If you are looking for Dope Wars, you are looking for this game. It is the 1984 trading classic that spread across DOS machines, BBS boards and graphing calculators, and it went by two names depending on which version you happened to find. You can play it right here, free, in your browser.
馃幃 Play Dope Wars freeJohn E. Dell wrote the original in 1984 and called it Drug Wars. It was a high school project written in BASIC, and it was made entirely of text, which meant anyone could retype it, port it, or squeeze it onto whatever machine they had. People did, constantly, for the next twenty years.
Somewhere in all that copying the name drifted. A lot of the most widely played versions went out as Dope Wars, including the Windows remake that got downloaded millions of times. So whether you remember it as Dope Wars or Drug Wars mostly depends on which machine you were sitting at. The game underneath is the same one.
For most people this was never a computer game. It was a calculator game. Graphing calculators were required school equipment, they were programmable, and they had link cables, so a game made of nothing but arithmetic spread through a classroom one lunch break at a time. From the front of the room a student playing Dope Wars looks exactly like a student doing maths, which is the entire reason a generation remembers it. If you want the full story, read the history of the game.
New to it? The rules are here, and the strategy guide has the actual numbers behind each borough.
The core is deliberately untouched, because the core is good. What is new is everything around it: global leaderboards, runs from 10 to 100 days, and a daily challenge that gives every player the same market so scores are actually comparable. It works on a phone, which is the closest thing we have now to a calculator under a desk. No download, no signup, no ads.
馃幃 Play nowYes. The original was written by John E. Dell in 1984 and called Drug Wars. As it was ported to BBS boards, calculators and Windows, many of the best known versions shipped under the name Dope Wars. Same rules, same loan shark, same thirty days.
Almost certainly this one. It circulated on TI-82, TI-83 and TI-85 calculators through link cables, usually as Drug Wars or Dope Wars. You started with $2,000, owed $5,500 to a loan shark, and traded between locations for thirty days.
Yes. This version runs in any browser, including phones. No download, no signup, no ads. Your score posts to a global leaderboard if you want it to.
It is the same game, rebuilt. The best known Windows remake was released by Beermat Software in 1998 and downloaded more than 6.5 million times. This one keeps the original rules and adds leaderboards, run lengths from 10 to 100 days, and a daily challenge.