Rogueship carries its influences proudly, and the first of many would have to be Dave Kaufman’s Star Trader, a multiplayer computer game of interstellar trading published in 1974!

Others have preserved the legacy of Star Trader quite well, but suffice it to say that Rogueship draws a powerful inspiration from the simple and addictive gameplay it pioneered, and tries to invoke an atmosphere of space adventure that does its predecessor proud. While Rogueship’s mechanics and pacing are its own, the driving gameplay of manipulating commodity markets through crafty trading is the same. The sector-based map for navigating the galaxy has also stood the test of time.

Star Trader was distributed as raw source code and promoted further development (if not total reworking). Over the years a lot of additions have appeared in variants of the game, but Rogueship follows a different path in trying to eschew logistical clutter and avoid the less engaging features.

Paying tribute to space trading on the iPhone could only mean following the platform’s shine for simplicity and polish, and that’s exactly what Rogueship is trying to bring to the Star Trader tradition.