Economy
Three currencies, one counter and no money. Every wallet stays in its own browser, so there is nothing live to count: these numbers are worked out from the rules.
The currencies
Sardines
For playing
Playing: 5 for the first finish of a game’s daily, 1 for a new personal best (5 bests a day at most), 25 a day at most.
Up to 9,125 a year at the cap.
The Slopwright keeps a sea in a sardine tin. These are smaller.
Thimbles
For learning
Learning on the Slop Curriculum: 2 for a quiz passed, 3 for a lab passed, 5 for a pathway badge claimed, each counted once.
220 in the world, all told.
You wear one so the needle doesn’t win. There are only so many on the shelf.
Marbles
For finding
Finding things: one for every secret filed in your ledger. Nothing else pays in marbles.
26 in the world, one per secret.
Ferrule pays in marbles. So, it turns out, does everything else that hides.
They never exchange: no rate turns thimbles into sardines, because a rate would make one of them the real one. They never turn into the games’ own money either (buttons, gold, scrapings and coins stay in their games) and nothing turns money into them. There are no packs and nothing random.
The price list
| Item | For | Price | Casual | At the cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walnut theatre | A skin for the desk and Tinny | 80 sardines | 8 days | 4 days |
| Teacup | A skin for the desk and Tinny | 60 sardines | 6 days | 3 days |
| Diving bell | A skin for the desk and Tinny | 100 sardines | 10 days | 4 days |
| Chalkboard palette | A palette for Scroll | 40 thimbles | 18% of every thimble there is, about 8 modules passed | |
| Guestbook stamp sheet | Stamps for GeoCities guestbooks | 20 sardines | 2 days | 1 days |
| Slopoween stamp sheet | Stamps for GeoCities guestbooks (Slopoween) | 30 sardines | 3 days | 2 days |
| Ferrule, asleep on the counter | For this counter | 5 marbles | 5 of the 26 secrets found | |
Casual is 10 sardines a day: one daily finished and 5 new bests. The cap is 25. Prices are permanent once published; a price change would quietly rewrite everyone’s balance, so there aren’t any.
A year of sardines
So the sink is small. Everything on the counter costs 290 sardines, 40 thimbles and 5 marbles, and a casual year earns 3,650 sardines. After that they pile up in the tin, which is harmless: they buy nothing anywhere else, and nobody can see the pile but you. New stock, and every October’s, is the only drain.
Where they go
- The counter. The only thing that spends anything.
- Seasonal stock. Slopoween stamp sheet: on the counter in October, kept all year once taken. It comes back every year, so missing one isn’t final.
- Returns. Not a sink: anything goes back for its full price, any time, so nothing bought is lost.
- Nothing else. No fees, no decay, no expiry. A sardine earned in October is still a sardine in May.
Standing, which isn’t a currency
The world’s factions may one day keep a small file on you: how the household, the tin, the stock and the rest regard what you did in their games. That is designed, not built. When it is, it will be a record, not money: never spent, never bought, never lowered by shopping, never shown to anyone, and it will only ever add a greeting or a line, never take a door away. The wallet already keeps a slot for it.
The Sardine Reserve
Somewhere behind the stockroom is the Sardine Reserve, a single sealed tin with a brass plate. It sets no rates, because there are none. It answers no letters, because nobody has written. The plate says the tin is full, which is the only thing a reserve has ever needed to say.
Why there’s no economy site
Because there’s no economy to watch. Nothing about a wallet leaves the browser it lives in, so no total, average or chart of real wallets exists anywhere. If boards ever make anonymous totals of their own, they can have a page.