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There’s a big red button right on the bottom of the screen of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, and nothing can prepare you for what happens when you press it. Hitting the “Trade” button opens the organ market for sale and what ensues is a breakneck two and a half-minute battle with other organ traders to get the juiciest pieces.
Retro-Future-Punk Cyber Gore
If I can compare the process to anything, it’s like digging through a bin filled with deals on Black Friday, trying to find the perfect one while four other people are doing the exact same thing. It’s utterly chaotic and I love it, but let’s explain a little more about what Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator actually is.
Essentially it’s exactly what it sounds like, in some kind of a future galaxy you play an organ trader; buying and selling organs while fulfilling requests from clients. When you boot the game up, there are only a few lines of opening text from your “mentor,” named Mentaur Mintaur. Past that brief introduction, the game literally drops you right into the action with nothing in the way of a real tutorial, but that’s a good thing.
The interface you’re using looks like it could be ripped right out of some kind of 90s sci-fi film, a green neon-tinged screen with tons of different gauges and graphics. Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator is trial by fire; you start out with a tiny bit of money and have to figure out how to take on purchase requests, then sort through an ever-changing list t find what you need in the “Buy” tab,
I.V. Drip Narrative
While there’s no immediate narrative handed to you, the game has a fascinating way of drip-feeding story and world-building through the dialogue on NPC requests. Piece by piece you build up the state of the universe and the context for the booming organ trade. Necromancers seeking hearts for rituals, robots asking for a new brain after experiencing the pain of emotions, and someone just hoping to juice a lung, are a few of the colorful characters you’ll come across along your way. The game has twelve different endings that each provide even more insight, and are often incredibly cryptic, like the one that drops a bunch of meat meteors on the universe, literally staining the land red.
While the bits of story are fascinating to cover, it’s the gameplay that really keeps you surging forward. As you complete requests you’ll gain money and renown, the latter of which helps you increase your title and unlocks new options and organs. There’s also a seemingly simulated stock market and economy that you can use to gamble on the prices of organs you purchase.
There’s more complexity here than just buying and selling, however, as certain organs have different effects. Some have corrosive juices that’ll melt a piece of your cargo hold, while others will grow in size and quality. You can also purchase Souls, which will, over time, increase the quality of organs it’s placed next to in your cargo hold. Discovering all of these little intricacies is another huge part of the game, and you can even train yourself to read the barcode on each organ, which will instantly tell you things like its size, quality, and type.
There’s a phenomenal give and take as you decide how to spend your money. Do you invest in a new cargo hold that lets you hold more organs, or do you gamble and try to increase the quality of all your flesh, only to sell at a profit later? On the other hand you can simply focus on fulfilling requests that will boost your status, which then leads to you being able to take on more requests.
Despite the simplistic presentation of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, it managed to get my adrenaline pumping more than a lot of actions games. I love the pixelated cyberpunk-esque visual style, but equally important is the soundtrack. When you press that Trade button the synth and guitars kick into overdrive, pushing you to nab those squishy organs at an even faster pace. It’s honestly absurd how much fun it is to battle it out with the other traders, trying to find that perfect Larynx or Spleen that your client asked for.
Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator is the rare kind of game that uses its minimalistic design to push itself forward, discovering inventive new ways to tell a story in the process. It’s hilariously cryptic game that relishes in all its fleshy glory.
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