DimeTown beginner's guide: your first night and your first $1,000

You start DimeTown with $120. The five-step tutorial pays another $70. A few street jobs teach you the city, and freight runs out of Port Vance pay a new driver $115 to $235 a load. Bank your cash at any ATM, because pickpockets can only take what you're carrying. Every wage, price and payout below comes from the game's code as it stood on 4 Oct 2026. New to the game itself? Start with how DimeTown works.

How do I start playing DimeTown?

Open /play/ in a browser. Before your first character you'll see a rules card with three lines: adults only (18+); the locals run on AI, so what you type is read by Jev (TypeSafe) and OpenAI; and zero tolerance for hate, harassment and sexual content, with a report or block option on anyone's name. Press I'm 18+ and I agree.

Then name your character (3 to 22 characters: letters, spaces, hyphens and apostrophes), pick a side, press New look until you like the face, then press Hit the streets. Everyone starts with $120 cash, 100 health and 100 energy.

Which role should I pick: hustler, cop or citizen?

Your role adds dice bonuses, gives you two signature moves (+1 on the dice) and picks the mentor who texts you through a five-step crash course.

Each course pays $45 across its steps, plus $25 when you finish: $70 in all. A pink arrow points at the next objective, and the ✕ on the tracker skips the course. For pure earning, citizens have a small edge. Working a shift rolls on Luck, so a citizen gets +2 on that roll: +1 from Luck and +1 for the signature move.

What are the controls on desktop and phone?

M mutes the sound, and the ♪ button sets the music and effects volume.

What's on the phone?

Press P. The phone has four tabs:

• Texts: ask Dino's Diner, Velvet Vera or Foreman Gus for work and the reply comes with a waypoint. You can text players too (/sms Name: text). A $45 burner phone from Mr. Park unlocks Weasel ($5 tips on who's carrying cash) and Nitro Nina's night races.
• Guide: the City Guide, with sections for Happening now, Jobs, Training, On the street, Cars and Around the island. Every entry has Set waypoint.
• Wallet: cash, bank, pockets (sellable finds, tickets) and your record.
• Settings: blocked players, the rules, and deleting your character.

Payphones ($1 a call) reach the same bosses, plus a tip line and a gossip line.

How do energy, health and the bank work?

Energy runs from 0 to 100. Jobs and training use it (a bar shift costs 6, the bench press 14). You get 1 point back every 12 seconds while you're idle. An $8 burger at Dino's gives +26, and a $15 bed at the Palms Motel fills you up. Below 20 you get −1 on physical actions, and training XP is halved.

Health is 100. Hit 0 and you're downed. Someone has 20 seconds to help you up, or you bleed out and the character is gone for good. That's permadeath, and the next character starts from $120 again.

Cash and bank. Players and NPCs can steal the cash you carry, but they can't touch your bank. ATMs at the 24/7, the Lucky 7, Iron Mike's and the Gas'n'Go take deposits and withdrawals with no fee.

How do I make money fast in DimeTown?

Street jobs: the Velvet Room, Dino's and Grove Freight

At the bar, pour each bottle to its line, add the garnish and serve. A shift is five customers, each a little less patient than the last. Whatever you type counts as small talk with the customer in front of you, and Jev judges whether it's worth a tip. Tips come from the customer's pocket, capped at 15% of their cash.

Deliveries go to a real NPC somewhere in the city, and they wait where they are. Par is a running-pace trip through the streets plus 18 seconds. Arrive in about half of par and you get the full $16 tip. Arrive at par and it's about $9.

Packing is a puzzle: fit every crate, and keep the FRAGILE ones upright. The server checks every cell, so a container sealed suspiciously fast pays nothing.

Freight trucking at Port Vance

The dispatch board shows four contracts, refreshed every three minutes. Take a tractor (F), back it under the trailer, follow the GPS, then reverse into the painted bay and hold still. A new driver hauls general freight to the Grove Freight back dock ($115), Dry Creek Feed & Seed ($165) or the Harlan grain co-op ($190): the pay formula ($45 plus 50 cents per tile of road) run on the current map.

Delivering inside 80% of par adds 12%. Parking adds up to 25%, scaled by how straight and snug the trailer sits. Lateness and damage cut it (never below $10). Three deliveries make you tier 2: 15% more pay, plus fragile, heavy and "no questions asked" loads, which get you a wanted star 60% of the time. Hazmat comes at 8.

Bets: golf, the hoop, blackjack, slots and the lottery

These are fun, but most of them lose money on average.

• Golf at Sawgrass Hills: $25 green fee, skins from $10 to $100 a hole. Chip the pro plays for $25 a hole; Lefty plays for $50 and is rusty for three holes, then sharp.
• The hoop at the Projects is free. Bet Buckets $5 to $50 on 3 in a row (2 to 1) or 5 in a row (5 to 1).
• Blackjack at the Lucky 7: bets from $5 to $500, six decks, the dealer stands on 17, and blackjack pays 3:2. Vinnie bans cheats for three minutes.
• Slots: $1 to $25 a pull. The base game returns about 91% (enumerated from the reel strip); only $10+ bets win the full jackpot.
• Lottery: $5 at Mr. Park's 24/7, drawn at 7:00 and 19:00 game time (every 12 real minutes). One digit in place pays $5, two pay $25, three win the pot (from $250). At the base pot a ticket returns about $2.14.

A $1 coin in the Grove Square fountain buys luck (5 minutes in the basin, 10 in the cup, stacking to 15): bar and delivery tips ×1.25, busking tips ×1.5, and better dumpster finds.

What's a realistic route to the first $1,000?

The route below is computed from the current pay values. It assumes decent but not perfect play: 80% pour accuracy with friendly small talk, deliveries at par, one full container packed in half the time limit, and freight parked at 60% with no damage. Tips depend on what NPCs are carrying, so expect some drift.

Then walk to an ATM and bank it.

What should I be careful about on my first night?

• Wanted stars. Crimes add stars, up to five. Cops chase wanted people, and an arrest means 60 seconds in a cell. With no new offences, one star drops every 2.5 minutes. Witnesses call it in, so pick your moments.
• Permadeath. Fights are real. Don't start one at low health, and help up anyone you see downed.
• Carry less. Keep what you need in your pocket and the rest in the bank.

Once you have money and a reputation, the big scores are heists. See how to pull off a heist in DimeTown.