you are the keeper

Welcome to Tidewick — a village on a stubborn headland where the tides run stranger than anywhere on the coast.

Captains pay you light dues for a guaranteed price: if the tide strands a ship below your mark, you buy her at the mark price — full pre-agreed money for a stranded ship. Her captain walks away paid despite the wreck. No captain is ruined on my watch. You are the coast's insurance, and the fee is paid the moment you sell the contract. (market words: you sold a put — the fee is the premium)

your mark on the tide gauge

Your lighthouse watches from the shore — what you actually set is a mark on the tide gauge (the pole at the left): the price you promise to pay if the tide strands her. Drag it low for safe, small dues, or up near the tide for rich, nervous ones. The tide is the ship's real price history. If it ends below your mark at the close of the crossing, she runs aground — and you buy her at the mark price, as promised. (your mark is the strike)

storms pay best — here's why

Watch the three circles in the sidebar: rough seas — how wild her price is actually swinging; scared captains — what they'll pay for cover compared with their usual year; near your mark — how close the tide runs to the line you'd promise.

When all three align, sell: the fee is the price of a captain's fear, and frightened captains pay the most for the very same promise. Calm water pays pennies for identical risk — same promise, same risk, less pay. Never sell your risk cheap.

put the spyglass away

The circles in the sidebar are your spyglass — training wheels. Real keepers put the spyglass away and read the weather itself: gathering clouds, driving rain, swelling waves, the storm glass filling, and the dues ticking up all tell you everything the circles do. (tap 🔭 in the sidebar to toggle)

buy back any time — at the sea's price

Mid-crossing you can buy the promise back and release the ship whenever you like. But the buy-back price is whatever the sea says it is: it depends on where the tide sits against your mark, how much crossing remains, and how wild the sky is — sometimes pennies, sometimes ruinous. (buying back the put)

Left alone, each sunrise quietly works for you: as the crossing shortens, the promise gets cheaper to buy back, and more of the fee becomes truly yours. (that daily earning is theta) The scoreboard shows dues kept, net of every buy-back — it never flatters you.

two promises: dues on one side, contracts on the other

A keeper is paid for carrying promises. The captain's guarantee promises a price: if the tide strands his ship below your mark, you buy her at the mark price — he walks away paid in full despite the wreck. The keeper is his insurance. (market words: selling a put)

The buyer's contract gives a merchant the rising tide — a mainland trader pays you a fee, yours to keep, for the right to buy your salvaged ship at an agreed price. If the tide favours her, he takes her at that price. Dues on one side, contracts on the other. The tide decides which promise gets called. (market words: selling a covered call)

Grounded ships are yours — you keep the vessel, no shame: keepers hold salvage rights. In Wickharbour Yard you sell a buyer's contract on them for more dues.

Promises like these are older than banks — farmers once agreed the price of their harvest before the seeds were even sown, so a bad year couldn't sink the farm. That simple handshake grew into today's options market.

🏘 the town chest builds Tidewick

The dues you raise are counted two ways: dues kept is your score — it never falls — and the town chest is what you can spend. In the village the chest raises the harbour wall, the bakery, the schoolhouse, right up to the great lens, and every one lights up the headland for good. Building spends the chest but never touches your score, so there's no reason to hoard. Keep the light; the town does the rest.

The top bar also shows the town's whole worth — the chest plus every salvaged ship at her worth today, all Tidewick owns in one number.

⌨ the keeper's hands

📋 the Watch & the Keepers' Board

Each dawn the village square posts the Watch — the same stretch of water for every keeper on the coast, worldwide. Keep it and your streak flame climbs; then hang the day's dues on the Keepers' Board and see where you stand against every other keeper who sailed the same tide today. Same waters, every keeper, every day — an honest board. No sign-up, just a name.

the goal

Empty docks, full pockets. The best keeper collects the most dues without ever meeting the ships. Every crossing is a real stock's real history — her name flies on the hull; her true colours print on the certificate. The dues she keeps feed Tidewick.

🔁 replay the welcome

Hear the founding tale again and re-run the guided first crossing, exactly as a brand-new keeper would. Your town chest, dues and wrecks stay untouched.