The Gym
DisciplineSix things to train at and an open competition to enter. Hit the power window — perfect reps sit in the middle third and count double. Six missions, and the Discipline Mark is the sixth.
How to Play
You arrive in Pons City with a basic apartment, a little City Cash and no reputation. The Gym, Bar and Casino are real locations inside one connected world — walk to them, walk into them, and play their missions standing in the room.
Six things to train at and an open competition to enter. Hit the power window — perfect reps sit in the middle third and count double. Six missions, and the Discipline Mark is the sixth.
Six things to do and a room full of people who remember you. Pour the order, read the mood, take the stage. Six missions, and the Connection Mark is the sixth.
Seven games on a real floor, from the slot wall to a sit-and-go. Six missions, and the Risk Mark is the sixth.
Every venue is a room you enter, not a menu you open. Press E at the beacon and the door takes you inside.
Coach Brava, Sera and The Dealer stand in their own rooms. Talking to one of them opens that venue’s mission list.
Everything is played where it happens — the bench press, behind the counter, at the felt. The camera dollies in and the controls dock to the bottom of the screen.
Citizens keep moving, lights keep pulsing and the chat keeps scrolling while you play. Only you are held still.
Press E at the interior door and you step back onto the street, outside the door you came in by.
Six things to train at, all reached the same way: walk up, press E. Free play pays City Cash and nothing else — Strength comes from missions and from the open competition.
The power window, with a weight to pick. Heavier plates narrow the window and pay more.
The bar loads heavier every lift and one failure ends the set. Rack it while you are ahead — this is the Gym’s press-your-luck.
Four stations, one clock, and the clock keeps running while you walk between them.
A combo is called, then you throw it on the beat. Miss the rhythm and the chain drops.
Hold the rate the coach calls. Drift out of the band and the split time collapses.
They telegraph, you guard or counter. The tells are fixed and personality-specific — learn them and you stop getting caught.
An entry fee in City Cash, a field of eight and a purse for the top three. The board rotates on a fixed schedule.
Six things to do, and the people are the point. Talking well raises your standing with somebody; standing is what makes them ask you for a favour; doing a favour is how you meet the next person. Nobody in this city is reachable from the street alone — you are introduced, or you never meet them.
Watch the order, remember the order, pour the order. A clean shift tips better.
Talk. Read their mood off their posture, pick the right register, build standing. Wrong register costs you.
Four lanes, one house set. Accuracy pays and the streak pays more.
501 down against somebody who plays here often. Lock the bed, then lock the depth.
Angle and power, best of three frames.
Seat them, take the order, run the drinks, clear the table. Four things are due at once and you can only be in one place.
A favour left hanging goes quiet and the person cools off — temporarily, always. Walk back over, talk to them, and it is on the table again. There is no door in Pons City you can close on yourself. Your standing with everybody is in the pause menu under Standing, and it goes on the claim record.
The floor is a real casino, not a menu of minigames. Walk up to a table, press E, agree a buy-in and sit down. The camera dollies to your seat, the controls dock to the bottom of the screen, and the cards, chips and reels are all really there in front of you. Press Escape to fold and stand up.
Three cabinets, five reels, ten fixed lines. Each one prints its real return to player on the marquee — 94 to 95 percent, computed from the reels themselves.
One card each. A tie asks the only question in the game: surrender half, or match your bet and go to war.
Jacks or Better, nine-six. Five coins unlocks the royal bonus, which is the only reason to play five.
Six-deck shoe, dealer stands on soft seventeen, blackjack pays three to two. Split to four hands, double after split.
Ante and play, with Pair Plus on the side. The dealer needs queen high to play their hand.
Punto banco with the full third-card table. Banker wins pay after five percent commission, and the big road on the wall tracks the shoe.
Six-max no-limit. Blinds, a moving button, side pots and a showdown — against six opponents who each play their own way.
High-limit blackjack and the final table. The rope comes down when the floor decides you belong on the other side of it.
Table limits rise with Nerve, so the floor grows as you earn it. Free play moves City Cash and nothing else — no attributes, no reputation, no Marks — in every venue, and each room closes you out once you are far enough ahead for one night: the cage colours you up, the coach sends you home, the Bar calls last orders.
The Gym has an equipment counter and the Bar has a cosmetics machine. Equipment helps in the Gym and the Bar by at most eight percent — a slightly wider window, a little more grace on a combo — and nothing you buy anywhere touches a Casino outcome, a paytable, a shuffle or an opponent’s decision. Some pins are not for sale at all; they are given, and only to somebody who earned them.
Strength, Social and Nerve come from their own venues. Reputation connects everything, and it rewards a complete life — a player who only lifts will still be turned away from the rooms that matter. City Cash comes from missions and from notes lying around the streets; it is separate from the token entirely.
Finishing a venue storyline awards its Mark. Holding all three unlocks The Pons Run — one sequence from the Gym, through the streets, into the Bar and ending at the Casino. Completing it generates a completion record, and that record unlocks the token claim. Marks cannot be bought, and owning tokens never improves Casino odds or Strength.
Concept build. No transaction is ever sent, and the Casino uses game credits only.