Trash N’ Treasure
MVP Prototype · Casual Management Strategy
Train, recruit, and breed raccoons. Send them out into the hood. Get rich and stronk. Expand.
Concept
You are the boss raccoon — the OG who clawed your way out of the dump and built a crew. From a hidden storm-sewer hideout under the city, you train, recruit, and dispatch specialized raccoons to raid the neighborhoods above. Manage the operation from scavenged stations in the tunnels, raid by night, train and expand by day.
Visual Style
First-person, low-poly 3D, played from raccoon height — low camera, paw hands visible at the bottom of the screen. The home base is the storm sewer system under the city: concrete tunnels, ambient drip, graffiti, strung Christmas lights and lanterns, alcoves piled with stolen junk. Stations are scaled to raccoon size and built from scavenged human trash, placed freely throughout the hideout. Crews leave on raids by climbing up through storm drains into the streets above; the player can pull up an overhead city view to watch raccoon crews moving through the streets in real time.
Core Loop
- Choose raid target — scout the neighborhood, pick your mark; night raids are safer
- Prep your team — assign raccoons, equip gear, set roles
- Send them off — crew travels as a group at average Speed; watch them on the city map
- Raid encounters — at 50% loot progress, an encounter may trigger; player can rush to the Raid Board and dispatch backup raccoons in real time
- Intake the loot — returning crews drop their haul; sort, scrap, or sell
- Upgrade / train / craft / expand — improve your crew and base
- Repeat — milestones and quests drive longer-term progression
→ Core Loop · Loot Intake
Raccoon Units
Every raccoon has a type that defines its role in the operation. Raid types go out on missions — each one covers a different job the crew needs done in the field. Home-base specialists stay behind and run stations, turning raw loot into value. New types unlock through milestones as the operation grows.
Each raccoon has five stats (1–100) — Speed, Stealth, Strength, Cunning, Luck. Stats have three layers: base (set at spawn or birth, immutable), training (permanent bonuses from sessions), and gear (additive while equipped). All systems read current stats (base + training + gear). Breeding reads inherited stats (base + training, no gear) — see below.
Training & Breeding
- Training costs trash; each session adds a permanent bonus to one stat (stacks on base, doesn’t replace it)
- Breeding costs trash and food; per stat, offspring base = random in the window between both parents’ inherited stats (base + training). Well-trained parents produce stronger offspring
- Gear — one slot per raccoon, additive bonus to one stat while equipped. Crafted at the Gear Bench from scrap. Does not factor into breeding
→ Training and Breeding · Gear · Raccoon Stats
Raid Targets
Every target is reached by climbing up through the nearest storm drain — the sewer network is the crew’s highway under the entire city. A small spread across homes, shops, and city spots. Every raid returns trash by default; each location just shifts the odds on what else the crew brings back. Nothing is guaranteed — locations are probability biases, not fixed loot tables.
Crews travel as a group at their average Speed. Looting speed is driven by a weighted stat formula per target — different locations bottleneck on different stats. The Dump is a Strength job; Rich Neighbor rewards Stealth and Cunning. When a target refreshes after cooldown, weights jitter within a variance range and renormalize, so the same location plays slightly differently each cycle. See Raid Resolution for the full model.
Average Home · Rich Neighbor · Grocery Store · Electronics Store · The Dump · Back Alley · Animal Control HQ (boss)
Raid Encounters
Max one encounter per raid, probabilistic — most raids have none. At 50% loot progress, crew Stealth and Scout presence determine whether trouble finds them. When an encounter triggers, the raid pauses and the player has a real-time window to rush to the Raid Board and dispatch backup raccoons. Daytime raids double encounter chance (see Game Clock). Fail consequences are lethal: aggressive dogs kill crew members; animal control captures them.
MVP encounters: aggressive dog · animal control. Post-MVP: triggered alarm · nosy neighbor · bonus stash.
→ Raid Encounters · Encounters MOC
Stations
All stations follow a universal operation model: baseline of 1 (player-operated), assigned raccoon adds stats on top, capped upgradeable storage. This is the mechanical instantiation of the Delegation Is Progression pillar.
Raid Board · Training Corner · Loot Sorting Station · Scrapping Station · Gear Bench · Upgrade Desk · Online Sales · Pantry · Breeding Pen
→ Stations MOC · Station Operation Model
Economy
Five resources, all sourced from raids: Trash (plentiful, XP-like), Currency (scarce hard money), Scrap (build/craft inputs), Food (daily upkeep consumable), Valuables (convert-to-cash items). Plus rare Legendaries.
Food is the load-bearing constraint: raccoons must eat, food costs currency, currency only comes from selling valuables, and valuables only come from running raids.
Progression
Milestones and quests layer over the core loop — short-term targets (first 5 raids, unlock a new unit type) and longer arcs (raid Animal Control HQ) that give players direction beyond the loop itself.
MVP Build Schedule
10 blocks, ~17 working days. Each block is independently testable and leaves the prototype playable.
MVP units: Scout (start), Hauler (after first mission), Distractor (milestone-gated).
MVP stations: Raid Board, Training Corner, Loot Sorting Station, Online Sales (simplified), Pantry, Gear Bench, Upgrade Desk.
MVP raids: Average Home, The Dump, Grocery Store, Rich Neighbor.
MVP simplifications: Valuables auto-convert to currency at Online Sales (flat rate, no listing mechanic). No Keep/Scrap routing — Scrapping Station and Scrapper are post-MVP. No appraisal hints (Sorter) or sale execution (Fence). Food Pantry/Sell routing is the only intake decision.
Stretch (post-MVP): Lookout/Climber units, Scrapper/Scrapping Station + Keep-Scrap routing, Sorter/Fence + appraisal gamble, full Online Sales listing mechanic, Animal Control HQ boss raid, Back Alley + Electronics Store targets, breeding system, decor/hoarding layer.