Trader (24 Oct 2004)

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:43 am

TRADER

- A space action adventure!
(Sorry, I have no pictures as it won't run on vic-emu on Amiga)

Download:
http://home.worldonline.se/boray/datormuseum/trader.zip

Requires 16K expansion ram and a diskdrive.

This game has a total size of 50kb, imagine that! (in three parts). I converted it from tape today and put in a few fixes for NTSC so I hope it will work for everyone now. I remember how exciting I found this game, and I remember the really long loading times on the tape... But that's just a memory now when it's converted to disk.

I have never liked text adventure games, but this is something quite different. It has more graphics than text and it has parts where you have to steer the ship etc. And no commands you have to figure out etc, the story flows on by itself. Sort of like "It came from the desert" on Amiga. It will be handy to have a calculator and a piece of paper to write up all the things you buy and sell on your space adventure. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Has anyone else played this game before?

How to load:

Make sure you have 16Kb of expansion ram (in standard block 1&2).

LOAD "TRADER1",8
RUN

(The other parts are loaded automatically)

Good luck!

/Anders

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 4:53 pm

cool!

a space game... right up my alley!

i only played up until the Psi aliens took my ship and sent me home

be nice to find a bit of time to sit down and play this.

nice to play it on a real vic too!

chris

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 4:41 am

vic user wrote: i only played up until the Psi aliens took my ship and sent me home

Has never happened to me (I think) - they must have disliked your brain patterns.

I usually get killed in part 3. I think I have finished the whole game only once...

/Anders

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 5:55 am

i was not paying attention, so when the questions came up, i screwed up all of them i think

i do not know if the whole game is going to be like this, but it is nice to see aliens merely send me home rather than shooting me

i really enjoy all the cinematics, if you can call them that.

looks like a massive amount of work wnet into the game

i hope my duaghter gets into it!

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 8:11 am

Didn't anyone try this game (except for Chris), or why the silence??? I did put in a bit of work to convert it from tape to disk and make it NTSC compatible... I thought people would like the game... but maybe I was wrong then....

/Anders

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 11:53 am

I admit I haven't had a chance yet because both my vic and PC are not speaking (I disconnected my xe1541 cable and never got around to putting it back and my vic is buried under some junk). I read the description and I am eager to try it. But I admit I haven't actually used the vic in almost a month.
Please don't think we do not appreciate the contribution to the community.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 4:35 am

Same here, a combination of busy, lazy and lack of inspiration. But I'll try it some day, maybe for Christmas.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:38 am

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 3:12 pm

Haven't been in this part of the forum in a while, so I didn't see it until now. Will try it very soon!

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 11:38 am

As I promised, I would try this game before the end of April, thus only six months after Boray posted it. Today is April 30th, so I spent some time..

Wonderful atmosphere and cinematics, as Chris calls it. At first it seems too much story telling and too little interaction, but as the game goes on, the user gets more involved. Still it is a little too much "sit back and enjoy" for me to be a game I would play regularly.

At first attempt, I got to Delta, almost making my way through the automap back to the ship when the shots in the gun were out and I was drunk (?) to death. It seems the way the maze is layouted, that it depends only on how many shots you find in the gun if you will survive or not, i.e. there are no alternative ways to get by. The automap maze also seems slow at reacting - maybe on purpose - and is a big let-down on the game.

On second attempt, I made my way back to the home planet and sold off the remaining cargo (only raw fuel). After paying back the initial 1000 credits I ended with a profit of 705 credits.

Conclusion: A neat game, that gives the impression to be more complex than it is. Graphically high score despite character graphics, but playability brings down the average score to about 6/10.

So, what is the light year distance from Earth to Psi? Maybe it is a question that doesn't have an answer.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun May 01, 2005 10:29 am

I played this recently as I acquired an original of it. Not too bad actually...

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun May 01, 2005 2:33 pm

A little long wait but a nice review!

/Anders

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun May 01, 2005 3:53 pm

The introduction reminds me of Dromeda. Very cool. I love games with great atmosphere. I had hoped Dromeda would be followed by a game. I am not very good with my own finances, so I am fearful of games like this. The alien asking questions in part one is just GREAT. Lovely start, but I have only really checked out part 1. I will write more as I play more.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sat May 14, 2005 1:33 pm

BTW, I have used the March 1984 issue of Your Computer as bed reading the last few days, in search for any commercial VIC-20 mentions. As you know, the VIC was dwindling back then and press already wrote about the upcoming 264 and 364 series six months later.

Anyway, in that issue was a small advertisment for a software reseller who had Trader by Pixel Productions. Their price was £12, equal to The Hobbit or Valhalla (on other formats), or twice the price for most other software. Trader is cute, but if would sell for that money I dunno.

Otherwise the number of mentions are few, Llamasoft has a full page advertisment with Metagalactic Llamas and a few other VIC/64 titles. Spectrum, the UK computer chain not to be confused with Sinclair Spectrum, had a sell-out of cartridges; four assorted VIC-20 cartridges for £20. Most are common by todays standards.

Most amazingly is that Commodore (UK) has a two-page middle magazine advertisment about how useful the VIC-20 is - every family member finds use for it, from grandmother to the kids. A lot of the productivity and educational titles mentioned I've never heard about before or after. One would have supposed it was C64 they advertised as such in March 1984, but it is our trusty VIC.

oracle_jedi · Post by **oracle_jedi** » Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:10 pm

Is there anywhere to download Boray's zip file? The link is broken

I have the D64 image of Trader, but after Part 1 it still expects to load from tape. Also the version I have is not modified for NTSC.

Denial

Trader (24 Oct 2004)

Trader (24 Oct 2004)

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