About Whalemen Wanted, from BoardGameGeek:
Whalemen Wanted is a solitaire action roleplaying game set in the early-to-mid 19th century, 1820-1860, in which players take on the role of a New England whaling ship master charged by his owners and agent to take a vessel, outfit it with an appropriate crew and equipment, hunt whales, render their oil and bone, and return it to New England in order to make a profit.
The game seeks to emulate the feel of the period, remaining as historical and authentic as possible with plenty of flavor, while abiding by abstraction in combat, movement, and so on to facilitate a sense of ease of play.
The player begins in New England by creating their whaling master, or captain -- ordinarily a man with likely over a decade of experience in the trade. Next, each whaling voyage is begun by determining the type of vessel your master is assigned to captain, followed by calculating the outfitting costs, crewmen to hire, provisions and materials to store, and so on.
Thereafter, players travel across the globe, resolving possible events per each "travel box" entered, some of which may be exceptionally geographically or seasonally dangerous.
Once arriving in each desired whaling ground, the master can make the decision to cruise the area in search of "blows", or the water spouts indicating one or more whales coming to the surface to breathe, and then hunt those whales if desired in turn-based, dynamic dice and card combat.
When the player is satisfied with his spoils, he can decide to return to New England and sell the whale products, with the goal of selling them for more money than the initial expenses of the voyage, as well as any expenses made along the way.
The game officially ends if the player voluntarily (or involuntarily) retires, is killed, or completes no more than 20 voyages; most whaling masters however only completed 1 or 2 voyages!
Whalemen Wanted requires two ten-sided (d10) dice to play, and may be (but is not required) enhanced by taking notes and keeping a log on a separate sheet of paper, or digitally with any free word-like program, as your master's story develops.
-description from the designer
