Taipan

November31

Contains ads

About this game

Taipan was a home computer game from the early '80s that was fun and addicting despite its lack of graphics. It invented the trading-game genre. Taipan was inspired by the famous novel of the same name.

This Android version is modeled after the popular home computer version. The infamous bug in the original game remains in this version.

• To skip most pauses, press the text shown.
• To speed up battles, tap the 'Fight' or 'Run' buttons again.
• Includes the simple "beep" sounds of the original, but with optional sounds.
• Tablets are supported.

Ratings and reviews

When I played it when I was 12, I had no idea what opium was but I LOVED selling it, avoiding bad josses and somehow staying in Brother Wu's dubious graces. Finding this app 40 years later has been a neverending delight! Why only 3 stars: - Opening another app loses all progress (biggest issue) - it loses saved games - it has minor glitches - it could have a faster fight mode than the one offered, which would be great when you're fighting 300 pirates with 50 guns

The game is fun enough, but you can't say you haven't tweaked it. I've had it downloaded for about two years now and the original was spot on to the game I played on an Apple IIe in the 80s. I could build up to 100s of guns, play well into the 1900s and score massively. I can still score decently well, but the imbalance of attacking ships to my limited ability to obtain guns is not a representation of the original game.

Love the nostalgia of this game from my youth. Seems to have an issue if you exit and save a game, though. Waited a few days and then came back to resume. Now every battle resets my gun total to 10 (which is okay, as no matter what the attacking ship count says, you only face 5). Started a new game, though, and that glitch follows (which immediately overloads your ship after the first battle).

What’s new

2.2 Fixed v2.1 issues. Cleaned up code.
Android update, minor bug fixes.