Badland Caravan

Badland Caravan is a caravan-management game set after an unexplained disaster destroyed most civilizations. Monsters roam the land and animals have become enraged, forcing people to shelter in the few surviving cities. You gather adventurers, take goods produced in one city and deliver them to others across the dangerous wilderness. Prepare well before setting out: once beyond a city, your group must survive on its own.

Cities and trade

Each city has its own local products. Buy goods cheaply where they are produced and sell them for higher prices in cities that lack them. Taverns offer adventurers with different traits; you choose who joins the caravan, equip them with weapons and armor, and teach them combat skills so they can protect it.

Cities also sell land where you can build structures. These can increase a product’s output, let the city accommodate more people or enable it to forge more powerful weapons.

Cross the wilderness

Protecting the carriage is essential: if it is destroyed, the journey fails, you lose all your goods and return to your point of departure. Wandering wolves, changed adventurers and resurgent undead are among the threats along the way. Special resources can be found in the wilderness, but dangerous monsters guard them; gather these resources with the right tools and use them to forge equipment in cities.

Food is essential during a journey, and running short greatly harms your characters’ abilities. You can gather ingredients and cook a nutritious dinner while protecting the carriage, but food rots the next day. You can also bring hard tack, though eating too much may affect how the characters feel.

Develop your adventurers

Books containing skills are scattered throughout the world. If you find one, give it to a suitable character to increase their abilities. Characters gain skill points with each upgrade, which they can spend improving learned skills. Each character can learn any number of skills but can remember only eight, so choose and distribute them carefully to let different skills reinforce one another.