A gaslit saleroom in the 1930s. Rival dealers, lots you can't fully judge, and twenty-two seconds to decide what something is worth.

Buy well and your collection makes your name. Buy badly and you find out at the appraiser's desk.

BID

Three kinds of sale rotate through the house:

• Standard — every bid is on show. Read the room and raise.

• Blind — the price is hidden. Raise without knowing what the last bid was, and learn what you paid only once it's yours.

• Dutch — the price falls every second. Claim it before someone else does.

Raise by 10% or 25%, pass, or go All In.

Two rival dealers bid against you, and you won't know how hard they intend to push until the lots start moving.

INSPECT

Every antique is a real 3D object. Pick it up, turn it in the light, zoom right in on the glaze, the gilding, the chip someone once tried to hide.

Rarity stays hidden while the lot is on the block. Your eye is the only edge you get.

APPRAISE

Two appraisals between sales, so choose carefully. Each one reveals the true rarity — Common through Legendary — what the piece is genuinely worth, and a sell quote you can take or refuse.

COLLECT

• Display pieces to earn prestige — a Legendary is worth 30× a Common

• Complete overlapping collection sets for a bonus

• Buy more floor space as you can afford it

• Reach 150 prestige to win the run

Only what's on display counts. Everything in the back room is just stock.

SURVIVE

Borrow from the moneylender at 20% and hope you can cover it. Climb from the Local house to the City and Elite rooms, where the lots are better and the rivals are richer.

Go bankrupt and the collection is broken up and sold off — but the archive keeps every piece you ever displayed, across every run you ever play.

• Antiques modelled as real 3D objects — lift them, turn them, look closely

• Standard, Blind and falling-price Dutch sales

• Overlapping collection sets that reward planning several lots ahead

• 3 auction houses of rising stakes

• 5 grades of rarity, hidden until appraised

• A persistent archive that survives every bankruptcy