Games like Taipan!

What made Taipan! special?

Art Canfil wrote Taipan! on a TRS-80 in 1979, inspired by James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan. The Apple II version, published by Avalanche Productions in 1982, is the one most people remember. You start in Hong Kong with one small ship and trade opium, silk, arms and general cargo between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Saigon, Manila, Singapore and Batavia. Li Yuen, a pirate lord, wants a "donation" for his protection, and pirate fleets attack you at sea. Reach a net worth of one million and you can retire.

Steve Wozniak told Canfil at a party in 1982 that Taipan! was his favourite game. Canfil said it was one of the high points of his life, though he never earned anything from the Apple release. He died in 2017.

Worth knowing for parents: opium is the most profitable cargo, and the authorities can seize it. That was the real China trade of the time, the trade that led to the Opium Wars. It makes Taipan! a good conversation with a teenager and a poor fit for a younger child.

Taipan! itself

It still takes about ten minutes to learn and an evening to stop. If you haven't played since the Apple II, start here.

Space Trader

The same buy-low, sell-high loop moved to a galaxy, with ship upgrades, police, bounty hunting, four skills to build, and a moon to retire to instead of a million. It was a Palm favourite for years. More in games like Space Trader.

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons

The Age of Exploration version of Taipan!'s idea: command a fleet, trade between real ports around the world, explore, hunt treasure or turn pirate. It's more of a role-playing game, with several characters and a loose story, and it's how many console players first met trading games. The series continues with a 2023 reboot, Uncharted Waters Origin.

Port Royale 4

Trade routes across the 17th-century Caribbean, colonies to build up, and turn-based sea battles. It's the big-budget heir to the economic side of Taipan!: slower, and more about running a trading company than captaining one ship.

Sid Meier's Pirates!

Less trading, more swashbuckling: sea battles, sword fights, treasure maps and a lost family to find in the Caribbean. If Taipan!'s pirate attacks were your favourite part, this is the game. More in games like Pirates! for families.

Sunless Sea

A strange, beautifully written game of trading and exploring a dark underground sea. Like Taipan!, it's about cargo, fuel and nerve on long voyages, but with horror and a lot of reading. One for adults.

Silver & Sails

Taipan!'s loop, a century earlier and on the other side of the world. It's 1715 and you're a merchant captain on the Atlantic: 79 real ports from Boston and the Caribbean to West Africa and the Mediterranean, 16 period goods (sugar, rum, salt cod, logwood, flour and more) whose prices move with hurricanes and wars, pirates like Blackbeard on the routes, and an island to retire to.

Where it falls short: it's gentler than Taipan! on the easier settings (Hard and Davy Jones are not), and it's a single-player browser game rather than a big strategy game like Port Royale. Buying your island is part of the $4.99 unlock.

It handles hard history honestly too. The slave trade appears as it was, never as the best way to win, and the website has researched pages on the ports, pirates, goods and ships.