Cartographer

Cartographer is a voyage game set in the Age of Exploration. Plot a course, let the days run, and stop when the sea asks something of you. Every coast you sight is inked onto your chart, and the chart is what you sell. Stores are the clock. The chart marks your point of no return, and the ship will carry on past it if you tell her to. Seabirds and driftwood point to land beyond your sight. Storms, calms, sickness and spoiled bread rooms arrive on their own schedule. Cut rations and you sail farther; the hands fall ill more often.

Land, and what to do with it

Send a shore party for water and food. Survey the coast for timber, furs, spice or pearls, and load what the hold can take. Name every island, cape and bay you find; the names stay on your chart. Foraged land needs a season to recover, so long voyages are made by island hopping.

Sell it, or keep it

Back in port, sell your chart to the Admiralty and everyone learns what you found. Or keep a rich site to yourself and haul its cargo at full price, until someone else stumbles on it.

Then the world gets bigger

Somewhere in a far corner of the first sea lies another port, held by another power. Nothing tells you which corner. Find it and the chart grows to four seas: a cold one with drifting ice or a warm one full of storms, and rich, remote waters to the east. Then:

• Trade between two ports, each with its own prices for cargo and charts.
• Found trading posts on the sites you surveyed.
• Buy a brig, captain her, and put your old ship on a route over charted water. It earns each season without you.
• Work towards a Crown charter for your own trading company.

There's no final voyage. Pay off the ship and she's yours; sail on as long as you like.

Features

• A new sea from every seed. Type a chart seed on the title screen to sail a particular one, or share yours with a friend.
• Autosaves in your browser. Lose the ship and you can return to port before the voyage, at the cost of everything that voyage found.
• Playable with the mouse or the keyboard.

Controls

Action	Mouse	Keyboard
Add a waypoint	Click the chart
Remove the last waypoint	Right-click	Backspace
Set sail or heave to		Space
Time speed		1–3
Turn for home		H
Pick a choice on an event card	Click	1–9
Pan and zoom	Drag, scroll or pinch
Centre on the ship	Rose button

A voyage takes 3 to 8 minutes. Paying off the ship takes an hour or two, and the far shore takes as long as you like.