Second-Hand Shop: Fix & Sell

For forty years your grandfather, Rıza Usta, fixed radios and record players in a little shop in Istanbul's Tahtakale market. Now the shop is yours. There's just one catch: you owe Mr. Hüsnü, the landlord, ₺6,000 in back rent. Pay an instalment every week for four weeks, or the shutters come down for good.

BUY: SPOT THE HONEST ONES
Five visitors walk in every day. Sellers bring their goods; some are honest, some mumble that "it worked yesterday". Run a power test, find the fault, take a closer look: a missing screw, a burnt smell or a freshly painted back panel might be telling you something. Some sellers won't let you test at all. It's your call. Try knocking 10% or 20% off, but push too hard and the seller walks out.

REPAIR: BY HAND
Five item families, nine faults, each with its own little repair game: plug in a cable, swap fuses and valves, thread a drive belt, clean a tape head or a lens, and solder a capacitor onto a TV board. Fix the same fault three times to master it and unlock quick repair. In later weeks, some items arrive with two faults at once. Restore a dusty piece to good condition. Tune in a radio you've fixed, or play a record.

SELL: KNOW YOUR NUMBERS
Show a buyer something from your shelves and make one counter-offer. You can also sell a broken item honestly, as it is. Deliver orders on time to build your reputation. The better your name, the bigger your customers' budgets and the more often collectible pieces turn up.

SOMETHING NEW EVERY WEEK
Start with radios; record players, cassette players, tube TVs and cameras unlock along the way. Buy a bench lamp, a multimeter, a parts rack, a display window and a new sign, and grow to six shelves. Flea markets, power cuts, collector days, parts price hikes, rainy days and street festivals change the day's sums. Every Monday the Tahtakale Post brings the local news, and a tear-off calendar shows what's coming. Evenings bring tomorrow's news at the kahvehane, cheap parts from the wholesaler or tea with a regular.

FAMILIAR FACES
Kemal, who is moving away to live near his daughter. Nermin, looking for her mother's radio. Selim, the street trader who haggles over every word. Zehra, selling her late husband's cameras. Aylin, opening a café; Deniz, a vinyl lover; Mr. Murat, a collector; Elif, a film student; and Burak, on a student budget. Each one has a short story that plays out across your counter, and every one of them is fully voiced. Your regulars' notebook remembers who wants what.

YOUR PACE
Pick a mode when you open a new shop. Relaxed gives you five weeks, smaller instalments and a bench lamp from day one. In Master, the first missed instalment closes the shop, there's no restarting the day, and sellers lie more often.

WRITE YOUR OWN ENDING
Clear the debt and make a name for yourself in the neighbourhood, or watch the shutters come down. After the debt, life goes on: Mr. Hüsnü offers to sell you the building. Pay the Sunday rent, save up for the deed and open the shelves upstai