Silver & Sails
Buy low, sell high since 1979

Classic trading games, then and now

If you lost evenings to Taipan!, Elite, Pirates! or Space Trader, these guides are for you: where to play the originals today, the games that carried their ideas forward, and which ones you can hand to your kids. Each guide is honest about content, ratings and price.

The guides

Games like Space Trader

The Palm OS classic, where to play it now, and Endless Sky, Star Traders: Frontiers and more.

Games like Taipan!

The 1979 original, free in a browser, and its heirs from Uncharted Waters to Port Royale 4.

Games like Pirates!

Pirate games for kids and families, with ESRB ratings and what parents should know.

A short family tree

  • 1979 · Taipan!Art Canfil, TRS-80. Opium, silk and arms on the China coast.
  • 1984 · EliteDavid Braben and Ian Bell. Trading and combat across a galaxy.
  • 1987 · Sid Meier's Pirates!MicroProse. A privateer's life in the Caribbean.
  • 1990 · Uncharted WatersKoei. Trading and exploring in the Age of Discovery.
  • 1996 · Escape VelocityAmbrosia Software, Mac. Space trading from above.
  • 2000 · Space TraderPieter Spronck, Palm OS. A whole galaxy in your pocket.
  • 2015 · Endless SkyFree and open source, inspired by Escape Velocity.
  • 2015 · Sunless SeaFailbetter Games. Trading and exploring a dark underground sea.
  • 2018 · Star Traders: FrontiersTrese Brothers. A deep space-trading RPG.
  • 2020 · Port Royale 4Kalypso Media. A Caribbean trading economy.
  • 2026 · Silver & SailsSwack Labs. A browser trading game of 1715, for families.

Sharing them with your kids

Many of us who played these games now have kids of our own, and trading games are a great way to teach supply and demand, geography and a little history. A few things to know first:

  • Taipan! and Space Trader let you get rich trading opium and smuggling narcotics. That's a good conversation with a teenager, and a poor fit for a younger child.
  • Sid Meier's Pirates! is rated E on PC and is the classic family pick.
  • Online pirate games such as Sea of Thieves put children on the same sea as strangers.

We built Silver & Sails because we wanted that buy-low, sell-high feeling for our own kids: 79 real ports of 1715, real goods and real pirates, written so an 8-year-old can play alone, with no ads and no in-game store. We make it, so we're not neutral, but every guide here tries to be fair.

For fans of the classics

Try Silver & Sails

The West Indies are free to play in your browser, with no ads and no account.

Play free ⟶

The rest of the map and the island ending are a one-time $4.99 purchase for the whole family.