Pastimes

Nerve and energy take time to come back. Pastimes → All games gives you something to do while you wait: three small games with no stakes, a score to beat and a small prize.

Free to play

• They cost nothing and risk nothing. There is no XP, no Gold, no Respect and no items, and nothing changes in the rest of your game.
• The menu opens at level 1, and each game has its own level (all open from level 1 at the moment).
• They stay open while you are in jail, in hospital or on the road: that is what they are for. See Jail and hospital.
• Only one round can be open at a time. Leave a round without handing it in and it simply runs out; or give it up yourself.

The three games

The Runner's Route. A bookie's runner learns a few addresses and drops a slip at each, in the same order. A board of nine addresses lights up one at a time; tap them back in the same order. Each run you get right is followed by a longer one, from 4 addresses up to 9. A wrong address costs a miss and you get a new run of the same length. 3 misses, or the clock (75 seconds), end the round. Every slip placed scores a point, and a whole run scores its length on top. Bronze from 30 points, silver from 60, gold from 90.

The Pier Shooting Gallery. A cork-gun gallery on the boardwalk. Tin ducks, bottles and a painted tin Don cross the lanes for about 45 seconds: click or tap a target to pop it. A duck is slow and scores 10, a bottle 15, and the Don, who is quick, 40. Your score is the points of the targets you pop. Bronze from 210, silver from 400, gold from 550. Cork guns and tin targets only: nothing is ever aimed at a person.

The Racket puzzle. The Evening Racket's puzzle of the day (The Evening Racket): one a day, the same for everyone who reads in your language, and it changes at midnight Vesper City time.

• Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday bring a cryptogram: a saying of the city in code, where every coded letter always stands for the same letter. 2 letters are given as a start. Type a letter under each coded letter.
• Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday bring an odd one out: 4 rounds of five words, one of which doesn't belong.
• You can check what you have so far, or ask for a hint (at most 3 per puzzle). A wrong check counts as a mistake and a hint costs too, but you can always carry on.
• A solved puzzle is worth 100 points less 10 for each mistake and 15 for each hint. Any solve is bronze, silver from 70 points, and gold is a clean solve: no mistakes and no hints.
• You have 1 hour to finish it, and you can leave and come back to it the same day. You only get one result a day: giving up or running out of time counts as a day without a solve.

Cash prizes

• Prizes are small and depend on your score, never on how long you play. Bronze, silver and gold pay 0.04%, 0.08% and 0.12% of a day's income at your level (the same in the other games unless the page says otherwise).
• Cash starts at level 3, once your account is 2 days old and past the checks. Before that you play for the score and the board.
• After a paid round, a round that finishes within 2 minutes counts for your score only.
• There is a daily limit for each game, as a share of a day's income at your level: 0.6% for the Runner's Route, 0.6% for the Gallery and 0.3% for the Racket puzzle, and 2% for all three together. After it, play on for your score: it carries on tomorrow. The game page tells you how much it has paid today. Linked accounts count as one.

Boards and medals

Each game has a weekly board (Monday to Sunday): the best score of each player this week, the top 25. The Racket puzzle's board ranks the longest streaks of days in a row solved, never the fastest solves. You can keep your name off the boards: tick Keep me off the Pastimes boards in your Account. Your own scores are still kept. A streak of puzzle days also earns the Regular Reader medal (Respect and medals).

Mouse and touch only

Click or tap to play. The keyboard doesn't shoot in the Gallery and doesn't play in the Runner's Route. The one exception is the Racket cryptogram, where you type the letters.

Fair play

The server decides everything: your page only sends what you did and when, never a score. A round whose timings no person could make is thrown out: it scores nothing, pays nothing and stays off the board, and staff get a note to look at it. Nobody is banned automatically for it. A round handed in far too late doesn't count either. Play normally and none of this will ever touch you.

Tips

• Waiting for nerve or a sentence to run down? Start a round: it is what the games are for.
• In the Gallery, the quick Don is worth the most, but a missed shot costs nothing.
• With the puzzle, take your time: no hints and no mistakes is gold.