The Rug Racket is a hands-on restoration sim wrapped around a dark-comedy crime story. You inherit a failing rug-cleaning shop, a bench full of finicky tools, and somebody else's debt.

Every rug through the door is a puzzle of fiber, dye and heat. Every week, the family that holds your paper comes to collect. Get good enough, fast enough, and you buy your way out.

This isn't a one-click clean. Every rug is a five-stage job. Dust, colorfast-test, wash, rinse, extract & dry. Fibers that scorch, dyes that bleed, and stains that set permanently if you reach for the wrong tool or too much heat. Pull the grime back with your own hands and watch a ruined heirloom come back to life.

Inherit a failing business and build it into something. Court a roster of demanding customers, manage a three-axis reputation, weigh four upgrade branches, and survive an overhead curve that never stops climbing. Read the room. The Neurotic Collector won't tolerate a speck; the Art Conservator's antique will scorch if you so much as breathe steam on it.

You don't own this shop free and clear. They do. A weekly tribute, rising pressure across a three-act crime arc, police heat, enforcer visits, and a debt that compounds if you ignore it. Claw your way to the buyout and your independence...
...or fold, in any number of ways.

Special jobs flip the rules. The Flood leaves rugs soaking and breeding mold while your tools run at half power. The Stash is mob work with cash sewn into the pile. Clean it presentable, but dig too deep and you'll find what you were never supposed to see. Master restoration mode for the rugs that look beyond saving.

• A deep, tactile cleaning craft. 5 stages, real fiber/colorfast/heat rules, a point-of-no-return for the careless.

• A dark-comedy mob story across three acts, with a buyout win and multiple ways to fold.

• Push-your-luck special jobs: The Flood (mold) and The Stash (don't overclean).

• Build a business: customers, reputation, upgrades, events, and legendary moments.

• Restoration mode for the truly wrecked rugs.