HABAP

HABAP - the skim, the spread, the profit left in your pocket after a deal well haggled. A telegram from the countryside: a distant relative has died, and the old house is yours now - attic included. While you were still figuring out which key fit the door, a junk dealer with a cart hauled the whole attic away "at a neighborly price." The next morning you found out what just one of those samovars was worth. Lesson paid for. From now on, you do the buying. HABAP is a cozy reseller sim set behind the iron curtain of a nameless Cold War state. By day you work the flea markets, backyards, and garages: find a seller, talk the price down, drive home with a full trunk. By evening you run your own little shop: dress the window, count the till, put the profit into new districts and upgrades. One problem: profiteering here is a capital offense, and they've been building a case on you since day one. There's exactly one way out, and you'll have to buy it - five contacts up the ladder, and the last one sells planes. Every deal brings takeoff a little closer. A picket fence out front. A case file at your back. One more deal, then home. Okay - maybe two. Haggling is a tiny boss fight "Got a live one!" Every seller comes with a temper, a price, and a limited supply of patience. One well-timed press on the approach - hit the bullseye and every argument lands harder for the whole conversation. Then talk the price down, argument by argument: land crits, ride the hot streak, keep pushing - but not too hard, or you'll spook them right out of the deal. Feel them heating up? Cool them off and carry on. You can shake hands whenever you like… shake too early, and you've overpaid. And here's the twist: you're haggling over a bag you can't see into. The wheel reveals what you actually bought only after the handshake. Might be a rug with deer on it. Might be the samovar. 28 vendors, each with a tell From a sweet granny on a stool by her gate to Himself - the man at the top who settles everything with a single phone call. The generous ones practically give things away if you'll just stay and chat; the misers will fight you for every kopeck, and any profit off them is pure skill. Many have signature moves: one digs in and won't budge a single ruble, another catches a second wind right at the finish line, a third jacks the price up mid-sentence. Every move telegraphs before it lands - learn the patterns, old boxing-arcade style. The shop grows; the chores shrink You start with three shelves in your own apartment. You end up running a hard-currency salon where customers pay in coupons, not cash. The steps in between can't be bought with money: the right people only deal in barter - bring them the things they want. Every tier means a wider storefront, better prices, and less busywork: your clerk stocks the shelves himself, and the wholesale buyer at the gate takes surplus stock straight off the cart. The escape plan Five links in the chain: a border guide to a bunk in a freighter's hold to genuine papers to a friend in the right office to a plane. The contacts are scattered across the city, and the ladder leads you from the village all the way to its most expensive quarters. Your payments never burn: when something goes wrong, the chain itself hands you the next contact. But the city isn't asleep either. First they take a fence you knew from the market. Then someone's been asking about you. Then someone came by while you were out… Make it, and the ending reads Escaped. Don't, and it reads In the name of the law. Cozy where it counts - A failed haggle costs energy, never money. Mistakes cost time, not progress. - Can't make rent? You simply move down a tier. The apartment stays free forever - no bankruptcy, no debt spiral, no game over. - Everything is earned at the counter, while you play - no offline timers to babysit. At a glance - A three-beat haggling minigame: the approach, the price battle, the reveal wheel - 28 boss vendors with temperaments - many with telegraphed signature moves - 240 unique items across 12 districts, from the sticks to the forbidden dachas - A five-tier shop of your own: storefront, barter deals, a clerk on the payroll - Three upgrade grids, 207 cells - chart your own route, no ruined builds - A five-link escape plan; the last link sells you a plane - A day/evening loop with an honest end-of-day ledger - 33 achievements A warm game about old things and the people selling them. It's just that the coziness comes with a countdown. Their junk. Your ticket out.