Sail between historic ports, reading the dispatches to buy cheap and sell dear before the next shock lands.
You start with a hold and a purse. Buy goods where they are cheap, sail to ports where they sell high, and watch the news for famines, gluts and other price shocks. Perishable cargo can spoil in transit, so time your trades. The voyage is scored on the profit you bank by the final day.
Spice Routes is a buy-low-sell-high trading game on historic maritime routes, teaching trade and the forces of supply and demand.
Buying cheap, sailing to sell dear, and watching for famines and gluts is the spice trade, the commerce that financed European expansion.
Making cargo perishable is the original pressure.
Perishability explains the entire economics. Spices were valuable precisely because they survived long voyages when most goods did not, so the trade selected for what could endure the journey — and a cargo that spoils turns a price difference into a race.
Spice Routes is an original buy-low-sell-high trading game set on historic maritime routes. It is free to play in your browser with daily and practice voyages.