Trailblazer (board game)
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Trailblazer is a science fiction microgame game published by Metagaming Concepts in 1981 that simulates interstellar trading. Critics found the game tedious, with an unexpectedly large amount of bookkeeping involved.
Victory conditions
Trailblazer is a 2–4 player game in which each player controls an interstellar trading company. Critic Robert Kirk noted that the game has a noticeable flavor of the Nicholas van Rijn science fiction stories by Poul Anderson.[1]
Players can buy goods on planets where they have ships or offices, then transport those goods to other planets where they will sell for more. However, prices fluctuate from world to world and from turn to turn based on supply and demand.[1]
In addition, players can send their ships into unexplored space to discover new systems that will provide new trading goods, or become a new market for sales, or both.[1]
Players must keep extensive records of their explorations, trades, purchases and sales.[1]
Play ends after a mutually-agreed-upon number of turns. The player with the most wealth in terms of ships, inventory and money is the winner.[1]
Publication history
In 1977, Metagaming Concepts pioneered the microgame, a small and relatively simple game packaged in a ziplock bag. Over the next five years, the company produced almost two dozen games in their MicroGame line. Trailblazer was the 20th game in the series, designed by Greg Costikyan and published in 1981.[2]