Blackbeard, and sail 79 real ports until you can buy your own island and retire.
Phones · Tablets · Computers · No download · No account
The easy part is getting rich. The hard part is getting your cargo home.
Sugar is cheap in Barbados and dear in Boston. Every port makes some goods and needs others, and prices move with hurricanes, droughts and wars.
Pick a port on the chart and watch your ship follow real sea routes, with trade winds, doldrums and hurricane season.
Pirates, navy patrols and Spanish guarda costas. Run, bribe, talk your way out, or aim every broadside yourself.
Grow from a dugout canoe to a galleon. Earn enough, and a land agent may offer you an island of your own.
From Boston to Barbados, Lisbon to the Barbary Coast. Each port has its real flag, its real laws and its real trade. Every one has a story worth reading.
A timing bar sweeps, and you tap to fire. Round shot for the hull, chain shot for the rigging, grape for the crew. Blackbeard, Black Bart, Calico Jack and Stede Bonnet are all out there. Prefer pure trading? Quick-play settles battles for you.
Your bosun, cook, lookout and cabin boy each have a personality: brave, jolly, grumpy, clumsy. Name them after your family. They get promoted, get seasick, and catch scurvy if you forget the limes. Nobody dies. Lost hands turn up again at the next port.
Mini-games in the spirit of Oregon Trail: reel in barracuda without snapping the line, steer through a storm, sound the depth near a reef. Find messages in bottles, follow treasure maps, dive on wrecks.
Written so a 9-year-old can read it alone, and so a younger one can play on a parent's lap. Adults in our family play it too.
None. Not banners, not videos, not "watch this to continue."
No gems, no loot boxes, no timers. One fair price for the whole game.
No email, no login, no personal information. Families save to the cloud with a shared code like KRAKEN-RUBY-2614.
No analytics or third-party trackers inside the game.
Crew members never die. Sailors lost overboard turn up again at the next port.
Kids pick up geography, supply and demand, and history without noticing.
The Atlantic world of 1715 included the slave trade. The game doesn't pretend otherwise. It appears the way it was, legal and openly offered, but it is never the best way to win. The game also tells the stories of resistance, uprisings and escape, and players can choose to free captives at real places of refuge. It's handled with care and pitched at an age-appropriate level, and it makes a good conversation starter.
Colonial America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic world, learned by trading through them.
Teachers, homeschool co-ops and librarians get the full game free. There's a one-period lesson plan, discussion questions and notes on handling the hard history.
Request free classroom accessI loved an old trading game on my Palm Pilot, and I wanted my kids to have something like it, only set in a real place and time. So I built one. They told me when it was boring, and I kept fixing it until it wasn't. Now their friends play, the grown-ups play, and everyone's learned a little history along the way.
Free to play while the game is in early access. At full release, the West Indies stay free to sail forever, and one purchase unlocks the American colonies, the whole Atlantic and the island ending.
No subscriptions. No ads. No in-game store. Ever.
It's written for about 7 to 12, and readable alone by a 9-year-old. Younger kids do well playing alongside a parent. Plenty of adults play it for themselves; the Hard and Davy Jones difficulties are a real challenge.
Any modern web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. There's nothing to download or install. On a phone or tablet you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app.
Your family gets a code like KRAKEN-RUBY-2614. Type it on any device to load your captains, up to 12 per family. We never ask for a name, an email or anything else about you.
Ships fire cannon and crews board each other, drawn in a simple, cartoonish style with no blood. Crew members are never killed: sailors lost overboard rejoin at the next port.
The ports, flags, goods, ships, wars, laws and famous pirates are all real and researched, and every good and ship has a history note. It's still a game, so some things are simplified (and the sea monsters are, we're fairly sure, made up).
It's free during early access. At full release, the Caribbean, the Gulf and the Spanish Main stay free to play for good. One $4.99 purchase unlocks the North American colonies, Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean, and the chance to retire to your own island. It covers your whole family code, on every device. There will never be ads, subscriptions or anything else to buy.
A short note when the full release lands, and now and then when there's something worth knowing. A handful of emails a year, at most. Grown-ups only: please don't let kids sign up.
Silver & Sails