Let Them Trade is a strategy/city-building game in development by Spaceflower, an independent studio based in Germany. The game mixes economic simulation with city management, and a demo version has recently been shared with Zoomji. In this article, we take a closer look at the game based on the available demo and explore what it promises for the full release.
Build, Expand, and Explore
In this game, your primary mission is to build new cities, develop them, and explore for valuable resources. Every city you establish has its own budget and resource specialties. As the player, you decide where to place each city on the map to optimize growth and trade potential.
What’s in the Demo?
The demo includes two tutorial levels and one open-ended stage for exploration. Altogether, completing the demo takes about one to two hours, during which you’ll become familiar with the game’s fundamental mechanics, resource management, and economic systems.
Independent Cities and Tax Revenue
Each city operates independently, handling its own buying and selling of resources. As the king, you oversee these cities and collect taxes from their trades. There’s a Happiness Bar for each city, and the higher a city’s happiness, the more revenue it generates through taxation. So, maintaining a positive environment directly boosts your kingdom’s income.
The Role of Intercity Roads
To ease the trading process, players can build roads between cities, allowing for faster and more efficient exchanges. Because each city specializes in certain resources, intercity trade becomes essential. For example:
- A city by the sea is perfect for fishing.
- A city near forests excels in wood production.
City Structures and Upgrades
Within each city, you can construct a range of buildings to accelerate production and enhance efficiency. Some of the key buildings in the demo include:
- Peasant Lodges – housing for the working class
- Lumber Mills – wood production facilities
- Potato Farms – for basic food supplies
There’s also a Royal Research Center, where you can spend resources to upgrade buildings or unlock new technologies. In the demo, upgrades are limited, but the full game appears to feature a deep and diverse tech tree with advanced buildings like dye factories.
Money, Loans, and City Mood
Virtually every action in Let Them Trade costs money—whether it’s launching a research project, erecting a new building, or founding an entire city. To manage your economy, you can:
- Loan money to cities, boosting their happiness
- Collect extra taxes, which may lower city morale
This adds a strategic layer to balancing wealth and public satisfaction.
Discovering New Territories
Exploration is a core gameplay feature. You can send envoys to distant parts of the map to discover new regions, unlocking more resources and potential city locations. As the game progresses, expanding your access to new materials and trade routes becomes increasingly important for survival and growth.
Main Objectives, Side Quests, and Milestones
Each level contains at least one primary objective that must be completed to move forward. In addition, there are:
- Side quests offering optional challenges
- Milestone goals that serve as achievements or long-term progress markers
These systems add depth and replayability to the experience.
Visual and Audio Quality
Let Them Trade is being built with the powerful Unreal Engine, and the demo already showcases impressive graphics. Zooming into the map reveals detailed tiles, character animations, and vibrant environments. The soundtrack is also well-crafted, with varied and immersive music that matches the pace and tone of the gameplay.
Final Thoughts – A Promising Strategy Experience
Based on the demo, Let Them Trade shows a lot of potential. It delivers a solid balance of resource management, strategic thinking, and economic simulation, all wrapped in a charming visual package. The full version is expected to include a combat system, which should add even more variety and challenge.
Although the exact release date is yet to be announced, the game is expected to fully launch sometime in 2025. Until then, this promising demo gives players a lot to look forward to.
