How to play

1. Make your character

1. Sign in, pick a username that is yours across every life, and confirm you are 18 or older.
2. Pick your look from six avatars, dress them (a top, a bottom and shoes, each in its own colours), and give them a first name and a surname.
3. Your background is rolled for you, with no re-roll: dbee (born wealthy, in East Legon) or ante naa (born poor, in Madina). It sets your home, your family, your starting money, your schooling and one trait.

Your life starts at 18.

2. Moving and doing things

• Tap the ground to walk there.
• Tap an object, a building or a player for what you can do with it. Tapping a building takes you to its door.
• Drag to look around and pinch to zoom. On a computer, the mouse does the same.

Actions take real time, always under 30 seconds on screen: eating takes a few seconds, a bath about twenty. You can line up to five actions and the game works through them in order.

3. Look after your needs

Your character has four needs: energy, hunger, hygiene and mood. They drop while you play. Eat, wash, sleep and enjoy yourself to keep them up.

• Each bar is green when it is fine, amber when it is getting low and red when it needs you now.
• A very low need slows everything down and cuts what you earn.
• Run out of energy and your character passes out where they stand for a short while, and wakes in a worse mood.

4. Money: cash, MoMo and the bank

You hold money in three places:

• Cash on hand, for street food and the market. Cash is the only money that can be stolen from you.
• MoMo, mobile money on your in-game phone. You can send it to another player by username, for a small fee.
• The bank, where savings earn a little interest. Move it to cash or MoMo at a bank counter. The bank also offers loans and insurance.

All of it is game money. It has no value outside the game and cannot be cashed out.

5. Find work

Open the Jobs app on your phone. Hustles start straight away and pay cash. A set job is one you apply for and choose where to work: it has its own start hour and work days, a one-hour shift, and pay at the end of every shift.

• Turn up: attendance is required, and missing shifts can cost you the job.
• Shifts build the job's skill, and skill, shifts worked and a good work score earn promotions up the job's ladder.
• Some positions need more: a degree, a course, a driving skill or a car of your own.

Longer paths take real play time: university, an apprenticeship with a master (mechanic, tailor, barber and more), a business of your own, land and building on it.

6. Get around Accra

The city has four areas: Madina, Osu, East Legon and Makola. Walk within an area. To go further, tap a station, a bus stop or a rank, or open the Ride app, and choose a trotro, a city bus, a taxi, an okada or a ride-app car. Each trip takes its real time and costs a real fare.

7. Your home

Your home is yours to furnish: buy furniture from the Home Store on your phone and place it in your room. Rent is charged for real, so keep up with it. A home's door is closed: other players come in only when you invite them, or when you accept their knock.

8. Living with other players

• Chat one to one, in groups, or out loud on the street, and post on the Board for your area.
• Trade, hire, work for and rent to each other.
• Block anyone, and report a player, a message or a post. Moderators read every report.
• New characters are protected from crime for their first hours, and theft between players is capped.

9. Time and your life

The clock is real Accra time for everyone. Your character ages only while you play: each year of age takes three and a half hours of play. When you log off, your character stays in the city and follows the routine you set, and a set job is worked while you are away. You get a summary of what happened when you come back.

A word on crime and betting

Both are in the game because they are part of real life, and both come with their consequences: police attention, arrest, bail, court, real-time prison and a record that stays. Betting odds are honest, so over time you lose. They are never the smart way to play. The steady paths take longer and they last.