Property, jobs, school, business, the ring, corners, cars, trading, the vault, and the tables

Property

Seven tiers of housing. A house raises your happy cap (which is what makes gym training worth more), pays a small daily income, holds storage, and shields some of your cash from muggings.

Income is always less than upkeep — a house rebates part of itself and is never an investment. Miss the upkeep and the benefits stop until you are square, but you are not thrown out immediately.

Jobs

Six jobs, one shift a day, a small salary. The salary is deliberately minor — the reason to take a job is the perk, which reaches into crime payouts, jail time, or property upkeep.

Perks unlock after a number of days at that job, and switching jobs resets that. Moving up costs you what you had earned.

School

Courses finish after a fixed amount of real time, whether or not you are online, and the perk is permanent. Fees are small.

This is the one ladder money cannot touch at all: four days is four days for everyone.

Businesses

Five kinds of company, producing the lower rungs of the equipment ladder. Output scales with how many shifts your crew works, so capital alone does not run a business — you need people. Wages move money from an owner to workers, which is the only place in the game where one player's money becomes another's through work.

The ring

Boxing is the one fight you play rather than resolve: multiple rounds, a jab/hook/guard triangle, one timer for the whole bout however long it runs. The fight carries its own health — you start every bout with a full tank, and what happens in the ring stays there.

Fights are free — stepping in costs you nothing but the timer, win or lose. Beat a fighter and a rematch this round is sparring: no purse, just the record.

The card is a ladder. Each fighter opens only after you have beaten the man below him — this round, every round — so a title shot is earned in the ring, not just on the street. The card tells you exactly who is still in your way.

The purse is the only reward, and each fighter pays it once a round. No experience, no stat gain, no equipment — the champion is worth beating for standing, never for power. How hard your punches land is your training, and towering over a man finally shows: put the years in at the gym and even the champion starts looking beatable.

Corners

Protection rackets are yours personally, not your family's. Claiming one is contested against whoever holds it and what they have paid for protection, and protection decays nightly — a corner is a standing expense rather than a wall you build once.

Trading with people

Beyond the public market there is a table you can sit down at with one other player. Both of you put things on it — goods, car keys, cash — and nothing moves until you have both confirmed, at which point everything moves at once. There is no version where one of you hands over first, so the usual trust problem simply does not exist here.

If either side changes what is on the table, both confirmations drop and you have to agree again. The deal you say yes to is the deal you get.

Money that changes hands carries a fee, deliberately higher than the market's — a private handshake should never be the cheap way to move money. Trades between the same two people are limited per day, very lopsided trades are looked at afterwards, and you need a couple of thousand crime experience before anyone will deal with you at all. Points can never be traded, here or anywhere.

The vault

A mugger takes a share of what you are carrying, so the bank exists to hold what you are not about to spend. Depositing costs a small percentage, taken on the way in and destroyed. Taking money out is free but runs on its own timer of a few hours — which is the point: the bank is for savings, not a pocket you dip into.

How much it holds depends on your property. There is no interest and there never will be: money that grew by sitting still would be money printed out of nothing.

It protects you from muggers and from nothing else. If you are killed, or the round ends, banked money is wiped exactly like the money in your pocket.

Cars

Almost from the start — twenty crime XP — you can take cars off the street, on a timer of their own. What is parked out there depends on how far along you are: the two cheapest models are available immediately and the rarest are not reachable until deep into a round. Each car you take is its own object — its own plate, its own condition, its own modifications — and it shows on your profile.

A car does nothing. It grants no bonus to crimes, no advantage in a fight, no better odds at anything, and neither does any modification you pay for. It is something to own and be seen owning, and the door to things that will need one later. That is deliberate: cash can be had for real money in this game, so anything cash could buy that made you stronger would be pay-to-win.

The lot sells only the two cheapest models. Everything above them you either take yourself or buy from another player at the trade table. The chop shop opens later than the street does — nobody buys parts from a stranger, so until 400 crime XP a car is simply a car. After that it will buy any of them back, but it pays scrap and destroys the car: worth doing with something exotic, a waste with anything else. How many cars you can keep depends on your property.

The tables

A casino, played with in-game cash only. Points can never be wagered, every game is against the house rather than another player, and there is a daily limit on how much you can put down.

The house edge is real and it is stated on every table. Money lost at a table leaves the game entirely — the casino is the economy's largest drain, which is the actual reason it exists.