Capo

You take over a small business in a Prohibition-era city. Out front, the storefront (laundromat, restaurant, barbershop), earning slow, legal money. Out back, the backroom, paying a multiple and drawing attention.

One business becomes two, two become half a block where every building is yours and every one of them has a second door. And then you move on, to the next city, with a name that already opens doors there.

Because here the number has a price. In most idle games more income is simply better. There's never a reason to slow down. Here there is: every dollar out of the backroom costs you quiet.

That turns tapping into a question the game re-asks you every few minutes: is what's coming in enough? Or do you push? “Number goes up” becomes “manage the tension.” And that's a skill you can actually get better at.

Sunday night, with a wink. This is a gangster fantasy, not a crime drama: art deco, sepia, fat cigars, not a drop of blood. Your people don't break knees. They “have a conversation,” and afterwards the shopkeeper pays on time.

What gets smuggled is liquor. Someone in the back is taking numbers bets. The sheriff has a price, and it isn't in his employment contract.

The tension comes from the heat meter, not from a shock image. If you like the 1920s cliché, you're in the right place. If you want a study of organised crime, you're not.

Further than you think. That's the trap.

Let a backroom run too hot and the business goes into alarm. Clearly visible, no sucker punch. From there the game rolls against you, and the odds climb the higher the heat goes. And of course, right now that business is earning more than it ever has.

You can always get out: dial it down, bribe someone, cool off with a video. It costs you something every time. And every time, you do the maths on whether there's another ten seconds in it.

The good players run just below it. On purpose. For hours.

(And if it does land: one business, quiet for half an hour. That's all. Nothing here ever breaks.)

Everything on “hot,” because the number goes up so nicely.

It works, too. For about twenty minutes. Then half your businesses are in alarm at once, you can't bribe fast enough, and the first raid lands on exactly the one that was earning most.

The second-dumbest mistake is the overcorrection: everything on “clean,” never touch it again. Then nothing bad happens to you. Nothing else happens either.

At first: the Clean Operator. Careful, legal, clean. The rest of the cast is already waiting for you.

Every run after that adds a new avatar, six in all: from the daredevil who earns big and is always being noticed, to characters you only meet many runs in. Each time you also pick a doctrine: Cold Calculation, Steady Hand, Short Shrift and two more. None of them beats the others at everything.

The avatar doesn't just move numbers; it changes how the city feels. Familiar streets, an entirely different path through them.

Yes. And it's harder.

The legal ladder isn't won by earning the most. It's won by building the widest: many businesses, strong storefronts, a reputation nothing sticks to. At the top there's no godfather. There's the one who decides who becomes president.

The catch: storefronts pay badly. You will watch someone with half your empire earn twice your money, and decide, every evening, whether your clean name is worth it.

Nine kinds of goods, across three rarity tiers, from moonshine crates to dossiers. But only if you run balanced or hot. Play it safe, and you won't see a single crate.

Goods pile up while you're away, too, until the warehouse is full. Every city from the second on wants a particular kind delivered. Deliver, and you take more reputation with you when you move. Training costs goods, so do collectibles in the estate, and now and then the family asks for a delivery. Money you spend. Goods decide how far you get.

That's what managers are for: nine in all, but not all at once, and each one costs you something different.

At first you have exactly one: the Accountant. He keeps the books so clean nobody looks twice: earns less, sleeps better. In your second city the Enforcer joins, pulling in noticeably more, and attention too.

Waiting for your second run: the Cleaner, who tidies up behind you until nobody smells a thing, and the Captain, who stands at the door: with him there a raid is only half as likely, but he draws wages the whole time, however business is going. Who comes after that, we're not telling here.

Put them to work and your empire runs itself. Put them to work properly (the Accountant on your hottest business, the Captain where you get greedy), and it runs several times faster.

Then you move. Overnight. With everything you learned and none of what you built.

You can move once you've hit the city goal and earned enough. So you leave behind the laundromat you bought in hour one, get on a train, and in the morning you're standing in a city that doesn't know you yet.

Money, businesses and your soldiers stay behind. What comes with you: your reputation, your rank on the ladder, your people's training and the villa. In Ashport you started at zero. In Vermillion Bay, doors open before you knock.

Five cities in your first run. Then your next run begins in Ashport: as somebody else, stronger than the first time, up against cities that know you, and with one more city at the end of the line. Eight, once the whole map is open.

(Idle veterans know this as prestige.)

Nothing. No purchase, no paywall, no login. You hit install and a minute later you're behind the counter of your first laundromat.

It's paid for with ads you go and get, not ads that jump you: watch a video, double your offline earnings. Or end a running raid early.

One exception, named honestly: when you change cities there's an ad break you can't skip. That one can be removed with a purchase. The voluntary videos stay, because those actually give you something.

Never watch a single video and you still play the whole game. You just get rich slower, the way a clean boss gets rich slower.

There are exactly two optional purchases: the offer against the city-change ad mentioned above, and the premium side of the season pass. That one brings diamonds, which cut waits and raids short. You get diamonds without paying, too: for hitting goals, for videos, on the wheel of fortune. They can't be bought directly.

What there isn't: a purchase that plays the game for you. The tension dial isn't for sale. Neither is the decision about how far you go. Pay, and you move faster. Get good, and you go further.

Also: there's no real gambling. In the game the casino is a storefront like the laundromat, with no tables and no stakes. The wheel of fortune only turns on spins you earn by playing. They can't be bought, and it's never about real money.

Yes. Assign your managers, set everything to balanced, and the game runs without you. For a lot of people that's exactly the point: check in, collect, get on with your day.

But you'll leave money on the table. Managing actively and timing it yourself pulls noticeably more out of every business. Both ways work. They just build very different empires.

Earning, for up to four hours. Then the till is full and waiting for you. Your goods pile up until the warehouse is full.

While you're away, the game doesn't roll: no raids in your sleep. Heat climbs at most to just under the alarm threshold. One thing to watch: come back in the middle of a major raid and the threshold sits lower. So: dial first, collect second. And even if it lands then: one business goes quiet, nothing breaks. If you want, double your offline earnings with a video. You never have to.

Because every day six new jobs are on the table, drawn from more than thirty. Some push you somewhere you wouldn't otherwise go, like holding your heat high for a while without it blowing up. Finish four: one spin of the wheel of fortune. All six: two.

Plus a login streak that opens a weekly chest on day seven, a training that just finished. And a family that hasn't forgotten you still owe them.

The core is built and running: the economy, the storefront/backroom system, all eight cities and relocating, the career ladders, the goods, training, the wheel of fortune and daily jobs, the rivals, the estate and the headquarters. That's built, tested and playable.

What's left is mostly final polish: finished artwork for many images, the cities themselves among them, plus the tutorial. That's why there's no fixed date, and why you won't get promised one here that then doesn't hold.

What you can do instead: pre-register. Then there's nothing for you to remember. Play tells you when it's ready and installs it for you if you want.

Android first, via Google Play. Other platforms aren't ruled out, but they aren't confirmed. And until they are, nothing else will be claimed here.

No, you can start straight away with no login. Your save lives on your device. It doesn't depend on a server, and nobody can switch it off on you.

For changing phones there's an optional cloud backup you can switch on if you want. It's not required. You only need it if you want onto the leaderboard.

Yes. “Clean Money” was the working title it was built under. On Google Play and in the game itself it's called Capo: Idle Crime Tycoon. Same game, just the final name.