For the Xbox 360 version, the team introduced a feature to reduce the colour saturation in the game and allow players to decide how much colour they wanted to have. Levius acknowledged that this feature "is a big thing for me and Petr as we always wanted to also have a black and white version of the game in style of Jules Verne's illustrations". He also commented that several other features, such as more animations and leaderboards, were left out due to a lack of time, but he kept them in mind for a possible sequel. Reception Ancient Trader received positive responses from several video game journalists upon its release. Most critics praised the game's art design and gameplay, but criticized the lack of key elements such as a saving feature and scoreboards. The British magazine Edge included Ancient Trader in its 2010 list of the Best 20 Indie Games available in the Xbox Live Marketplace. They acknowledged that the game was "ambitious, devious and surprisingly hard to fault". IGN staff called it "a simple, easy entry strategy game suitable for all ages". Tom Chick from FidGit compared Ancient Trader to video games such as The Seven Cities of Gold and Sid Meier's Pirates!, as well as to other indie games such as "the sci-fi space operettas Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and Flotilla, but wind-powered and sepia-toned". Like most reviewers, Chick highly praised the artistic design, as well as the game's atmospheric music and vividness of the environment: "It's all ink and vellum and cursive script and layers of lovingly drawn facades drawn on plywood and stacked up for a 19th Century stage production." Eurogamer's Chris Schilling commented that although Ancient Trader was not as comprehensive and expansive as other Xbox Live titles such as Risk: Factions, it deserved "the opportunity to do business with the big boys rather than risk getting washed away with the shovelware tide". Schilling expressed concern that "a game so elegant and accomplished should have to be dredged up from the depths of Indie Games". Lorenzo Fantoni from Eurogamer Italy awarded Ancient Trader the same score as Schilling, and explained that "the final result is a quite simple title, which will last long enough to make you feel happy of having invested your money in this indie title". Gus Mastrapa from Wired commented that Ancient Trader was well worth its price "for its art