Taipan (computer game)

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Taipan! is a computer game for the Apple II which was created in the 1980s. It is a trading simulator similar to Dope Wars.

In this game, you play a trader in the Far East. You own a ship, which may or may not have guns for defense against pirates as the game begins. Your task is to accumulate wealth through trade and possibly also through booty won in battles against pirates. As soon as your net worth is at least 1 million (the game does not name the particular currency used), you have the option (not mandatory) of retiring.

The basic strategy of the game is to buy goods at a low price and sell them at a higher price. The goods available for trade are opium, silk, arms, and general cargo. The silk, arms, and general cargo are featureless; they are only McGuffins in which you deal. Opium is special in that it can be confiscated at random points and the player fined for its possession. This makes dealing in opium riskier than dealing in the other goods; however, it is in general the most profitable item for trade.

The player may trade at any of seven ports. One of these, the port at Hong Kong, is the player's home port. Here he has access to ship repair, a money lender, and a bank. The player also has the option of borrowing money from a gangster, and/or paying the gangster protection money which may or may not reduce the frequency of pirate attacks.

Two noteworthy features of the game are:

• Large amounts of currency are shown as in a news report; e.g. "6.5 Million" for 6,500,000.
• If the player overpays the moneylender, he then has "negative debt". This "negative debt" will accumulate interest very quickly, and will count towards the player's net worth. As the game's vocabulary of number words ends at "trillion", this can cause the game to display garbage instead of the player's correct net worth.

Title screen

Trading screen