How to Play
The shape of it
This is an arbitrage game. Not a combat game, not an RPG. You win by noticing that something is cheap here and dear there, and by still being solvent when you find out.
You start on day 1 outside your lender's door with $2,000, a coat that holds 100 units, and $5,500 of debt. Travelling to another district costs one day. After thirty days the game ends and your net worth is your score.
Five cities
Before a game starts you choose where to work: New York, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow, Beijing. Each has its own six districts, its own police, its own name for the man who lends you the $5,500 and its own street names for the six commodities.
The choice is flavour, not strategy. Every city runs on identical numbers — the same price bands, the same district roles, the same police pressure, the same thirty days — because there is one leaderboard and a score has to mean the same thing whoever set it. Pick the one you want to spend a month in.
| City | Lender | Police | The one who will not take money |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | the loan shark | NYPD | Officer Hardass |
| Tokyo | the yamikin | the Keishicho | Inspector Kuroda |
| Paris | the usurier | the BAC | Commissaire Roche |
| Moscow | the fartsovshchik | the Militsiya | Major Volkov |
| Beijing | the daoye | the Gong'an | Inspector Lei Gang |
The prices
Six drugs, each with its own range, unchanged from 1984. Named here as New York names them; the table below that says what the other four cities call the same six things.
| Drug | Low | High | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cocaine | $15,000 | $29,000 | 1.9× |
| Heroin | $5,000 | $13,000 | 2.6× |
| Acid | $1,000 | $4,400 | 4.4× |
| Weed | $300 | $900 | 3.0× |
| Speed | $70 | $250 | 3.6× |
| Ludes | $10 | $60 | 6.0× |
That spread column is the whole game. Ludes swing six-fold, so a hundred of them can double your money — but a hundred Ludes is only worth a couple of thousand dollars, so they stop mattering the moment you are rich. Cocaine barely moves within its range, but a coat full of it is worth millions. The skill is climbing that ladder at the right speed.
The same six things, in five cities
Only the name changes. A row of this table is one commodity with one price band; which column you play in does not alter what it costs or how it moves.
| New York | Tokyo | Paris | Moscow | Beijing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cocaine | Kokain | Blanche | Koks | Keka |
| Heroin | Heroin | Cheval | Gerych | Baifen |
| Acid | LSD | Buvard | Marka | LSD |
| Weed | Happa | Beuh | Plan | Dama |
| Speed | Shabu | Amphes | Vint | Bing |
| Ludes | Suimin'yaku | Cachets | Kolyosa | Anmianyao |
Five things worth knowing
1. Space is scarcer than money
Your coat holds a fixed number of units whatever is in it. Once you have real money the right buy is not the cheapest thing on the board — it is whatever converts the most cash into the most profit per unit of space. Take every trench coat upgrade you are offered.
2. The debt compounds every single day
Ten percent, daily, whether you go back to see him or not. Ignored from day one, $5,500 becomes about $96,000 by day 30. But do not pay it off with your opening $2,000 either: a working coat returns far more than 10% a day, and repaying does not change your net worth at all — it only stops future interest. Pay it down with money you were not going to trade.
3. Geography is reliable, the daily board is not
Every city has a poor district where things are consistently cheapest to buy and a rich one where they are consistently dearest to sell — the Ghetto and Manhattan in New York, San'ya and Ginza in Tokyo, and so on down the list. That route is the backbone of a good run. It is also the most heavily policed pair of districts in any city, which is the trade.
4. Prices remember
Each drug carries a multi-day trend as well as daily noise, so a market that has been climbing all week is more likely than not to keep climbing tomorrow. Watching the board is a real edge, not superstition.
5. News breaks the rules
A police bust or a flooded market can push a price far outside its normal range — three to five times up, or the same down. Those are the days fortunes are made. If you are holding when a spike lands, sell into it.
When the police stop you
The chance of being stopped rises with how much you are carrying. You have four ways out and each costs something different:
- Run — costs nothing if it works, and health if it doesn't.
- Fight — needs a decent weapon. Weapons take up coat space, and their statistics are deliberately never shown to you.
- Surrender — you keep your health and lose every gram you are carrying.
- Bribe — the cheapest exit when your cargo is worth more than the demand. Keep some cash back for exactly this. Every city has one senior officer who does not take money — Officer Hardass in New York, Major Volkov in Moscow — and when he is the one in front of you, that exit is closed.
Where things are
Two of the six districts carry the services, in every city. Which two are named below; the district names change, the arrangement does not.
- Where you start — the lender and the bank. The Bronx in New York, Ueno in Tokyo, Belleville in Paris, Cheryomushki in Moscow, Dashilan in Beijing.
- The industrial district — the safe house. Stored stock cannot be taken off you, but you cannot sell it from there either. Brooklyn in New York, Ota in Tokyo, La Villette in Paris, Avtozavodskaya in Moscow, Shijingshan in Beijing.
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