This IS a really awesome game. I love economics games like this and the humor was just icing on the cake. It was pretty simple and easy to understand, which is good when dealing with trading games such as this. The upgrades were decent. The scenarios were pretty funny (so was the Columbian trader).
I would have been inclined to give you five stars for a really awesome game, but there were a few things that absolutely ruined this game for me.
-The absolute #1 problem I had was the inability to save. Now, others have commented that this is compensated for by the short-term and fast paced nature of the game. However, for some reason, this game likes to crash my browser (which is uncommon). I have tried to play now thrice (twice on chrome, once on IE). This means that I have so loved the initial part of the game but have been consistently frustrated that I cannot advance and finish the game. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make a save feature so that I, and others in the same situation, may finish this awesome game.
-A minor irritation I found was that shops would not always buy what I had in my inventory. A few times, I bought artifacts at a really low price but could not find anywhere to sell them. When I could sell them, it was not necessarily for a price I liked.
-Another thing I didn't like was that one had to actually travel to the island in order to upgrade it. At certain points, I had so much cash to upgrade but didn't feel like stopping to go do upgrades.
-Near the end of the year, it would appear as if I could travel to another post to make a final transaction. Thus, I would choose a destination, arrive at said destination and suddenly get a message that the year had ended. This message prevented me from actually making any transactions. I would have liked to be at least able to sell off my goods. OR an "END YEAR" button may have been more appropriate than selecting a final destination.
I really did enjoy this game (or at least the beginning). Maybe some of the irritating features that were intentional are undone by later upgrades. I wouldn't know, I couldn't finish. (Please add a save feature).