Spice Trade

[h1]You're a hustler from the Middle East in the 14th century.[/h1] Played this game 20 years ago, and I am very happy to see it on Steam!

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Spice Trade is an extremely charming game the main character Abu is simply a hustler trying to make it in a world that isn't always easy. I found that you have to really try hard in order to reach goals in this game. overall I loved every minute.

Nice game! The story is captivating, and the 2D art style mixed with actual historical art is truly a good and refreshing idea.

4.5 Tycoon/life sim in Middle-Eastern setting. TLDR: while it's refreshing to see something that's Islam-themed and even mildly anti-Western, the technical issues and the terrible design make this trader sim almost unplayable. Barely a neutral vote Good: + free + the game gives a perspective of a Middle-Eastern trader whose goal is to fight off the European/Christian encroachment on the world of Islam. Which is certainly an interesting topic! Last time I remember something like that was the Turks or Arabs campaigns in Medieval Total War. It's funny how one of the stats in the character info page is "wives". Meaning, wives are countable items. Adorable :) + illustrations here might look amateurish but I suspect they either re-use historical material (drawings from Medieval times) or the artist is intentionally mimicking the style So-so: +/- music is okay (Arab-themed) but there is some technical problem with looping. There are frequent hiccups in the playback of the tracks, and they seem to end abruptly and re-start Bad: - the game runs in a tiny window that can't be re-sized or toggled fullscreen. Tiny text labels and buttons - clickable areas on the backgrounds aren't marked visually. You have to pixel-hunt for areas with tooltips - no tutorial or introduction - UI seems bugged, broken or just terribly designed. E.g. there is a panel at the button with items like "Health" and "Money" which seem to not be clickable and show no tooltips. "Culture" opens nothing either, even in the character details sheet. The character changes facial expressions but it's unclear what they mean - meaningless unskippable animations (e.g. when working in the port) [table][tr][th][i]I'm a Steam curator, you can [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43946907-Friendly-Nerd/]follow me[/url][/i][/th][/tr][/table]

Love this game! I remember playing it back in 2008, and I'm really happy to see it on Steam. It brings back a lot of memories. Definitely recommend this game!

The utter lack of instructions makes this unplayable. It super frustrating b/c there's clearly a lot more game to be played here. I suffered through Kings Quest I (sic) and having to guess the correct noun to progress, the UI shouldn't be part of the discovery/fun of the game. For example: I died many times before figured out your health decreased by planting things (spoiler alert: its that vertical bar that appears above health). Then I grew old and died a couple times before I figured out you had to click on the "left" window of your house to sleep to restore health. Then I grew old and died earning enough money to not scrape by only to have ZERO idea of how to actually trade outside of Baghdad. Not sure if Windows 11's unmovable taskbar are hiding options you need to play or if I'm just not clicking on the correct pixel. I like the time period, concept, and even the bare bones aspects, but players shouldn't have to work this hard to understand how to play.

Baharat Ticareti, Avrupa egemenliğine meydan okuyan genç Abu ile tarihi yeniden yazma şansı sunuyor. Bağdat'ta toprak devralan Abu, Avrupa ticaret tekelini engellemek için baharat ticaretine giriyor. Avrupa'nın kaderini yeniden şekillendirebilir mi? Bu strateji ve imparatorluk kurma oyununda sonuca siz karar verin!

"Charming, but..." sort of game. If you are willing to deal with archaic mechanics, it's fun to explore this unique creation of these authors. It's the kind of game that makes me want one just like it, themes and goals and all, but with more sophisticated mechanics and with a modern UI and other nice things. That's a good thing. I don't quite understand all the parts of the game (like the culture bar??) but discovering new things is compelling in that old school kind of way.