Kingpin

You start with $500 and a corner nobody wants. Buy stock, work the street, keep the crew paid. The police watch what you move. The rivals watch where you stand. Your own people watch the payroll.

Kingpin is a terminal game about building a drug empire one day at a time. Two cities, six products, and a growing number of people who want a cut. Everything after the first $500 is your fault.

Play

You need Go 1.26 and a terminal at least 80x24. Install and start:

git clone https://github.com/theclifmeister/kingpin.git
cd kingpin
go run ./cmd/kingpin

The first launch opens the new-run dialog for slot 1; esc shows the menu behind it. Choose a save slot with enter. An empty slot opens the new-run dialog: pick a character (a start and nothing more; a locked one shows the run that opens it), type a seed or leave it blank, and go. Any seed the game prints (up to 20 digits) replays that run. Daily at the foot of the list plays today's date as a seed, after a page that says so: the first attempt of a day is scored against your own history, a second is practice. An occupied slot takes you back to work.

Your first day needs four keys: b buy, s sell, n end day, ? help. On the dashboard, buy a little Weed. Pick the product, enter a quantity (h fills the field to half of what you can afford and hold), and choose once. Close the buy dialog with esc, then sell: pick the product, quantity, normal dial and once. Close the dialog. The sale is queued for tonight. Press n and read the morning report. You now know what sold, what you made, and how much attention it bought you. The normal dial every day is fatal inside two months: it needs lie-low days (l) whenever heat climbs toward the sting line.

Watch cash, stock and heat on the dashboard. The details beside the selected product show demand and the expected sale; below 100 columns, press space to see them. Buying stock does not sell it. A full stash and no order is a quiet night for everyone but your wallet.

Saves

The game saves at the end of every day; q saves and goes back to the menu (q there quits), and ctrl+s saves now. There are three slots in $KINGPIN_HOME, or your platform config directory under kingpin/: save1.gob to save3.gob. An old save.gob counts as slot 1. The menu shows each run's day, cash, city and save age. D empties a slot after asking; N starts over in the current slot, as the same character, after asking.

To skip the menu and open slot 2:

go run ./cmd/kingpin -slot 2

Older saves upgrade on load. A save from a newer build is refused.

Characters and the profile

Beside the saves sits profile.json: every run that ended, with its character, ending, score and days; what those endings unlocked; and the dailies. A character is a start: the Dealer is the run as it always was, the Cook begins with a chemist and meth on the ladder, the Bookkeeper (unlocked by ending as a businessman) with an accountant, the Ex-Cop (unlocked by vanishing) with a police scanner and the chief's temper known, the Dockhand (unlocked by reaching Distribution) on Bayport's Fish Market, the Heir (unlocked by taking the crown) with the old man's enforcer on Riverside, a stash spot, and a name the street already fears. Taking the crown also unlocks the Hard DA toggle: a law-and-order DA and a zealous chief on the first morning, never pinned. No simulation reads the profile or the character: the same seed and the same start play the same run whatever the profile says. A corrupt profile is set aside as profile.json.corrupt-<date> and a fresh one written beside it. The summary says where the run ranks among yours, and n there starts again as the same character.

Animation

The title screen resolves its block art, rests and plays again with another effect, the way Omarchy's screensaver loops effects over its logo: decrypt, print, wipe, slide, pour, rain, beams, burn, vhstape and matrix, never the same one twice running. Halfway through a decrypt:

               ██  ██  ████  ██  ██   ████╏  ┬qy²Û   Ƅä╚ķ  â╋  ┑┵
               ██ ██    ██   ███ ██  ██      ┋Ʊ  ƫ┺   łF   ŔĂñ ē┕
               ████     ██   ██████  ██ ██╤  ┇ŽNŅř    ┹▟   ƴ╻ĜĹƦ╺
               ██ ██    ██   ██ ███  ██  █à  ÷╌       Ɖ<   Ʊ ▖±┋
               ██  ██   ██   ██  ██  ██  ┇a  ▉Ļ       Ĉù   ŏ¾  Ɖź
               ██  ██  ████  ██  ██   ███Śĕ  ¿ƌ      "İ╹ŷ  ┽ě  îY

  ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
  ║ KINGPIN                                                                  ║
  ║                                                                          ║
  ║ a drug empire, one day at a time                                         ║
  ║                                                                          ║
  ║ ▸  Slot 1 · empty                                                        ║
  ║    Slot 2 · empty                                                        ║
  ║    Slot 3 · empty                                                        ║
  ║    Quit                                                                  ║
  ║                                                                          ║
  ║ ↑↓ pick  enter select  D delete  q quit                                  ║
  ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗