French Fur Trader

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Creative Computing Software

When going through older games from the 70's and early 80's, many games just have one-word, basic names. So, when a game with a name like French Fur Trader pops up, it gets my attention. Taking place in 1776 North America, you take the role of a fur trader (who is likely French-Canadian, based on the name of the game and the fact that Quebec is one of the three locations that you can trade your furs in) and your goal is to simply trade furs and purchase supplies until you've run out of furs to trade. Basically, at the start of each year, you are told how many furs that you've acquired. It's then up to you to figure out what types of fur, and how many of each, that you have. The types of fur are mink, beaver, ermine, and fox. If you're not familiar with what an ermine is, it's also called a stoat, and it's related to weasels and otters…I think the average person probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between one and a weasel aside from the fact that ermines are a bit larger. Anyway, after determining what types of fur that you have (by simply assigning a number to each fur when prompted) you then need to figure out where you're going to try to sell your furs. The first location is Montreal, the safest location, but your furs will fetch the least amount of money there and your supplies will cost the most. Next is Quebec (City, I assume) where the furs will net you a little bit more, your supplies cost an average amount, but the journey to get there is a little more dangerous. Last is New York, where you'll get the most money for your furs and your supplies are the cheapest, but have to travel through dangerous Iroquis land to get there…in other words, if you make it safely, you may get great rewards, however, there's always a chance that you'll lose all of your furs on your travel over…or worse case, you and your entire trading caravan are wiped out and the game ends. French Fur Trader is a pretty basic, text-based strategy game, but admittedly, it still had me hooked longer than I thought I would be. For an early strategy game, French Fur Trader is pretty solid and well worth playing if you're looking for a decent game on your Commodore PET.

Review added: 03/05/2025