Games like Space Trader

What made Space Trader special?

Pieter Spronck wrote Space Trader as a free game for Palm handhelds. Handheld Computing named it Freeware Game of the Year in 2000, and it's still remembered as one of the best Palm OS games. You built a captain with points in four skills (Pilot, Fighter, Trader and Engineer), then flew between star systems trading ten kinds of goods. Prices depended on each system's technology, government and the news, so reading the market was the game. On the way, police, pirates and other traders met you, and you chose to fight, flee or talk. The goal was to make enough money to buy a moon and retire.

It fit in your pocket and in a five-minute break, which is why so many people played it for years. So a good successor has the same things: prices you can read and beat, risk on the route, an upgrade path for your ship, and an ending you can actually reach.

Space Trader itself

The easiest way back is Russell Wolf's Android port, which aims to reproduce the Palm game exactly. Spronck's own site still has the documentation and the original files. He has said he's been working on a sequel, Picoverse, since 2003; it hasn't been released.

Endless Sky

Endless Sky is the free game most Space Trader fans end up in. You start with a small ship, trade and take jobs between systems, and grow into a well-armed flagship or a whole fleet, with a long story campaign if you want one. It was inspired by Escape Velocity, Ambrosia Software's 1996 Mac game, which many Palm owners played on their desktops at the same time. The last of that series, EV Nova, was shareware for Mac and Windows.

Star Traders: Frontiers

If what you loved was building a captain and a career, this is the grown-up version. It keeps the menu-driven, turn-based feel that made Space Trader work on a small screen, and it's on phones, which matters if you mostly played on the bus.

Oolite

Elite was one of Space Trader's inspirations: trading between star systems, pirates, police and an open galaxy. Oolite keeps that game alive with modern graphics and a big library of add-ons. Choose it if the flying part is what you want; skip it if you liked Space Trader because it was all decisions and no reflexes.

Taipan!

One ship, seven Asian ports, prices that rise and fall, pirates, a moneylender and a million pounds to retire on: Taipan! is the trading game that came first. It takes ten minutes to learn, and you'll see where Space Trader's ideas came from. More in our guide to games like Taipan!

Silver & Sails

We built it because we wanted Space Trader's loop for our own kids. You'll recognise the start: you split skill points, here between Trade, Navigation, Gunnery and Carpentry. Then it's 1715. You sail a small ship between 79 real ports, from Boston to the Caribbean, West Africa and the Mediterranean, trading 16 real goods whose prices move with hurricanes, wars and droughts. Pirates like Blackbeard work the routes. Broadsides and boarding fights are timed and up to you, or you can let them resolve on their own. The goal is the same one Space Trader had: get rich enough to retire, here on your own island.

Where it falls short: it's a single-player browser game, not a space sim. The map is a fixed, historical one rather than a new random galaxy each game. On the easier difficulties it's gentler than Space Trader (Hard and Davy Jones are not). And buying your island is part of the $4.99 unlock.

What you get that Space Trader never had: real history. Every port has a history note, and the website has researched pages on the ports, pirates, goods and ships.

Questions

Is Silver & Sails a remake of Space Trader? No. It's a new game, inspired by Space Trader, with its own code, setting and rules. It has no connection to, or endorsement from, Pieter Spronck or anyone behind the Space Trader ports.

Can I still play the original Space Trader? Yes. The Android port on F-Droid and Google Play is free and faithful. There's also a Windows port, and the Palm version runs in Palm OS emulators.

Which of these are good with kids? Silver & Sails was made for that. Sid Meier's Pirates! is another good family pick; see games like Pirates! for families. Space Trader and Taipan! are better for teens because of the narcotics and opium trades.