16bit Trader is a management game, where you try to become the richest merchant in the entire land.
Story:
In 16bit Trader you are a merchant, whose father is murdered by the richest merchant in the entire land. You decided to take action and to become the richest merchant in the land by getting one million gold coins, cause that’s how most people take up revenge right ?
Graphics:
The art style in 16bit Trader is all just static images that don’t have any animations what so ever. The only animation in the entire game is the head of a merchant moving up and down. All the cities in the game look exactly the same, so get ready for the tedium cause the worst has just begun.
Audio:
There’s only one song in 16bit Trader and it loops forever. It gets so tedious that after 30 minutes, I had to mute the game, because the song was driving me insane. Also the game has sound effects like swords clashing which are so loud that you will go deaf.
Gameplay:
Now this is where 16bit Trader shows it’s true colors. When you begin, the game teaches you about reselling items at a higher price in cities. So what you have to do is go to a store, buy something and sell it somewhere where you can get a profit. The game tells you to learn the prices so you can use it to your advantage, but that doesn’t matter at all. Once you actually begin trading you notice that when you leave a city and come back the store prices change at random which makes learning the prices and using them to your advantage impossible.
There are also travel costs. Each city is a fair distance away and you have to pay to get there. Sometimes there are random events like in Oregon Trail where you get stuck in a certain location for a couple of extra days; and the most annoying thing in the entire game: thieves and the Kraken. When you encounter thieves or the Kraken, they delay you by a couple of days and steal a random amount of your gold. It’s always random and in one of my attempts to finish the game they stole almost 85% of my gold which made, it impossible for me to travel. The game let’s you hire mercenaries, so when you travel they reduce the risk of  thieves attacking, but let me tell you, it doesn’t matter if you have 3000 men with you. Those two measly thieves will still steal anything you have on you.
The game also has side quests, which you can do to get cash. Most big cities have bars and shops which contain side quests. All of the side quests are basically travel to one location and then to the next one and then to the next until you finish. After you finish you get some gold, but the problem is you spend way more gold traveling around those locations and your trips don’t pay off in the end. This makes side quests a waste of time and money.
So the game cheats any chance it gets and you might be asking is there any chance of actually completing it ? Well after a while you start to give up hope but there is one way to complete the game and that’s diamond farming. The game contains mines which have diamonds, which you can sell to get insane amounts of gold. Go to the bar, buy a drink for someone and get a map. Then hire mercenaries and mine to get diamonds until you reach the million. This the only exploit you can use to finish the game as trading is all luck and no pay, while the diamond farming glitch helps; although even then it sometimes screws you over with the fact that you find nothing in the mine.
Verdict:
16bit Trader is in every sense a terrible game. It has a steep learning curve, the main gameplay mechanic doesn’t even work, and to finish you have to cheat just as much as the game which should never be the case. In total, I had 5 attempts to finish the game and with that farming technique I finished the game in 3 hours. The game is just a waste of time and not worth your cash.
