Caravan Trail

Caravan Trail is a journey RPG drawn as a painted overland map. Your wagon leaves the harbour town with a cook, a scout, a tinker and a bard, and the mountain fair is twelve stages away. Each morning you choose the route for the next stretch — the road with its markets and inns, the river that keeps the water barrels full, or the shorter forest track that tires everyone out — and set the pace: slow to rest, steady, or fast to save a day at the cost of energy, food and water.

Every day brings one picture card with two or three choices, and the numbers are always on the table: what each choice costs, what it gives, and the chance it works, which goes up when the right traveller is walking with you. The tinker frees stuck carts, the scout finds shortcuts and fish, the cook bakes, the bard sings the rain away. Clockwork bandits and grumpy bears turn up now and then for a short turn-based standoff: scare them off with noise, bribe them with pie or outwit them. Nobody gets hurt, and a traveller who runs out of energy simply rides in the wagon until rested.

At the fair the journey is scored on happy travellers, cargo delivered and days taken, with up to three stars and a high score for each trail. Stars unlock four more trails, wagon upgrades and two new travellers, a daily journey gives everyone the same seeded trip, and a quick trip takes ten minutes or so. The journey saves after every choice. Play with a mouse, the keyboard or one finger.