Roadwar Europa

You drive an armored caravan through scorched European towns and face a choice: buy ammunition, or reach for an axe? In Roadwar Europa, you don't have to worry about that. There's no single right solution, just a chain of pragmatic choices and their consequences.

It's a truly bizarre blend of post-apocalyptic strategy and text adventure from 1987. You lead a group of survivors through ravaged Europe and must provide them with food, fuel, ammunition, and medical care. The map you traverse regenerates — towns, markets, goods change with each visit. It's not interactive fiction, but it's not classical strategy either. It's something in between.

Playing is straightforward. You read text on a black background, issue commands — buy, buy, buy, or try to steal something at night. When conflict arises, dice are rolled (with a bit of your influence through chosen tactics). There's no graphics, just ASCII maps and a list of items in your trunk that weigh on your soul. The game drags on fairly slowly, but that's not a flaw — it's the only work the game expects from you.

Roadwar Europa belongs among those games you'd only find in a paper catalog in the nineties or hear about from a kid in the neighborhood. It never stood a chance against Civilization or SimCity. Unsurprising — it's eccentric, demanding to read, and dull to look at. Today you can play it only as a curiosity or a study of how strategy and story could be layered without graphics.

If text without any animation and dark, grim atmosphere don't scare you off, you'll discover that Roadwar Europa is matter-of-fact and engaging. It doesn't want to wrap you in a story — it wants to give you decisions and let you grapple with them. In an era of games full of cutscenes and linear paths, that sounds oddly refreshing.