Everybody's Acre¶

Civilization

Every yard of it is somebody's. The stake says whose, and what they want for it.

At a glance
Kind of world	Civilization
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	None: bring spare Serum
Quests	None

Screenshot comingeverybodys-acre-lots

From high above the square: a grid of tiny fenced lots to the horizon, each with a different odd house, streets and alleys between them

What happens when you arrive¶

Your Box lands on a paved square in a flat world cut into tiny lots from horizon to horizon. Every one of them is already somebody's. Each owner built one odd thing on theirs (a tower, a bottle house, a dome, a boat on blocks), and each stands at their own gate. A stake at the front of every lot says whose it is and what they want for it.

Beside the Box is the Deed Office, which keeps the books. You are told where it is when you arrive.

The rule: lot lines are real¶

You can only build or break on a lot you hold. Everything else is somebody's, and nothing on it moves for you.

Where	Can you build?
A lot you own	Yes, up to 20 blocks over the ground (40 with a Variance).
A lot you rent, while the rent is paid	Yes, the same. When the rent lapses, you can't build there until you pay again.
Anyone else's lot	No.
Streets, sidewalks, alleys and the square	No: they belong to the County. (Lane Rights lets you build on the path and curb right beside your lot.)

There are no monsters and no danger here. Beds work ("a rented room is a room"). The Acre is a place to buy land, build on it, and make it earn.

The Acre's layout¶

Streets seven blocks wide (sidewalk, road, sidewalk) run in a grid.
Each block between them holds two rows of lots back to back, each lot 12 to 20 blocks wide and 24 deep, with a three-wide alley between the rows that every back gate opens onto.
About one block in three is an estate: one big lot 28 to 36 wide with a whole city building on it. An estate costs three times as much, and its owner wants three times as much.
Every ordinary lot has its owner's house (one of thirteen plans, painted in the owner's colours), a walk, a flower bed, a tree, a garden, a tool shed, a mailbox, sometimes a driveway.
The lot just east of the square is in probate: nobody owns it.

Screenshot comingeverybodys-acre-stake

A lot's stake by its gate, its sign screen open showing the owner's nickname, their want and the Credits price

Buying a lot¶

Walk up to a lot's stake (or talk to its owner at the gate). It shows the owner, the lot's nickname, what they want, and the price. You have two ways to pay:

The thing they want. About six owners in ten want a good from another world (8 to 16 of a common one, 3 to 6 of an uncommon one, 1 or 2 of a rare one). The rest want something anyone could make or find, such as a cake, 64 glass bottles, a jukebox, 16 books, 12 lanterns, two golden apples, a spyglass, a clock, a compass, a music disc or a TV. This is always the better deal.
Threshold Credits: three times what their want is worth at the Port Threshold Exchange today (at least 20).

One owner in ten never sells, whatever you offer.

You get a Lot Deed for every lot you buy: it shows the lot's number and nickname. Lost one? The Deed Office reissues it.

Haggling¶

Once a day per lot you can ask an owner to come down. How it goes depends on their patience:

Owner	Chance they come down	If they refuse
Patient	60%	Nothing changes.
Even-tempered	35%	Nothing changes.
Impatient	15%	The price goes up.

Each win takes a tenth off; each sour refusal adds a tenth. It never goes below half. Logging out doesn't reroll the day's answer.

The probate lot¶

The lot east of the square has no owner. The Deed Office will:

Rent it to anyone for 4 Credits a day, by the day or by the week, if nobody else holds it.
Sell it outright, cheap: a quarter Credit for each square block of it (at least 20 Credits).

It is the easiest place to start building.

The Deed Office¶

The desk on the square:

Shows what you hold, and how many days of rent you have left.
Buys goods from other worlds at the Exchange's price of the day.
Reissues lost deeds.
Sells permits for lots you own outright.
Its notice board lists the 24 nearest lots and what their owners are after.

Screenshot comingeverybodys-acre-office

The Deed Office on the square, its notice board of wants, and the County's Shredder nearby

Permits¶

Each permit is stamped on one lot you own. An estate pays three times the price.

Permit	Credits	What it does
Greenhouse Permit	40	The County's gardeners feed the crops on the lot: they grow about four times as fast.
Harvest Bot Permit	120	A County harvest bot works the lot: it picks what is ripe, replants it, and fills any chest on the lot.
Sprinkler Permit	30	Farmland on the lot never dries, rain or none.
Variance	60	Build to forty blocks over the ground instead of twenty.
Lane Rights	50	The path and curb columns against the lot are yours to build on too.
Own Shredder	90	A Shredder of your own, handed over at the desk; another at half price if you lose it.
Night Stall Permit	80	A customer calls at dusk and buys the world goods in the lot's chests at half again the Exchange's price, paid in Credits into the chest.
Homing Stake	25	Anywhere on the Acre, use the lot's deed to be at its gate.

Screenshot comingeverybodys-acre-harvest-bot

The County harvest bot, a box on four wheels with a blade on a mast, cutting wheat on a player's lot

Making Credits¶

Threshold Credits are the Acre's money, the same coin as Port Threshold.

The Shredder on the square: right-click it with any stack and it chews it for a couple of seconds and pays you. A good from another world fetches the Exchange's price of the day. Anything else is scrap: a whole stack of scrap is worth one Credit, counted up across feeds. Click with an empty hand to read your scrap total. It won't eat a deed or Credits.
Sell goods at the Deed Office desk.
Farm and sell: a Greenhouse, Sprinkler and Harvest Bot lot runs itself, and a Night Stall sells what you leave in its chests.

Serum and getting home¶

The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
The Acre has no native Serum ingredient. Bring your own, or buy a plot here and keep a lab on it.

Tips¶

Read the notice board before you travel. If a neighbour wants a good from a world you are about to visit, bring back enough to pay for the lot in goods instead of Credits.
Haggle with the patient owners every day; leave the impatient ones alone.
Rent the probate lot for a day to try out a build before you buy anything.
Pay rent ahead by the week: a lapsed rent locks you out of your own build.
Your Homing Stake deed is the fastest way back to your lot from the Box.

Somewhere else entirely: The Lot¶

Not to be confused with your lot here. On your travels you may meet the Driver, a stranger with a white van. If he runs you down, he drags you into the van, and you wake in the Lot, his little world of flat waste under a moonless midnight: a fenced yard with a concrete shed and a cell, his trailer office, junk to hide behind, a few lanterns, and the van by the gate. No door leads there. Every taken player gets a yard of their own.

Escape the Lot (spoilers)

Step	What to do
1	Search the cell (the barrel hides a Bent Nail) and read the wall.
2	Work the cell lock with the nail four times, while he is more than about 12 blocks away. If he hears it, he shouts it all undone.
3	Find the Van Keys in his trailer, through the front door or the back one off the dark alley. Keep to the dark between the lamps: there he sees you at about 7 blocks instead of 14, and less while you sneak. Once a round he sits by the fire with his back to the yard: that is your chance.
4	Get to the van and drive it out through the gate. Setting off a car alarm on a wreck draws him away to look.

Being seen doesn't catch you at once: it fills his suspicion, faster the closer you are. If he gets his hands on you, or you hit him, you are back in the cell and the keys are back in his chest, but you keep the nail. The van drives itself through a wormhole and leaves you at the arrival Box of the world he took you from.

To avoid the trip altogether: when his van comes at you, step aside at the last moment, or get somewhere a van can't go. After a minute he gives up.

Everything this world adds¶

1 blocks and items (click to open)

Lot Deed

The traveler's tape¶

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

Flat to every horizon and all of it staked out. The lots are tiny, five and six paces across, and every one has something strange built on it: a tower of clapboard, a house of bottles, a boat up on blocks with a door cut in the hull. A number on a stake at each gate, and under the number what the owner wants for the place. Not money, mostly. Sixteen books. A clock. Eight honey bottles. One woman wants a television and will not say why. Credits work too, at three times the price, and the Deed Office on the square has a board of who wants what. The lot in probate rents by the day. I have slept there twice. I am saving for the leaning one.