This is a trading game that involves combat and has two modes. An original trading game from yesteryear that keeps me coming back to it throughout the years. Set in a future wasteland you are a trader and at times warrior. There is a lot of fighting throughout the game against bandits of different factions or even the police if you choose to be a Bandit yourself type of person. The main draw of the game is the trading and hiring your personnel and depending your moral compass freeing slaves or gaining them and selling them. The trading is very intelligent with different settlements selling and requiring differing items and offering different industries to eventually buy up / start yourself - see this as bit of a mid - game onwards thing to do. Trading is at the heart of the game. A farm settlement may have wool and milk to sell and maybe livestock / beasts of burden. You buy them and find somewhere that buys wool to make yarn and that yarn maybe used at that settlement or you buy the yarn and take it to another to sell and buy jackets or something. It is a simple yet very rewarding part of the game pushing the economics with your effort of the rather bleak world. You got milk you don't want , then sell it to a place that produces cheese or put it in your own cheese making industry. You buy some skins from one settlement sell it to another that makes leather and you can take the leather and sell it to a leather jacket merchant - which is useful because leather jackets can be used as early to mid armour. There are a lot of combinations of settlements and trade routes which is part of the fun to work out - or cheat and look up what the instant easy trade routes are online. Did I say easy? maybe not easy but quicker. How does it look? It looks pretty basic and functional and still retains the atmosphere of a future wasteland. The settlements are a picture with icons to click on to use the service and the trading screen is actually very useful at the market. Looks good, and is very practical, you can type in the numbers of amounts or click min max or +10 + 100 + 1000 -10 - 100 -1000 . It will tell you if you go overweight and merchants like you do not have unlimited amounts of money so a bit of bartering is a good way to earn too. The travel screen and you are represented by an arrow and a mini compass. Not very spectacular but it will do, the initial ' but i spent five minutes making my character look cool and...' is a short lived disappointment. The desert / wasteland is pretty simple, a dusty screen some cool music and your compass caravan wondering into the unknown - which is lethal. Before you embark anywhere! Check your map, and you have an arrow and point and click measure system to show how much food and water and forage for the animals are needed to make it to the next destination and how much you currently have and of course the direction to travel. This is a major life / game saver because without it your chances of survival will be zilch. Nice night for walk... I mentioned fighting earlier, there is a lot of fighting especially if you look weak. Fighting bandits is a good way to gain some weapons , basic armors and sell the rest at the weapon / general stores at settlements. The fighting is turn based depending on individual character's values. It is a isometric arena sometimes there is cover where you can use it to your advantage and sometimes cover is scarce. The amount each character can do will depend on the AP Ability Points (I think thats what it stands for ) that includes movement and combat. You can see your 'caravan party' and see what armors they currently wear and that of the enemy too. It is a good system well implemented - BUT , later game issue is it can get a little repetitive. I would like it if there was a skip or auto do button, then like i said its more a later game issue. Weapons are very important, there are a lot of weapons and I like the way different weapons can use different AP amounts AND that all characters have stats for all skills and weapons too. I picked up a doctor type of character in town and he is bit rubbish for combat so I gave him a Remington shotgun and now he is very useful. Because you can make enemies bleed. If it bleeds , we can kill it... Sometimes you hit an enemy and they will bleed out health points every round. Sometimes they will go into a 'panic' meaning they just want out of fighting and you can choose to kill them, enslave them / take them to sheriff or let them go. You and your people can bleed too! So be sure to have a variety of medical packs on you and get your doctor busy patching people up at the expense of his turn's AP. You can get items to enhance your skills too including medical and vet type too along with other skills. This will appear a simple game but it is not, the developer used his intelligence on crafting this giving it some nice layers. Two Modes of play to choose from : Story Mode, you start off at a bunker that keeps itself out of trouble and look your friend Olaf which sets off many missions that enable you to learn the game while earning money. What you choose to do WILL affect the game world. I won't give spoilers on this because there is an interesting Easter Egg side mission in this and a nice bit of levity. Other ways to affect the gaming world are more pronounced like how you deal with some bandits - that is not a spoiler as it becomes apparent very early on, its your job to find a way through this in a small region around your bunker. Which is a nice introduction between those early settlements on how to trade and fight and move about on the map without getting lost. Sandbox : I highly recommend doing the story mode, until you are familiar with what the game is like. Sandbox / free mode does not have missions and does not have free medic at your bunker - in fact there is no bunker! The Story mode brings this world a bit more to life. Where None Story mode just leaves you to fend for yourself and abandons you to your own devices. With experience you will enjoy Sandbox mode and if you want to be a slaver you can. - personally its not all that but horses for courses. The advantage of sandbox mode over Story mode, is you can just get on without chit chat and just survive and thrive or perish. I would recommend going to settings in game (on your caravan screen) and flicking the switch for auto save and pause when leaving a settlement. Who would like this game? People who like trading games and Mad Max films if they didn't want to be Mad Max themselves. Who would not like this game? People who don't like working economics in a gaming world and people who grunt to communicate.
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