Winds Of Trade Demo

One of the best ways to make money back in the day was to trade goods between different parts of the world, because things that we consider common today were luxuries a few centuries ago. Hence, you only need to think of how rare spices were at some point, mainly because transporting them from one continent to the other was extremely expensive and dangerous.

Winds Of Trade is a simulator that allows you to start your very own trading company and use ships to transport goods around procedurally-generated maps in order to score a profit. The idea is not entirely original, but the execution is quite unique, especially in terms of gameplay mechanics. The game also includes a combat mode and enough variety to keep things interesting for many hours.

You start with a ship and a small sum of money to your name, which is all you need to start a company. The goal is to hire a crew, establish trading routes and use your intuition to purchase the right goods and take them where they are needed the most. Each trade should end up with you scoring a profit, but this is not always the case, so it’s pretty difficult to make a name for yourself.

You can choose from multiple victory conditions, such as becoming a millionaire, which takes quite a bit of time. However, you can also go for a sandbox mode and play for as long as you want, which is great if you just want to see how far you can go. You can still lose, on the other hand, especially during war time if you happen to transport troops or weapons, and the pirates are always a danger as well.

Speaking of which, the combat system is fairly straightforward, but the turn-based mechanics allow you to apply the desired strategies and make sure you make full use of every weapon on board. Lastly, the graphics are not particularly exciting or detailed, but they are nice enough not to be a burden on the eyes, not to mention the fact that the maps are different for every playthrough.

Even if it has its drawbacks in terms of complexity and graphics, Winds Of Trade is still a pretty polished project, especially when it comes to gameplay and the amount of choices at your disposal. Hence, you can really keep yourself busy for a long time with the procedural maps and the long list of possibilities.