Season One · Clips · Opens Oct 25
This is a paper clip.
Right now, it’s all you’ve got.
In Hand is a trading game where you only ever hold one thing. Offer it to another player, one for one, for something better. Then do it again. And again.
No. 4477
T3
Red Paper Clip
HOLO
Looking for
blue · T4+ · trading up
Held 2 days · Held by 9
One object
You hold exactly one item. Taking something new means giving up what you have. There is no stash to fall back on.
No chat. No haggling.
There is no chat and no bidding. You offer your item for theirs. They accept, decline, or let it expire. Just the trade.
A permanent record
Every trade is public and cannot be undone. Every item shows the list of everyone who has held it.
The trailer
From a paper clip to a lighthouse.
One item at a time, one trade at a time. Here's what a season of In Hand looks like.
How it works
Then do it again · and again
01
Make an offer
Browse what other players are holding and offer your item for theirs, one for one. They see the two items, the tier difference, and nothing else. One offer, answered or ignored.
02
Answer before it expires
An offer lasts 48 hours, then expires. You can have up to 15 offers on your item and 5 offers out at once, so ignoring the bad ones is part of the game. Accept and both items change hands on the spot. Every trade is final.
03
Take the mystery drop
Every morning at 9 AM Eastern there’s a mystery drop: an item you can’t see until you take it, up to two tiers below or above yours. Take the gamble, or keep what’s in your hand.
04
Say what you’re looking for
Your item carries a short “looking for” line, built from a few chips: a color, a tier, a finish, or just “trading up”. Other players see it on your item, and it is how the right offers find you. There is nothing to type.
05
Collect stamps and do it again tomorrow
Every item you hold for the first time adds a stamp to your logbook, and every stamp is worth points. Three small daily goals reset with the drop. The item moves on; the points stay.
Everything has a tier
Graded on sight · T0 to T10
T0
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
T6
T7
T8
T9
T10
Every item has a tier from T0 to T10. The tier is always shown on the card, and its color tells you where an item sits before you have read a word. What an item is exactly worth stays hidden until the season ends.
The tier chip grows with the tier, so a better item is bigger on screen than a worse one. T10 is the only tier that turns black, and most players never hold one.
Trading down is allowed and sometimes right. A T2 that finishes a commission can be worth more to you than a T6 nobody wants.
Band
Tier
Small
T0–T1
Paper clips, bottle caps, buttons. What everyone starts with, and what the drop hands out most days. Still worth something to someone working a commission.
Common
T2–T4
The middle of the game. Most trades happen here.
Good
T5–T7
People will make offers on this without you asking. Holding it is a decision.
Rare
T8–T9
Only a handful exist at any time. Expect your offers to fill overnight.
Grail
T10
Every one is public. The record shows who holds it and how it got there.
The world opens a tier at a time
On a schedule · never early
A season opens with only T0 to T2 in the world. Nothing above that exists yet, not in drops and not in anyone’s hand. The rest open one at a time on a set schedule.
The schedule is fixed by the calendar: the eight tiers are spread evenly across the season. In Season One, which runs five weeks, a new tier opens every four or five days. Trading cannot bring one early, so the top of the season is always the last thing to arrive.
When a tier opens, the first few items of that tier are put into the daily drop that morning. Somebody gets one. Everybody else trades toward them.
T3
1ST
T4
2ND
T5
3RD
T6
4TH
T7
5TH
T8
6TH
T9
7TH
T10
8TH
The order the tiers open in. How fast depends on the season’s length.
One finish, many items
At risk · you’d lose 150
Touch of Gold
any 1 item with a gold finish
0 of 1 collected since you started
ONE LEFT
150
Double Gold
any 2 items with a gold finish
0 of 2 collected since you started
300
Gold Standard
any 3 items with a gold finish
0 of 3 collected since you started
550
Quit
Take a commission, collect for it
The game posts commissions: collecting jobs, each with three goals that get bigger as you go. One might ask for paper clips in different colors, another for anything with a gold finish, another for things from the kitchen. You choose which ones to take on, and you can work on three at a time.
A commission only counts items you collect after you start it. Nothing you already hold counts. Reach a goal and you earn its points. Reach all three and the commission is finished.
Starting one is a bet. Quit before the first goal, or let the season end before you reach it, and you lose the first goal’s points. New commissions are posted as the season goes on, and the later ones pay the most.
3 AT A TIME
FINISHED
YOU LOSE POINTS
Three small goals, every day
Every morning at 9 AM Eastern you get three goals for the day: trade twice, trade for two pink items, trade up three times. They are worth 15, 25 and 35 points, and finishing all three earns 75 more.
There is no penalty for missing them. They reset with the daily drop, and they are the easiest points in the game if you trade a little every day.
Daily goals
Resets in 6:12
Trade 2 times
Complete any 2 trades today.
1 OF 2
+15
Trade for 2 pink items
Trade for any 2 pink items today.
0 OF 2
+25
Trade up 3 times
Make 3 trades today where you get a higher tier than you gave.
2 OF 3
+35
Finish all three
+75
Want more than one drop?
Free · once a day
The daily drop
Arrives at 9 AM Eastern, every day, free. It is the only thing in the game that comes without you doing anything. What it can be depends on what you are holding: up to two tiers below or above it.
Miss it and nothing piles up. There is no backlog of drops waiting for you. Yesterday’s is gone.
Free every day · no streak to keep
Earn · The Sort
The Sort
The game deals you item cards with the tier hidden, and you guess the tier of each one. A gold paper clip is a T2, because a finish raises the tier. Knowing what a finish does to an item is the whole skill.
Every right answer grows the pot faster than the last: 1, then 3, 6, 10, and up. One wrong answer loses it. STOP AND KEEP 60 PIPS takes the money whenever you decide you have pushed far enough.
Or buy Pips and skip The Sort
Spend · 100 pips and up
Another drop
Every extra drop costs more than the last: 100, 150, 200, 250, 300. The price goes back to 100 at the next daily drop. Five extra a day is the limit, and it is the same for everyone.
3 taken · next costs 250
Pips can be earned in The Sort or bought with money. Money buys you time, not an advantage: earning is capped at 1,000 Pips a day, which is exactly what all five extra drops cost, and bought drops have the same odds as free ones. Pips also buy backing papers for your card, extra offer slots, and a day at the front of the grid. None of those change what you can trade for.
Every season
ends. Then it
all resets.
ends. Then it
all resets.
A season runs four to eight weeks. When it ends, trading stops, scores are counted, and everyone starts the next season with a fresh small item.
Your season score adds up five things: the best item you held all season, the item you are holding when it ends, your stamps, your finished commissions, and your daily goals. Trading up matters, but so does what you collect on the way.
Season One is Clips: paper clips, fasteners, and the assorted junk of a desk drawer, printed in red on kraft. It opens October 25 and runs five weeks, to November 29.
Season One · Clips
Wk 2 of 5
1
velvet harmonica
T10
2
saffron mousetrap
T9
3
cork locket
T7
207 places
211
You
T4
Questions people ask
Can I lose my item?
Only by trading it away or taking a drop in its place. Nothing expires, nothing decays, and nobody can take it from you.
Is there chat?
No. There is nothing to type anywhere in the game. Your “looking for” line is built from chips, and your name is dealt to you. It keeps the game about the trade.
What happens at the end of a season?
Trading stops and scores are counted. Your logbook keeps every stamp, your best item and your final item go into your museum, and your rank stays on your profile. Then everyone starts the next season with a new small item.
Can I buy my way up?
You can buy Pips instead of earning them in The Sort, but a good run earns the 1,000 Pips that all five extra drops cost. Five is everyone’s limit, and a drop is luck, with the same odds whether it was free or bought.
Do I need to know anyone?
No. Everyone’s item is on the same grid, and offers come from whoever wants what you have. There are no friends lists.
Is it free?
Yes. Trading, the daily drop, commissions, and The Sort are all free. Pips can be bought, but they only buy time: the same five extra drops a day a good run of The Sort earns.
Where will yours end up?
Everyone starts the season with something small. Pre-order now and it lands on your iPhone on October 25, the day Season One opens.
