About This Game

Mercator is an item shop game inspired by the several shopkeeper games from the days of Flash to the late 2010s. Set in late Classical Antiquity, you will explore cities and set up businesses from South West India to Ancient Rome!

Shopkeeping

You start off with a tiny shack in Muziris, an ancient Indian trading port. Your objective as a fledgling merchant is to maximize profits by making good deals with the customers that roam into your shop. In time, you will expand your emporium by buying properties and joining forces with other merchants. This will all culminate with you running several shops across the ancient world simultaneously.

As a merchant, you will have access to workers who can make artisan items from raw materials, as well as research new items, scrap items back into their raw materials, and even reverse-engineer items you come across!

No item shop game is complete without haggling! In Mercator, value exists exclusively in items. Even money is found only in item form! Every trade therefore becomes an effective barter where you guess what the customer wants and is willing to give based on what they ask you for, where they appear to be from, and what you are willing to part with.

Later on, you will gain access to ships and caravans to encounter new regions and engage in arbitrage.

Day-night cycle

The work of a merchant does not end when the shop closes. At night, you will still be able to purchase new properties and farmland, scavenge for resources, farm ancient cash crops like the legendary black pepper, traverse rivers and lakes with boats, and even fish in your spare time!

Roleplaying in a rich, real world

Mercator takes place in the third century AD - when Rome and Persia were enemies eternal, the Chera Empire of Southwest India still controlled the pepper industry, when the Aksumite Empire still reigned supreme over the coast of east Africa and Arabia, and when Christianity was only just beginning to take hold. As your emporium expands, it will be exposed to new peoples, ideologies and legacies - and you will have to make choices that could affect the course of history itself.

Art

Mercator takes an unorthodox (and economical!) approach of using pixel art and simple color schemes to convey the ancient world in a way you have never seen before.