Escape the Pale

It's a simplified space trader game, even if not in a space trader universe. Buy low, sell high. You get to travel around various cities, each of which sells a certain type of item. You buy up whatever you can, then head to another city, sell it for a higher price, and profit!!!

Ease of use is a major negative here. To perform an action, you type the corresponding number and hit submit. I'm not sure if there's a way to bulk purchase items, so if you need twenty of item X, be prepared to do a lot of typing and clicking. There also isn't a map, and it is not possible (as far as I can tell) to preview possible destinations before paying the 40 kopeck fee, so you might need to draw a map or something.

After some experimentation, I made money by simply copying the list of prices onto a notepad file, buying up everything, choosing to travel, then referring to the notepad file and picking the city with the best prices. Rather than buying up at every city, check the price of the item and how it compares to most of the surrounding city prices before deciding if a purchase is likely to make money later on.

I got about 12000 kopeck pretty quick, although my character, without a choice on my part, promptly paid the mountain of gold to a poor man in return for something useful. The game brought me to an ending, which ended sadly anyway. I think there are other endings, since there was an option to buy a ticket in another city, but anyway, I don't quite feel like returning for another round.

This was somewhat fun. I do have a thing for watching numbers go up in text games. That said, the gameplay and design is still pretty simple for the genre, and we really need a more accessible system than typing a number and clicking submit. Anyway, apply my trick (or do better if you can!), make some cash and see what happens next.