Fast-paced innard-trading action!
Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator is a Stock Market Game with a Bio Punk theme developed by Strange Scaffold and released on PC and various Xbox consoles on December 7th, 2021, and later on the Nintendo Switch on April 29, 2022.It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin: You play as an Organ Trader, a person with a moral flexibility a parsec wide, and the obligation to provide the universe with the organs it needs; from mundane organs such as hearts, stomachs, and lungs, to Human Souls that improve the condition of organs around them, to far more bizarre, alien organs. Your primary source of income is taking the requests of the universe's denizens (sometimes actual Space Warlords) for organs and fulfill them for Money and Reputation. Under the tutelage and cruel eye of Mentaur Minter, upgrade your cargo hold to hold more organs, invest your money into the organ stock market, watch your profits plummet/soar, make allies, outbid your opponents, and try not to think too hard about where all this fresh meat is coming from…
Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator provides examples of the following tropes:
- Animal Mecha: The dogs will send you special requests to help construct one of these. Yes, those requests are for organs. Near the end of its construction, you have the opportunity to sabotage it.
- Animate Inanimate Object: One of the late-game clients is (judging by the mono-color pixelated sprite) a sentient bucket with a chalk face named Mr. Bucket. If he offers a request relating to "going home", you'll get one of the Multiple Endings.
- Artistic License – Economics: Rather than the cost of organs being comparable to a real-life stock market, they fluctuate in a way reminiscent of the organs themselves; for example, heart prices tend to be stable with occasional hikes and dips like a heartbeat, while lungs have a more gradual upwards and downwards curve comparable to breathing in and out.
- Bio Punk: You buy Organs. You sell Organs. People will do whatever they want with Organs. And if you take certain request chains, you can condemn the Universe or yourself to a variety of juicy, meaty fates.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Your mentor in the organ trading market, Mentaur Minter, starts out being helpful and getting you up on your feet, but once you obtain a few levels of reputation his true colors reveal: a petty, manipulative jerkass who give increasingly expensive demands for little return. You eventually get the opportunity to get someone to assassinate him, while also turning them into a living flesh painting..
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Well, it is Space Warlord Organ Trading, after all, so several of the organs you can trade do not exist in the human body, or indeed, that of any creature on Earth. Just what a "rotcane" or a "shiftwux" is supposed to do is left as an exercise for the player.
- Crapsack World: The universe of SWOTS is not a nice place to live. Eternal War, humans are all but stated to be hunted for their organs, and Money can get you anywhere. Oh, and by the way, your little Organ Trading business? It isn't just legal, it's the universe's modus operandi.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: Lord Zimforth, the Dark Emperor, God of Spiders, Enemy of Life. He's an exaggerated case due to being outright dead, with a cult of Necromancers seeking to revive him. And you can help them bring him back, and he can either come back in full destructive swing, or under the Necromancer's control.
- For Happiness: Strongly implied to be the motivation of the dogs in building their mecha. Although, the ending in which they complete the mecha has sinister implications for what they consider happiness...
- Idle Rich: Among your rival buyers is a disgraced prince named WOOHOO CHARLIE (yes, it is in all caps), who mostly buys kidneys, spleens, glands, and other good party supplies. Get high enough in reputation, and he'll start offering requests!
- Intellectual Animal: Dogs are among your special clients. As well as one of your rival buyers, Chad Shakespeare, who is most certainly not a dog.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: Your cargo hold is a 5 by 8 square grid, and certain organs are capable of interacting in different ways: For example, Souls will boost the condition of any adjacent organ, while a Leechlymph will drain condition from organs to add to its own. Some organs can even interact with your cargo hold, meaning that if an Organ has "corrosive" in its description and your hold isn't protected from corrosion, be ready to spend a few credits when you sell it.
- Multiple Endings: Following chains of special Requests (marked with a yellow or orange border) all the way to the end can lead to one of 11 endings.
- ZIMFORTH'S OBEDIENCE: The Necromancer Cult successfully brings back the Evil Overlord Zimforth. A few dead cultists and one frustrated deity later, the lead necromancers announce that Zimforth is under their control. The Cult proceeds to become a powerful force in the organ market, using Zimforth as a glorified flamethrower.
- ZIMFORTH UNLEASED: The Necromancer Cult brings back Evil Overlord Zimforth... and he proceeds to do what he does best. Zimforth sets the universe ablaze, and nobody, not even you, are spared.
- MR. BUCKET'S PAIN PORTAL: Aiding Mr. Bucket in his quest to "Go Home" results in the creation of a Flesh Portal that hurtles you and Mr. Bucket into another dimension. Unfortunately, this reality doesn't cotton to strangers like you: and as you realized too late that this is Mr. Bucket's home dimension, you are disintegrated from the inside out by metaphysical antibodies.
- MEATEOR: Aiding the Cloning Lab results in them sending a meteor made entirely of organs into the galaxy... and then another meteor. Then another. The universe is soon swamped with organs, and entire galaxies of children grow up never knowing a color other than red. The universe finally has enough organs; We're drowning in them.
- "Minty" (Blood on Canvas): Following Breckridge's offer to assassinate Mentaur Minter eventually has him send you a package: Mentaur Minter, transformed into a flesh painting that can never die. You proceed to hang him up on your office wall. Now whenever you need advice, you can just ask good ol' Mentaur.
- DOG MECHA: You aid the dogs in completing their Humongous Mecha (made of meat, of course), in their quest to bring joy to the universe. Before the pilot can enter the cockpit, the Dog Mecha activates of its own accord, and begins it's own crusade of happiness, one which the dogs happily follow. But beneath the constant, joyful barking, muffled screams can be heard...And the dogs quietly take the mech down from their website. Whoopsie!!!
- RUINED MECHA: In the final moments of the dog mecha's construction, you take requests from a politician to sabotage the dog mecha. The Dog Mecha and its construction facility go up in a great, meaty explosion. No dogs are harmed, but their dreams of a universe that held joy higher than money are crushed...
- FLESH SPHERE: Helping out STAR PREIST results in the church they run becoming a fleshy living entity that strums out a signal into the universe beckoning the world to join them for eternity. The ships come by the droves, with more hands welcoming the newcomers every day…
- FLESHTY HIMSELF: You manage to help out SKINSMITH give form and creation to a meat snowman who goes by the name "Fleshty". Knowing his purpose (though not without some gentle reluctance) and with the power of friendship beating in his many hearts, he takes to the skies to fight the darkness of the universe in the name of love and good…
all thanks to you.
- Noodle Implements: One possible request is a Human colonist working on improving defenses. Yes, these requests are for organs, usually nerve clusters or eyeballs.
- Shout-Out: One of the organs that can be bought and sold is a Bean Bone, which greatly resembles the corpse of a Crewmate. It's description even begins with "Among us organ traders..".
- Another organ, the Fuzzwimble, is a reference to Star Trek's Tribbles, being small, adorable, fuzzy orbs that regularly reproduce, albeit nowhere near as prodigiously as Tribbles.
- Stock Market Game: The entire game is a subversion of this: you buy and sell various stocks, with the added twist that they're all backed by alien organs.
- To Serve Man: Many, many requests are to bring organs to a feast. Most of those times, these are for human organs. Do not ponder where these organs come from.
- Unique Items:
- Several unique items exist in the game, but most prominent of them is "Lil' Joey's Heart": A child's heart that is described as beating joyfully. Naturally, it's one of the most valuable items in the game, with stock values consistently above 10,000. And should you acquire it, there will be many requesting to take it off your hands for an exorbitant sum of cash.
- Another unique item you can get your hands on is some celebrity who sells their soul to you. Like Joey’s heart, you get quite a few opportunities to sell it for some major cash. Hang onto it for a few days however and the original seller contacts you, regretting his decision to sell his soul. Give it back to him, and your reputation will skyrocket.
- Video Game Caring Potential: A shocking amount (considering the game) of opportunities to be a friendly, good person is available to you.
- One character you can meet early in the game is the Meat Hunter. They give you the occasional organ or two for a fair price, but their trade deals with you results in some heat breathing down your neck. They offer you the ability to sever ties with them permanently without cost. If you refuse, then later on they’ll ask you if you consider the two of you friends. If you say yes, they’ll clearly be overjoyed, as they send you far better prices and organs in the future.
- You can randomly come across a father whose son recently passed away. He can’t do much, but he gives you his son’s heart, asking you to take care of them. This is a Unique organ called “Lil' Joey’s Heart” and you actually can take care of it.
- One client you receive who goes by the name SKINSMITH asks you to get him various materials in order for him to “build a friend”, which is heavily implied to be some sort of monster. The end result of this? The Skinsmith creates a living breathing Fleshy Snowman who goes by the name “Fleshty” who takes to the cosmos in order to fight to protect the innocent in the name of love and good…All thanks to you.
- War Is Glorious: Heavily implied to be the opinion of the inhabitants of this world; The game doesn't have "Space Warlord" in its title for nothing. A Warlord announcing a truce causes the market to plummet, while him announcing that he will begin killing again causes the market to rejoice. After all, there's gotta be a lot of fresh organs to harvest after a good battle.
