PC Gamer - UK (2022-04)

A

t so many points, my
main response to
Space Warlord Organ
Trading Simulator is,
“Thanks! I hate it.” It’s
that moment of recognising
something presented to you is
awful and compelling. There’s a
touch of the archaic definition of
the word ‘awful’, straddling both
reverence and dread.

Like Strange Scaffold’s previous An
Airport for Aliens Currently Run by
Dogs, the premise of Space Warlord
Organ Trading Simulator is stated
upfront. As your mentor lays out at
the start of the game, “Everyone has
organs, everyone wants organs, and
everyone needs organs, which means
THEY NEED YOU.” Even with its
visceral stakes firmly set, I wasn’t
quite prepared for one of the first
things I saw to be a counter ticking
up the number of breaths I’d taken.
Not from an in-game mechanic, but
as a measure of my own mortal time.
Lungs sell for a decent chunk of
money, in Space Warlord Organ
Trading Simulator. It doesn’t say

whose lungs, or from where, or how

they were acquired, but then I don’t

know that about most things I buy.

What I can see is how much they buy

and sell for, even if the point of origin

is abstract. In one life, a warehouse.

In another: organ barge.

1,000 BREATHS LATER

One day the organ barge brings only

lungs, which throws a spanner in that

day’s trading. A day is two minutes

long, and it’s a race to compete with

other traders to fill commissions. The

“It’s a race to compete with other

traders to fill commissions”

list moves quickly, with sales getting

sniped out from under you, so the

market getting flooded with lungs

only makes it harder to sift through

for the brain I was looking for.

Outside of moment to moment

buying and selling, SWOTS has a

stock market. I won’t claim financial

expertise, but the aphorism to ‘buy

low, sell high’ sticks. I invested in

penny stocks, guessing that they

would increase in value at some

point. And they did! When, in the

wider world, a truce was ended, and

the value of every single organ shot

up. I tabbed around noticing the

identical spike in previously disparate

charts, grimacing at the implications

• but the worst part of me wished I’d
  realised that the truce had been a dip
  before it was already over.
  Playing Space Warlord Organ
  Trading Simulator is much like how I
  imagine bungee jumping. At its full
  extent, its adrenaline all the way
  down, only to recoil with a sickening
  lurch from the complicit horror of it
  all, knowing I’ll plunge back into its
  depths. It’s smart and compulsive to
  play: thanks! I hate it.

Emotional, economical bungee jumping in SPACE WARLORD ORGAN TRADING SIMULATOR

I INVESTED IN PENNY STOCKS,

GUESSING THAT THEY WOULD

INCREASE IN VALUE

RUTH CASSIDY

THIS MONTH

Sold a surplus liver at a loss

because I needed cargo room.

ALSO PL AYED

Death’s Door,

Trials of Fire

TOP: (^) Rotcane –
cauterises wounds
and eats your hull.
EXTRA LIFE
NOW PLAYING (^) I UPDATE I MOD SPOTLIGHT I HOW TO I DIARY I WHY I LOVE I REINSTALL I M U S T P L A Y