Overview
Space Trader is a part first person trading simulator and part first person shooter created by the indie developer HermitWorks Entertainment. Players take the role of an unnamed character who has just obtained their traders licence which is required to buy and sell products in bulk across the galaxy.
Gameplay
Space Trader is split between two types of gameplay: Trading and First Person Shooting. The majority of the game is spent traveling across various planets of the solar system buying and selling items from various vendors. While at first the player can only travel between Earth and the Moon, eventually other planets unlock such as Venus and Mars over the games five chapters. Each chapter must be completed within a certain amount of hours or the player fails and must restart the entire chapter. Time will only pass when traveling between planets, the further away they are from your current location the longer they take to travel to.
While on a planet the player can buy and sell merchandise from other vendors, take on bounties placed by the government, and take on requests from people that need help. All of which support your simple goal of obtaining a certain amount of money before the time limit is up.
Merchandise is split into two groups: legal and illegal goods. The group types have no effect on gameplay itself, however, merchants will only buy one type or the other. Prices of goods vary between planets and change on each new trip to a planet. The key to making money is buying items at a low price and reselling them once the price rises again. Often times while in a chapter, there will be major events occurring on planets that substantially boost the value of specific items for a short period of time, which is where a large amount of money can be made at once.
The other half of the game involves completing bounties which is where Space Trader becomes more like a traditional first person shooter. After accepting a bounty, the player is transported to a map full of enemies where he must survive until the bounty appears. In each hunt, the player starts only with a basic pistol and can find other guns lying on the ground or from killed enemies. There are four weapons: the Pistol, Machine Pistol, Shotgun, and Assault Rifle. Along with weapons, the player can find items to sell during these bounties as well as health and shield packs that offer protection from the enemies. After killing the bounty, players have a ten second window to pick up as much stash as they can that the bounty drops, which can be sold at vendors for pure profit. Guns and health always reset after each new bounty so the player never actually owns a gun or worries about refilling ammunition between bounties.
PC System Requirements
Minimum:
- Supported OS: Windows XP/Vista
- Processor: 1.0 GHz Processor
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX Compatible 128 MB Video Card
- DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c
- Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
- Hard Drive: 300 MB of Available Hard Disk Space
Recommended:
- Supported OS: Windows XP/Vista
- Processor: 2.0 GHz Dual-Core processor
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX Compatible 256 MB Video Card
- DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c
- Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
- Hard Drive: 300 MB of Available Hard Disk Space
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