🏛️ The Auction
The Auction gives you a $100 budget and 10 mystery lots. All you get for each one is a single cryptic one-line hint whispered by the auctioneer. Some lots are genuine treasures worth millions. Some are cheese. You have to decide how much of your $100 to risk before you ever see what you are bidding on.
How to play
- Read the auctioneer's one-line hint for the current lot. That is all the information you get.
- Bid part of your $100 budget, use a quick-bid button, go All In, or skip the lot for free.
- Repeat across all 10 lots, keeping an eye on how much budget you have left.
- Watch each lot reveal its true identity, its real value, and its hidden minimum bid.
- You win a lot only if your bid met or beat its secret minimum bid; otherwise you miss it.
- See your final haul: total portfolio value, ROI, and how many of the 10 lots you won.
About the game
The item pool mixes real treasures with pure junk. Treasures include a Babe Ruth signed baseball, a lost Renoir painting, Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock guitar, Einstein's personal notebook, and an Apollo 11 flight manual, some worth millions. The trash pile hides Beanie Babies, a used candle, a lump of coal, a Pet Rock, and a wheel of gas station cheese.
Because winning depends on beating each lot's hidden minimum bid, over-bidding wastes budget you need for the next treasure, and under-bidding loses the lot entirely. Your score is return on investment: the total value of everything you won divided by everything you spent.
Your ROI earns a title, from 'Terrible Investor' and 'Not Bad' up through 'Sharp Eye', 'Auction Master', and 'Legendary Collector'. Every game is seeded, so you can share your exact auction and challenge a friend to beat your haul. It is free, with no sign-up and no downloads.