Merchant Wars
A trading game about a merchant, seven ports, and thirty days to turn a borrowed stake into a fortune — or lose it all to temptation — before the loan comes due.
Merchant Wars runs on pure nostalgia for Dope Wars, the classic 1984 trading game a generation played on school computers — rebuilt drug-free. It takes that game's beloved loop — buy low in one port, sail, sell high in the next — and rebuilds it around honest commerce. You are a merchant moving legal goods: grain, cloth, spice, tools, and the rest of a working cargo manifest. Prices swing from port to port, and the sea keeps its own opinions.
How it plays
- Seven ports, each with its own prices, shortages, and gluts.
- Ten legal goods to buy, haul, and sell.
- Tariff wars: ports slap duties on each other’s goods mid-game, and yesterday’s best route can turn into a money-loser overnight.
- Weather and luck: storms, pirates, and sudden market shocks.
- The loan: you start with borrowed money, and the interest runs every single day. The debt is the real opponent.
- Ranks from Bankrupt to Tycoon of the Seven Ports.
The one temptation
Customs is part of the world: you can pay the duty like everyone else, or — occasionally — someone offers you a riskier way through. Evading customs, and the rare smuggling offer, exist only as optional gambles with severe consequences if you are caught. They are never the center of the game; the game is won by reading markets, not by breaking rules.
Status
Play the demo — the full game, in your browser: 30 days, seven ports, a loan that comes due. Merchant Wars is a project by Adrian Szczechura.