HOW TO PLAY

You start in New York with $2,000 in cash, $2,000 owed to your Rich Uncle, and an empty bag that holds 100 units. Every city stocks five to seven of the eight goods on any given day. Buy what is cheap here, board a flight, sell it where they pay more. A flight takes one or two days and costs nothing but the days. Every day, the uncle's interest lands.

One city visit is one turn. Arrive, clear customs if you are stopped, trade, visit the bank or the uncle if they are here, pick a flight. The crew texts while you are in the air. A 45-day run is roughly 25 to 30 turns, depending on how many ocean crossings you take.

Every unit takes one bag space. Goods marked with a star are contraband. Legit goods are never searched. Contraband might be, and the customs page has the numbers.

Every city has goods it sells cheap and goods it pays more for. New York sells sneakers cheap and pays for fireworks and watches. Sydney sells nothing cheap, pays for graphics cards, blind boxes, trading cards, and fireworks, and charges 15% more for everything because it is far from everything. How much cheaper, and how much more, is drawn once per run. Cheap goods land between half and seven tenths of the normal price. Goods a city pays for go for 1.3 to 1.7 times it. Two players on the same seed get the same draw.

Prices drift rather than jump. A price that rose yesterday tends to keep rising for a day or two. A small gray tick next to a price marks anything more than 10% above or below the good's normal price. You can turn the ticks off on the welcome screen.

The market answers you. The first 20 units you trade in a city in a day go at the board price, and every 10 units after that move it 2% for the rest of the visit. Then the market remembers. Every unit you sell pushes that city's price for the good down a little tomorrow, and buying pushes it up. Dump a full 100-unit bag and tomorrow's price there is about 30% lower. The effect fades over about a week, so the same trade pays less on the next trip. A route that worked once works a little less each time, so rotate where you sell.

He fronted the $2,000 you started with and charges 5% a day on whatever is still owed, compounding. Left alone for 45 days it grows to roughly $18,000. He is in New York and London, and he does not do transfers. You pay him in person, any amount, cash only, with PAY BACK on the bank screen. If you go broke, BORROW MORE in the same two cities. He lends up to $10,000 owed in total, at the same rate. Pay him early. He will text you about it either way. His first text ends with "No rush."

New York and London, in person. It pays 2% a day on the balance. Money in the bank is safe from pickpockets and from customs fines, which both come out of cash on hand. DEPOSIT and WITHDRAW carry the amount they will move, and the screen opens with the obvious amount already filled in.

The Cayman account, a one-time purchase, adds Grand Cayman to the map: no market, one bank paying 4% a day, one day from New York, Los Angeles, or Mexico City and two from everywhere else.

London, New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo are a one-day chain, in that order. Dubai hangs off London. Sydney hangs off Tokyo. Everything else, including London to Tokyo, is two days. Flights are free. The days are the cost, and every day is 5% on the loan. A flight that lands on the final day still gets that market. A flight that would land after it does not board, and the departures board shows NO TIME against it. Each city page lists its flight days.

Every run has a seed, like 45-0919-K7: the run length, the month and day, and two characters. Two people with the same seed play the same cities, prices, events, rumors, and customs odds. On the welcome screen, tap PLAYING AGAINST A FRIEND? USE A SEED. Then GENERATE ONE and SEND IT, or type in the one a friend sent you. Dashes, spaces, and case do not matter. The seed page has the rest.

Long Haul is the default. Each length has its own Game Center leaderboard. Every run also draws one modifier, shown in the notice header for the whole run. ROUTINE, which is no modifier at all, is the most common draw.

Three days out, the notice box starts counting down, the day counter turns red, and Dev texts you to sell up. The last day is a full day: sell what you can, then END THE RUN from the departures board. The button appears once no flight fits. Your score is net worth: cash plus bank minus what you owe the uncle. Whatever is still in the bag counts for nothing, so sell first. Negative scores are possible, and the board shows them. There is no game over before the last day. A run where the debt ran away just scores badly.

If you are signed in to Game Center, the score goes to the leaderboard for that run length. The end screen also shares a card in the board style. On it: net worth, run length, cities visited, customs stops, seizures, best trade (the good and the profit on the single best sale), the sealed case outcome if there was one, the modifier, and the seed. Same seed, same prices. Beat it.

About 45% of arrivals fire one event. It shows in the notice box on the market screen, in the board's own voice.

One per run, drawn at the start and shown in the notice header until the end.