Dragon Trader

Dragon Trader is a fantasy turn-based trading sim, inspired mostly by Dope Wars and Elite. As with many merchant games, it begins with the playing character owing a loan they cannot pay with the available money. The only way to pay the debt is by buying goods, moving to another location and selling goods at a profit. The loan grows every day, and if at the end of the game the player is unable to pay, they will have to face the loan shark, a huge dragon.

The game is played in turns, and moving from a town to another one takes one turn ("day"). The game length can be 20, 30 or 50 days. A menagerie of monsters will attempt to stop the player, but they can run from them, bribe them or even turn them into valuable resources if they invest in a "bounty hunter license". Random events (such as helpful wizards teleporting the player, goods sold at a higher or lower price) can also help or hinder the player.

As with Dope Wars, the game is luck dependent: the price of goods vary randomly from town to town and random events and encounters can heavily influence the early game. However, the player can also buy items in shops to minimize risk, such as weapons and armor to increase their chances in a fight or trading rumors to remove the randomness of goods' prices.

A Challenge mode provides variety, changing some of the game rules and usually hindering the player, for example by reducing the game's length without changing the amount of the loan or by having the monsters deal double damage.