O'BLOCK

O'BLOCK is a free roguelike about one action: naming a price. You buy and sell sneakers by haggling with people who never say what they'll accept. You start on a Chicago block with $300 and a pair of Bred 1s, rent due in seven days. A good run ends with you selling to billionaires.

How a deal works

Each day, people walk up to buy or sell. Every one of them has a hidden reservation price, a mood and a limited patience. You make an offer. They answer with a tell: how far off you are, in their own way. Get close and they take it. Push too hard or too often and they walk.

• The street price is a range, not a number. It narrows as your reputation grows.

• Fakes tell on themselves. A font, a smell, a slumped toe. One odd detail can be nothing. Two means it's fake, and a sharp buyer will catch you selling it.

• Hit someone's number exactly and your name is worth more. That raises what every buyer pays you. Miss, and it drops.

• You also sell to the market overnight, hold stock for hype, and buy whole lots and pallets that sell for less per pair the bigger they get.

Why it's a roguelike

• Runs. Three modes: climb to a billion, a thirty-day summer scored on your worth, and a daily seed that everyone plays the same day. Ten heat levels, each adding one rule. Six origins, each with an upside and a catch.

• Weekly rounds. Every seventh day you pay rent and need to have sold a quota. Miss either and you take a strike. Two strikes and you're evicted.

• Angles. 56 modifiers you draft into five ordered slots. Plus parts add, times parts multiply, and some copy or double their neighbours. The order changes the result.

• The back room. Clear a week and a shop opens: angles, one-use tips, rerolls that get more expensive, and interest on the cash you held.

• Gate bosses. Twelve of them stand between the tiers, and each breaks a rule: backwards tells, a floor that rises when you talk, a number that moves after every offer, total silence.

• Progress between runs. Every pair you ever sell goes into the Book. Completing sets unlocks new angles. Winning at a heat unlocks the next one.

Run your own shop

• Open a shop and grow it. Start at a folding table, then move up to THE SPOT, a FLAGSHIP and a MAISON with up to 16 lit display cases. Walk-in buyers ask for what's in your cases and pay more for the curation, and you still name every price.

• Hire a crew. Staff with traits: an eagle eye who spots fakes, a hustler who brings more buyers, a shopkeeper who doubles your walk-ins. Some hide a bad habit until they've worked a week.

How far it goes

The haggle stays the same while the numbers grow: five pairs on the block, stacks of 500 in the industry, half a million at the top. Five rivals race you to the first billion and compete for the same sellers.

Reach a billion and the game opens a second layer: a list of tycoons to climb, your own sneaker brand to design and drop, a company to take public, and a simulated economy with central banks, bond markets and banks that can fail. Big moves there are still made by naming a price against someone else's.

What it is, and what it isn't

• It's a menu-driven trading game. There's no combat and no platforming. If you like reading opponents, building combos and pushing one more run, that's the whole appeal.

• Runs are short at the start (a summer run is thirty in-game days) and get long if you go for the billion.

• It's free. The optional Supporter Pack ($4.99) is the soundtrack, stems and art. It adds no gameplay.

Details

• A 3D voxel city with weather, reflections and holidays (Halloween runs Oct 24 to Nov 1)

• 192 original songs plus live-synthesized music that follows the deal

• 15 languages, Steam Cloud saves, leaderboards and 91 achievements

• Standard download about 4 GB. A 30 GB lossless-audio version is available under Properties, Betas, "lossless". Same game and save.

Complete Supporter Pack:

Every name in O'BLOCK is a parody. No real person, brand or company is involved with or endorses the game.