The Game
How Vesper City plays.
A turn-based criminal sim: work the streets, dodge the heat, gear up, and build toward the kind of name that gets you a family, a war, or a crown.
The Loop
Turns are the clock
Every action — a crime, a training session, a territory op — spends turns, and turns refill on their own whether you're online or not. There's no penalty for logging off; there's just a city that keeps moving without you.
Spend them on the crime ladder, on training at a gym, on a deal, or on backing your family — the turn is the only resource that gates you, and it never runs out for good.
The Crime Ladder
Ten rungs, one city
Every job on the ladder pays better than the last — and costs more in heat and jail time to match. Pickpocketing barely registers with the precinct; cracking a casino vault makes the front page.
The top four tiers pay in dirty cash instead of clean — the ladder teaches you to launder right when the scores get big enough to need it.
| Tier | Job | Payoff | Heat | Jail Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pickpocket Day one |
Pocket change | Low | Low |
| 2 | Shoplift Day one |
Small-time, steady | Low | Low |
| 3 | Rob a Drunk Early |
Walking-around cash | Low | Moderate |
| 4 | Convenience Store Stickup Early |
Real money now | Moderate | Moderate |
| 5 | Grand Theft Auto Rising |
Four figures — or keep the car | Moderate | High |
| 6 | Warehouse Burglary Rising |
Serious money | High | High |
| 7 | Jewelry Store Heist Established |
Five figures, paid dirty Pays Dirty | High | High |
| 8 | Armored Car Robbery Established |
Six-figure scores Pays Dirty | Severe | Extreme |
| 9 | First National Bank Heist Elite |
Six figures and climbing Pays Dirty | Severe | Extreme |
| 10 | Casino Vault Job Elite |
The big score Pays Dirty | Extreme | Extreme |
Heat & The Feds
Every score turns up the heat
Heat runs 0–100 and only goes one direction when you work — the question is how you bring it back down before it costs you.
Let it ride and the consequences escalate in public, ugly ways: raidable businesses, a spot on the Most Wanted board, and eventually the Feds themselves.
Clean margin
Nobody's watching too closely — work the ladder as usual.
The streets get harder
Crime success rates start to slip the hotter you run.
Your businesses become a target
Fronts and rackets start rolling the dice on a raid every hour you stay hot.
Most Wanted
You hit the public Most Wanted list — and anyone in the city can snitch on you for a cut of your cash.
The Feds get involved
Top-tier scores lock out, shakedowns start, and a federal raid can seize a slice of your dirty cash outright.
Bringing it down
Time
Heat decays on its own, hour by hour — patience is free.
Lay Low
Spend turns to actively cool off instead of logging out — the engaged player’s answer to a hot streak.
Bribe the Precinct
Pay it down directly — the price scales with how hot you’re running, never with your level.
Burner Phone
A consumable that shaves heat instantly, capped so it can’t replace the other sinks.
Consequences
Jail, the hospital, and witnesses
Get caught, get hospitalized, or leave a witness behind, and the city doesn't just shrug it off — each one has its own clock and its own way out.
None of them end your run. They just cost you time, and time is the one thing the ladder can't refund.
Jail
Get caught and the clock starts. You can still bank and message from inside, but the street work stops until you're out — or somebody bails you, or busts you loose and risks the same cell themselves.
Hospital
Lose a fight and you wake up here, not in a cell. Walk out early with a medkit or ride it out — either way you're briefly untouchable once you're back on your feet.
Witnesses
A job gone loud can leave a witness behind. Pay them off, lean on them, or make them disappear — ignore it and they may talk.
Stats & Gyms
Four stats, four gyms
Strength, Defense, Speed, and Intelligence drive everything from a fight's outcome to a crime's odds. Training is a genuine grind by design — the primary defense of a wallet that can't buy power.
Four gyms scale from a free basement to a members-only private facility, each trading a steeper price for a faster gain.
The Stats
- Strength — How hard you hit.
- Defense — How much you shrug off.
- Speed — Whether you land the first shot — and how much you can lift off a mark.
- Intelligence — Crime success, casino edge, and the smart options in a contract.
The Gyms
- Boxing Basement Tier I — Cheap, open to anyone, and where everybody starts.
- Iron Yard Tier II — Real equipment at a real price — the first upgrade that matters.
- The Dojo Tier III — Technique over brute force, built for the mid-game grinder.
- Private Facility Tier IV — Members-only and priced like it — the fastest gains in the city.
The Arsenal
Six classes, real tradeoffs
Every weapon class hits differently — some trade accuracy for damage, some go all-in on a crit. Pick a class that matches how you play, not just what you can afford.
Every gun you carry is an instance that levels up through use, and at max level you get to name it — a leveled, named gun is worth real money on the player market.
Melee
Fast and forgiving
Higher hit chance, lighter hits — brass knuckles up to a baseball bat.
Handgun
The all-rounder
No tricks, no weaknesses — the baseline every other class is measured against.
Shotgun
Feast or famine
Wildly variable damage — sometimes a scratch, sometimes a knockout.
SMG
Fast and light
Easier to land, softer per hit — favors volume over raw power.
Rifle
Precision with a crit
Reliable, with a real chance to land a devastating critical hit.
Heavy
Overwhelming force
The hardest-hitting class in the city — and the hardest to land.
The Casino
The house always discloses its edge
Dice, blackjack, and a daily lottery — small, honest games with a real house edge, not a hidden one.
Every hand and every draw commits its outcome before you play and reveals the seed after, so anyone can replay the math and check the house didn't cheat.
Street Craps
Dice, a wall, and a house edge you can see coming.
Blackjack
Single deck, dealer stands on 17, no split — simple rules, real stakes.
The Daily Lottery
One ticket, one draw, one number that changes somebody's night — the pot rolls over if nobody plays.
The Fair-Play Promise
Free to play, honestly
No password to manage, no paywall on the fun parts, and no purchase that makes you a better criminal than the player next to you.
Premium points exist for convenience and cosmetics only — and because they trade on the player market, every point sold funds somebody playing for free.
Passwordless
No password to leak or forget — sign in with a one-time code sent to your inbox.
Free, full stop
Every system in the city — crime, combat, families, wars — is free to play.
Points buy convenience, not power
Premium points speed up the grind and unlock cosmetics. They never buy a stat, a success chance, or a win — anything for sale, another player can earn for nothing.
Provable fairness
Every casino hand and lottery draw commits its outcome before you play and reveals the seed after — replay the math yourself.
Vesper City keeps two ledgers.
Start yours — free to play, passwordless, minutes to your first score.
Play Free