Your first ten minutes

You get off the bus with a suitcase, five hundred dollars, and a name nobody knows. Go to Crimes, pick the one at the top of the list, and do it. That is the whole game in miniature: take a risk, get paid or get caught, and lie low for a bit before the next one.

Every job puts the street on a timer afterwards. A pickpocketing takes two minutes to cool off; the jobs further down the list take a lot longer and pay a lot more. There are no bars to fill and nothing to ration — when the clock reads zero, you can go again.

Your first few crimes will mostly succeed. That is deliberate — you are meant to get a feel for the loop before it starts saying no to you.

You will go to jail sometimes

A failed crime can put you in jail on a timer — not every time. Most of the jobs you fumble, you walk away from; the ones that put you inside are the ones you were unlikely to pull off in the first place. Fumble a pickpocket and you are usually gone before anyone looks up. Reach for something well above your weight and you usually wear it.

When it does land, nothing is lost; you simply cannot act until it runs out. You can pay bail to leave early, or wait, or ask somebody to break you out.

Jail is not a punishment so much as it is the cost of reaching for a job above your weight. Reaching is usually correct.

What to do with the first money

Do not buy equipment yet. Combat gear is gated behind rank and behind the tier below it, so buying up the ladder is not possible and the money is wasted early.

Put it into the gym instead. Gym membership tiers multiply everything you train from then on, and training is the only thing that makes you dangerous to other players.

Then what

Get to the point where you have a rhythm: a crime, then the gym while the street cools off, then check back later. Every system keeps its own timer — a running crime clock never stops you training, taking a fight, or working a corner. Running out of things to do is not how this game ends a session.

Once you are past the newcomer shield, you can attack and be attacked. Before you get there, join a family — see families. It is the single biggest change to how the game feels.