The Göktürk: Caravan

One line

A Silk Road caravan roguelite where the caravan is lost with the man leading it, and the House keeps everything it learned.

One paragraph

You run a merchant House out of Ötüken in the seventh century. Iron goes west, silk comes back, and every kilo you load is a kilo of something else you left behind. The road forks at every stage and two hundred encounters wait along it — not riddles with right answers, but decisions that each cost something different. Buy your way out of a raid and it works; do it three times and the road has learned that this House pays. Masters die with their caravans. The House goes on, keeping its treasury, its plots, its people and the roll of everyone who went out for it.

Three paragraphs

The Göktürk: Caravan is a single-player trading roguelite set on the seventh-century Silk Road. You lead a merchant House out of Ötüken, seat of the Türk khaganate, sending caravans west toward Bukhara and hoping they come back. The loop is weight against value: gold dust is worth nine hundred a kilo and tallow is worth twelve, the animals do not care which they carry, and every kilo you load is a kilo of something else left standing at the tent.

The road forks at every stage — a short leg through bandit country or two days more along the river — and two hundred written encounters wait along it. They are not riddles with right answers. A flooded ford, a Tang commissioner with a book and all afternoon, a shaman who wants iron for his coat: each answer costs something different, in days, silver, goods, or what the men think of you. When riders appear you can buy your way out, and it works. Do it three times and the road has learned that this House pays, and the next band is not asking for a toll.

What persists is not a character but an institution. Caravan masters have names, clans and childhoods that change how they travel, and they die with the caravans they lead. The House keeps its treasury, its banner, its people, its trading plots in twelve cities, and the roll of everyone who went out for it — while nineteen rival Houses buy those same plots, buy each other out, and send word offering to buy you out, whether you are home to answer or not.

Made by VATEC GAMES. Built with the Godot Engine 4.7.2 under the MIT licence. Fonts — Jersey 10, Jersey 25, Alegreya Sans, Noto Sans Old Turkic, Noto Sans JP and Noto Sans SC — are used under the SIL Open Font Licence and remain the property of their authors.

The goods, cities, peoples and games are drawn from the sixth to eighth century Silk Road and the Türk khaganates. Where the record is thin the game makes a plausible choice rather than an invented one. Any errors of history are ours.