Essex Endz · The Geezer's Guide · First Edition · 2026
THE
GEEZER'S
GUIDE
Official Guide to Essex Endz
30 days. 10 locations. Big Dean wants his money back — with interest, obviously, mate.

Everything you need to go from Absolute Mug to Essex Bloody Legend. The mechanics, the market, the police encounters, the escape routes through the Tilbury marshes, and the cheat codes nobody's supposed to know about.
Chapter 01

THE BASICS

You are a drug dealer in Essex. Buy cheap, sell expensive, don't get nicked by PC Darren. The only complication is a loan shark whose interest compounds every time you travel.

Essex Endz is a 30-day turn-based trading game. Each turn you travel to a new location, buy what's cheap, sell what's valuable, and move on. Simple enough. The catch: Big Dean lent you money before the game started and charges interest every single time you travel. Miss it, and the debt grows beyond what any trade can fix.

The game ends when Day 30 runs out, you die (HP reaches 0), or — on Hard mode — you get arrested three times and Wayne collects you personally. Your final score is Cash + Bank − Debt. Positive means you survived. Big means you thrived.

Your First Run — Step by Step

Pick a character

Six archetypes, each with real mechanical differences. First run? Try The WAG — extra starting cash and muggers less likely to try it means you can learn the market without dying immediately.

Pick a difficulty

Easy gives you 80 pockets and 10% debt per travel. Start here. Medium is the real game — 65 pockets, 12% debt, and you lose gear even on a clean police escape. Hard is 50 pockets, 14% debt, and three arrests means Wayne shows up.

Note your active manor

The Travel tab shows THIS RUN'S MANOR — the 6 random locations drawn for your run alongside the 4 fixed ones. This matters. Tilbury means cheap imports. Epping means rave nights. Leigh-on-Sea means premium Zaza prices. Plan accordingly.

Check the ticker

The pink bar below the location name shows live market events — price crashes (📉) and spikes (📈). Read it before touching anything. A 📉 on Charlie is a buy signal. A 📈 means sell everything you're holding in that substance immediately.

Buy cheap, travel, sell high

Fill your pockets with dumped-price gear. Travel to a location where it's in demand. Sell at profit. Use the Stash P&L panel on the right to track exactly what you paid vs what it's worth now.

Visit Chelmsford to sort Big Dean

Big Dean's pawn shop is only in Chelmsford. Every day you don't pay, that debt grows. The NatWest bank is also here — deposit surplus cash so muggers and the police can't touch it.

On your very first run, just focus on understanding the market. Don't panic about the debt — learn where prices spike, which locations are dangerous, and how the police encounters work. The mechanics click quickly.
Chapter 02

THE GEAR

18 substances across two tiers. 6 core drugs are present every run. 4 more are drawn from a pool of 12 at the start of each game — you'll see which ones in the Day 1 event log. Know your product before you commit your pockets.

Core Drugs — Always Available

SubstancePrice RangeCrashSpikeKey EventsRisk Profile
🤍 Charlie£40–£1001 in 141 in 28 Basildon Firm corners supply; customs seizures flood market High value. Highest base price — premium carry.
💜 Mandy£25–£701 in 121 in 18 WAGs filming; festival season; Dutch lorry in Harwich; Epping raves Most event-sensitive drug in the game.
🐴 Ket£15–£451 in 101 in 22 Farm robberies Billericay; A127 lorry hijack; Colchester students Leigh-on-Sea premium. Student discount on buying.
🌿 Zaza£15–£501 in 101 in 18 Grower nicked; influencer TikTok; Amsterdam shipment; Leigh premium Core Tilbury → Leigh route. Always useful.
💊 Pingers£5–£221 in 101 in 18 Fabric reunion; Epping rave; someone's fella off WAGs boxing night Low unit price — buy in bulk. Rave spikes are violent.
🌶️ Spice£3–£141 in 81 in 15 Rotterdam lorry missed by customs; police crackdown Lowest prestige, lowest margins. Last resort carry.

Rotating Pool — 4 Drawn Per Run

At the start of each run, 4 drugs are drawn at random from the 12-strong pool below. The Day 1 event log tells you which ones are on the manor. Pool draws are seeded — daily runs always share the same 4.

SubstancePrice RangeCrashSpikeEssex Source
⚡ Wizz£8–£281 in 121 in 20Lithuanian crew through Harlow
🎈 Balloons£2–£101 in 81 in 14Southend catering vans; festival surplus
🪨 Crack£10–£401 in 161 in 28Romford Massive offloading
💙 Xans£4–£251 in 101 in 18Dark web parcels; Chelmsford pharmacy
🍄 Shrooms£12–£381 in 101 in 16Liberty caps from Essex fields, very seasonal
💎 MD Crystal£55–£1451 in 161 in 22Dutch lab clearance through Harwich
🩵 Valium£4–£141 in 81 in 15Chelmsford pharmacy delivery gone missing
🥤 Lean£8–£281 in 91 in 14American imports through Stansted; Romford market
🫧 Nos£3–£101 in 71 in 12Southend seafront catering; festival season
🏃 Speed£6–£201 in 111 in 18Night shift surplus; Lithuanian crew Harlow
🔵 Baltic Blue£3–£121 in 81 in 13Off the timber ship from Riga; Wallasea early offload
🩷 Dutch Pink£45–£1201 in 141 in 20Benfleet boat; Rotterdam crew offloading
MD Crystal and Dutch Pink are the two premium pool drugs — high price ranges with rare crash windows. If either is drawn for your run, they behave like a more volatile Charlie. Nos and Baltic Blue are the budget end — buy in volume.

Price Events — How They Work

Every time you travel, the market is regenerated. Each drug has two independent rolls:

Crash roll: price drops to 15–30% of its normal range. The ticker shows 📉. Buy everything you can carry — these are the core trade opportunities.

Spike roll: price rises to 350–550% of normal. The ticker shows 📈. If you're holding that substance, sell immediately before you travel.

£8 📉 — CRASHED (buy signal)
£312 📈 — SPIKED (sell signal)
£47 — Normal range
Not available today
12% of all drugs are unavailable at any given location on any given day. If something you need isn't showing, just travel — it'll regenerate at the next location.

Location Price Bonuses

Tilbury: Imports flood in through the port. Prices crash more often and more dramatically here than anywhere else on the map. Best buying location in the game if you can handle the danger.

Grays: Lorry park connections on the A13 mean cheap gear surfaces regularly. Not as volatile as Tilbury but meaningfully cheaper than average.

Epping Forest: When a rave fires — and they fire often — Mandy, Pingers and Ket spike hard. Best selling destination for those three on a rave night. You'll know one's on from the ticker.

Leigh-on-Sea: Zaza and Ket sell at a premium here. The DFL crowd pay artisan rates regardless of what the market says elsewhere.

Canewdon: Strange things happen here more than anywhere in Essex. Locals won't tell you why. Don't ask.

Chapter 03

READING THE MARKET

The stash panel on the right isn't just an inventory list — it's your profit and loss tracker, updated in real time as you travel.

The Stash P&L Panel

Every drug you're carrying shows three things: what you paid (average cost basis, updated with weighted average when you buy more), what it's selling for now at your current location, and your current profit or loss in both pounds and percentage.

The left border is your instant signal: green means you're in profit at this location, red means you'd sell at a loss. The mini price bar shows where the current price sits within that drug's full possible range — green bar = near the ceiling, red bar = near the floor.

The total unrealised P&L shown at the top of the stash panel is your current net position. If it's strongly positive and you're near Day 25+, seriously consider selling everything and banking the profit rather than hunting for a better price that might not come.

Cost Basis Tracking

If you buy the same drug across multiple locations at different prices, the game tracks a weighted average cost basis. For example: buy 20× Mandy at £30 in Tilbury, then buy another 10× at £45 in Romford. Your basis becomes £35/unit — not £30, not £45.

This matters when deciding whether to sell. The P&L shows your actual profit based on what you actually paid across all purchases.

When a Substance Isn't Available Here

If a drug shows "Not sold here" in the stash panel, it means that substance isn't in today's market at your current location. Your cost basis is still tracked — just travel somewhere that trades in it. The price bar goes dim to indicate the current price can't be assessed.

Sound Toggle

The game has procedural audio — buy tones, sell arpeggios, police alarms, a Big Dean buzz, and a low pulse that kicks in after Day 25. It's off by default. Hit the 🔇 / 🔊 button in the stat bar at the top of the screen to toggle it on. No external files — all synthesised in the browser.

Daily Run Mode

Hit 📅 DAILY RUN on the title screen to enter the daily run. Every player on the same calendar day gets an identical run — same pool locations, same drug draw, same random event sequence. This makes the global leaderboard a genuine skill comparison rather than a luck comparison.

Daily runs are locked to Easy difficulty. Any archetype. Your score goes on the daily leaderboard, visible at the end screen alongside the all-time board.

Chapter 04

THE MANOR

10 locations per run — 4 always there, 6 drawn at random from a pool of 12. Each run's map is different. Know your locations before you commit your first trade.

The Travel tab shows your active manor at the top of the location grid — the 6 random locations drawn for this run. Getting Tilbury and Epping on the same run is a major advantage. Getting Harlow without Leigh or Colchester to sell into is rough. Plan your routing at the start.

Fixed Locations — Always Present

LocationDangerServicesNotes
🎡 Southend-on-Sea 0.09 (home × 0.7) 🍦 Rossi's Ice Cream (£25 heal · Builder £15) · 🎰 Kursaal Slots (£50 gamble, 35% win 2/1) · ⛪ The Peculiar People (£15, 65% faith heal) Home turf — police 30% less likely. Rossi's is the cheapest guaranteed heal. Kursaal Slots is a pure gamble — 35% win at 2/1, one go per visit. The Peculiar People is the cheapest option at £15 but only works 65% of the time.
🏛️ Chelmsford 0.08 🏦 Bank · 🦈 Big Dean · 🍺 The Alma Inn (£30 heal) · 🗣️ Tip Network (£50, 5 guaranteed tips) Only place to bank cash and pay Big Dean. Come here every 3–4 days minimum. The Tip Network (£50) guarantees a market tip on your next 5 quiet travels — counter only burns when a tip fires, so police days don't waste it. Stackable. On Hard, there's a 15% chance per run of encountering Matthew Hopkins — see Ch08.
🔪 Basildon 0.22 🔫 Kev's Hardware (weapons) · 🍺 The Moon on the Square (£30 heal) Only weapons source. High danger — don't carry your full stash unless armed.
💅 Brentwood 0.07 🍺 Sugar Hut (£35 heal) · 📺 Table Talk intel (£50 — reveals real spike events) Lowest danger in the game. WAGs filming spikes Mandy. Influencer archetype gets 25% off all prices here. Table Talk is the cheapest reliable intel service.

Pool Locations — 6 Drawn Per Run

LocationDangerServicesSpecial / Strategy
🍺 Romford0.18 The Ram (£30) · 🐕 Greyhound Dogs (£40 gamble, 32% win at 3/1) High energy, volatile prices. Good selling location on event days. Greyhound Dogs is the best gambling return in the game if you're lucky.
🏚️ Harlow0.28 The Burnett Arms (£20 heal — cheapest pub in Essex) Highest danger. Cheapest base prices. Go armed if going heavy.
🛍️ Lakeside0.09 Lakeside Nando's (£30 heal) Shopping centre crowd = perfect cover. Black Friday lucky event. Safe to carry full load.
🎓 Colchester0.11 The Hospital Arms (£30 heal) Freshers week event (+£200–600). Ket and Zaza move well here. Roman wall escape route is unique.
🚛 Grays0.19 The Theobald Arms (£30 heal) A13 lorry park connections — cheaper than average. Some escape routes through marshes.
⚓ Tilbury0.23 The Dockers Club (£25 heal) · 🚢 Port Fence (cheap buy off a Rotterdam boat, once/day) Cheapest buying location. Port Fence gives you one off-market deal per visit. High danger — use the Dockers Club to top up HP before you travel out.
🏪 Pitsea0.17 The Wat Tyler (£30 heal) · 🛒 Pitsea Market (dodgy deal, once/visit) Pitsea Market offers a one-off back-of-Transit deal each visit. Don't skip it.
🌲 Epping Forest0.15 The Cock Inn (£25 heal) · 🍄 Forest Forage (£20, 50/50 heal or −25 HP) Rave nights spike Mandy, Pingers and Ket hard. Forest Forage is a gamble — great if you're lucky, painful if not.
🦪 Leigh-on-Sea0.05 The Peterboat (£30 heal) · 🔮 Cunning Murrell's Mirror (£55 — reveals ALL spikes) · 🐟 Old Sea Dog (£45 — best sell for your stash) Safest pool location. Zaza and Ket premium. Murrell's Mirror is the best intelligence service in the game — reveals every current spike on the map.
🏝️ Canvey Island0.14 The Lobster Smack (£25 heal) Sea wall escapes involve the marshes. Steady trading location — no special services, but low cost healing.
🌾 Rettendon0.19 The Bell Inn (£30 heal) · 🌑 Dark Road (£45, reduces police danger for 2 turns) All three escape routes are marsh routes. If caught here you will lose gear no matter what. Don't carry your full stash unless you can afford the bribe.
🌙 Canewdon0.11 Witch of Canewdon (£25 heal) · 🧙 The Cunning Man (£75, police reduction ×3, once/run) · ⚡ Old George Pickingill (£30, 80% police reduction / 20% Imps backfire −20 HP) Lucky events fire 24% of the time here vs 14% elsewhere. The Cunning Man is the strongest police suppression in the game — once per run. Pickingill is a gamble: usually brilliant, occasionally painful.
The best possible run has Tilbury + Leigh-on-Sea active together. Buy Zaza and Ket at Tilbury's crash prices, sell them at Leigh's gentrifier premium. The margin on that single route — when prices crash at one end and command a premium at the other — is the biggest single-trade return in the game.
Chapter 05

DIFFICULTY MODES

Three modes, derived from Monte Carlo simulation of 50,000 runs each. The numbers aren't arbitrary — they're calibrated to produce specific player experiences.
😎 EASY
80 pockets
£500 starting cash
£1,500 starting debt
10% debt per travel
55% escape rate
No gear lost fleeing
9% bad luck chance
No warrant limit
💪 MEDIUM
65 pockets
£400 starting cash
£2,400 starting debt
12% debt per travel
42% escape rate
Lose 15% gear fleeing
14% bad luck chance
No warrant limit
💀 HARD
50 pockets
£300 starting cash
£3,300 starting debt
14% debt per travel
30% escape rate
Lose 30% gear fleeing
20% bad luck chance
3 arrests = INSIDE

What the Simulation Found

Monte Carlo analysis (50,000 runs, smart player model) shows Easy produces positive net worth ~60% of the time for skilled players, Medium ~56%, and Hard ~42%. The median Hard run ends at around −£133,000 net worth — the debt compounds faster than most trade cycles can keep up with.

On Easy, pocket size barely constrains earnings — cash is the early bottleneck. On Hard, pocket size is critical because you can't build enough cash quickly enough without the carry capacity to take large positions against the compounding debt.

Choosing the Builder archetype on Hard is particularly brutal. Despite starting with more cash, the extra debt (£5,500 after difficulty multiplier) compounds so aggressively that the Builder has the worst median net worth of any archetype on Hard. The cash advantage is gone within 5 days.

The Warrant System (Hard Only)

A 🚨 warrant counter appears in the stat bar on Hard mode. Every arrest — whether you fought back, surrendered, failed to bribe, or got caught running — adds one warrant. At three warrants, Big Dean sends Wayne and it's game over regardless of time remaining.

On Hard, this means you have three strikes total for the entire run. Travel empty if you must. Bribe generously. Don't go to Harlow or Basildon with a full stash unless you have a machete and a plan.

Chapter 06

CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER

Six archetypes. Each one changes the game fundamentally. Starting cash and debt are base values — multiply by your difficulty's cashMult and debtMult before you start.
📱
THE INFLUENCER
Brentwood −25% • WAGs events boosted
Brentwood is your home turf. Every price there is 25% cheaper for you — meaning the lowest-danger location on the map becomes a reliable buy location too. WAGs celebrity events fire more generously when you're playing the Influencer.
Best for: Brentwood-centred routing, celebrity event fishing, low-danger consistent play.
💪
THE GEEZER
Police −12% • Weapons 30% off • Escape +12% • Fight power +2
The most well-rounded archetype. Police are less likely to stop you, Kev's Hardware charges you less, and when you do get cornered you escape more often and hit harder. The 12% escape bonus is genuinely powerful on Medium and Hard where escape rates are 42% and 30% respectively — Geezer gets 54% and 42%.
Best for: High-danger locations, Hard mode, weapon builds. Recommended first run character for experienced players.
💅
THE WAG
+£200 starting cash • Police −15% • Muggers think twice
Extra cash on day 1 is enormous — it means an extra trade cycle before the debt starts compounding aggressively. The police and mugging reductions are passive, meaning you just take fewer hits without doing anything differently.
Best for: First run, Easy and Medium mode. The safest starting experience in the game.
🎓
THE STUDENT
Ket + Zaza −20% • Lower starting debt
Ket and Zaza are the two drugs that sell at premium in Leigh-on-Sea. Buying them 20% cheaper and selling them 35% above market is a combined 55% price advantage on the Tilbury→Leigh route. The lower starting debt (10% less than standard) compounds into significant savings by Day 30.
Best for: Leigh-on-Sea routing, Colchester freshers week events. Underrated on Hard.
🔨
THE DODGY BUILDER
+£1,000 extra cash • Pub/Rossi's cheaper • +£1,000 extra debt
The highest-variance archetype. £1,500 starting cash on Easy means enormous early buying power — you can fill 80 pockets on day 1 and generate profit before the debt catches you. But the £2,500 starting debt compounds fast, and if your first trades don't land, you're in a deep hole by Day 10. The pub discount is small but nice on Hard when HP management matters.
Best for: Experienced players who understand early market timing. Avoid on Hard — simulation shows worst median NW of any archetype on that mode.
🚕
THE MINICAB DRIVER
Debt grows 3pp slower (7/9/11% vs 10/12/14%) • Fare pickups • Police −20%
The most mechanically unique archetype. Debt grows 3 percentage points slower than your difficulty's standard rate — meaning after 29 travels on Easy, the Cabbie owes ~£10,500 vs ~£23,800 for everyone else. On top of this, 30% of travels trigger a fare pickup (£55–£220 cash). The police barely notice a cab on the road. The clear best pick on Hard — Monte Carlo shows the Cabbie at 6% positive vs 1-5% for other archetypes.
Best for: any difficulty. Strongest on Hard where the debt advantage matters most.
All archetype starting stats are multiplied by your difficulty's cashMult and debtMult. The Cabbie's advantage is a flat 3pp reduction to the debt rate, down to a minimum of 1.0 (debt can never shrink). So on Hard the Cabbie's debt grows at 11% per travel vs the standard 14%.
Chapter 07

BIG DEAN & THE DEBT CLOCK

Big Dean doesn't care about your trades. He cares about his percentage. Every time you travel, the debt compounds. On Hard, after 29 travels, an unpaid £3,300 becomes £67,000.

How the Debt Works

On Easy, debt grows by 10% every time you travel. On Medium 12%. On Hard 14%. This is compounding — the interest is added to the total, so next turn the interest is calculated on a larger number.

The Cabbie's rate is 3 percentage points lower than their difficulty's rate (minimum 1.0). So Easy Cabbie: 7% per travel vs standard 10%. Hard Cabbie: 11% per travel vs standard 14%. The debt still bites — it just bites a bit slower.

Big Dean's WhatsApp

As your debt crosses certain thresholds, Big Dean sends increasingly unhinged messages from the bottom-right corner. These aren't just flavour — they tell you exactly how bad your situation is.

🦈
Big Dean online
aye bruv no rush just sort it when u can yeah 🤙
Debt crossed £2,200 — still chill
Debt ThresholdMessageTranslation
£2,200"aye bruv no rush just sort it when u can yeah 🤙"You're fine. Keep trading.
£3,800"oi u gonna sort me out or wat. been waiting ages mate"Time to think about paying.
£6,500"bro im not playin no more. get me my p's or Wayne comes round 🔴"Seriously, pay something now.
£11,000"LAST WARNING. Wayne is getting in the car."You are in real trouble.
£20,000"WAYNE IS OUTSIDE UR MUM'S 🔴🔴🔴 SORT IT OUT NOW"At this point, can you even pay this off?

Paying Big Dean Off

Big Dean's pawn shop is only in Chelmsford. You can pay partial amounts — there's no reason to pay it all at once unless you have it. A partial payment reduces the compounding base, which saves money in the long run even if it doesn't clear the debt.

The PAY ALL button in services pays everything you can afford in one click. Use it when you want to clear it fast without typing an amount.

The optimal debt strategy isn't paying it off as fast as possible — it's paying enough to keep it from reaching the £6,500+ range where it starts compounding into truly unrepayable territory. Keep the debt below £3,000 and you can manage it across the whole run.

Saving Cash — The NatWest

Also in Chelmsford: the NatWest bank. Deposited cash cannot be stolen by muggers, seized by police, or lost in any event. This is critical if you're carrying a lot of cash but not ready to pay the debt yet — bank it, protect it, withdraw when needed.

Any time your cash exceeds what you need for the next 2–3 trades, deposit the surplus. The bank is the difference between a big payout surviving a mugging and losing it all in the street.

The Tip Network

Also at Chelmsford: a contact who works the markets across Essex. Pay him £50 and he'll pass on cheap gear intel for your next 5 quiet travels — each quiet day guarantees a market tip instead of the usual 18% chance. The counter only burns when a tip actually fires, so police encounters and muggings don't waste your subscription.

Pay him again and he'll top it up. It stacks. On runs where you're making multiple Chelmsford stops, the Tip Network consistently outperforms Table Talk intel (£50 for 5 tips vs £50 for one location scan).

Buy the Tip Network on your first or second Chelmsford visit and keep it topped up. Five guaranteed tips per £50 across the run can reveal buy opportunities worth ten times that in margin.
Chapter 08

THE OLD BILL

Three tiers of police encounter, four choices, location-specific escape routes, and a result screen that shows exactly what it cost you. Some places are much harder to run from than others.

Police Encounter Tiers

OfficerLocation DangerNotes
🚔 PC Darren< 0.15Young but keen. All four options available. Bribe costs standard.
🚔 Det. Sgt. Wallace0.15–0.21CID. "We've been watching for weeks." More expensive to bribe.
🚔 Armed Response Unit≥ 0.22Basildon and Tilbury. Proper serious. All options still work but at worst odds.

Your Four Options

ChoiceEasyMediumHardNotes
🏃 Leg It 55% success42%30% Geezer escapes more reliably. On success: may lose some gear in marsh terrain. On failure: lose all gear, lose cash, Hard adds a warrant.
⚔️ Stand Your Ground power ÷ 12power ÷ 12power ÷ 12 Requires a weapon. Knife: 17%, Bat: 42%, Machete: 67%, Machete+Geezer: 83%. On failure: lose everything, add warrant.
💷 Bung Him £60–£260Costs moreCosts a lot more If you can afford it: sorted, no warrant, no gear lost. If you can't: they take the lot, add warrant.
🙏 Surrender Lose all gearLose all gearLose all gear Cash untouched. On Hard adds a warrant. Use only when empty or when all other options look worse.
Bung Him is almost always the right call if you have the cash. You keep your gear, you keep your cash, no warrant. On Hard the cost is higher — but so is the value of staying off the warrant counter.

Police Result Screen

After every police encounter — whatever you chose — a result screen shows you exactly what happened before the game continues: gear lost, cash taken, HP damage, and whether a warrant was added. You have to acknowledge the result before playing on. No more wondering what you just lost in the confusion.

Escape Routes — Location Specific

Every location has its own escape routes. Some are clean — you get away, maybe lose a bit of gear from running. Others go through marshland, sea walls or open countryside — and there you will lose gear regardless of how well you ran.

⚓ Tilbury (marsh): "You bolt across the Tilbury marshes toward the river. Ankle-deep in mud, the feds won't follow. You drop some units in the reeds — but you're free."
🎡 Southend (clean): "Walk to the end of the pier — nearly a mile out. They shout but can't be bothered to follow. You wait. Eventually they leave. It's cold out here."
💅 Brentwood (clean): "A WAGs cast member mistakes you for their security and pulls you into the entourage. You walk straight past the feds."
🌙 Canewdon (clean): "Up the hill to the churchyard after dark. Something about this village makes the feds uneasy. They don't follow past the gate."
🌾 Rettendon (all routes are marsh): "Across the fields in the dark. Not a streetlight for miles. You lose gear somewhere out there. Worth it."
Rettendon is the only location where all three escape routes go through open countryside. If you get stopped there, you will lose gear even on a successful escape. Don't carry your full stash in Rettendon unless you have the cash to bribe your way out.

Matthew Hopkins — Hard Mode, Chelmsford Only

On Hard difficulty, visiting Chelmsford carries a 15% chance per run of encountering the Witchfinder General himself — Matthew Hopkins, operating out of 1645 and somehow still at it. He adds a warrant to your record without a standard police encounter. No escape routes. No bribe. No fight. Just a warrant and a very bad day.

This only fires once per run. If you get him early, the rest of your Chelmsford visits are safe. Hard players with two warrants already should be especially nervous about their first Chelmsford stop.

Weapons from Kev's Hardware (Basildon)

WeaponPriceFight PowerPockets UsedFight Success
🔪 Stanley Knife£80 (Geezer: £56)2017%
🏏 Baseball Bat£180 (Geezer: £126)5342%
⚔️ Machete£380 (Geezer: £266)8367% (Geezer: 83%)
Bat and Machete both use 3 pockets. On Hard's tighter limit that's a real trade-off — but the fight improvement is significant enough that the Machete is usually worth it.
Chapter 09

ADVANCED STRATEGY

The core game is simple. Winning consistently requires understanding the debt clock, routing for location bonuses, and knowing when to sell vs when to hold.

The Core Trade

The highest-value play in Essex Endz is the Tilbury → Leigh-on-Sea route with Zaza or Ket. Tilbury's port floods prices — on a crash, these drugs drop to a fraction of their normal value. Leigh-on-Sea's gentrifier crowd pays a premium on both. Buy at Tilbury's crash prices, sell at Leigh's premium — the margin on a single round trip can be extraordinary.

Without Tilbury or Leigh active on your run, the second-best consistent route is buying anything during a crash event and selling it into a spike event, which happens independently per location per travel. Keep moving between locations until you see the sell-side spike you need.

Debt Management — The Right Approach

The simulation shows most players never fully clear Big Dean — and that's fine. The goal is net worth, not zero debt. It's often more profitable to use that cash on a large trade than to pay off the debt, as long as the debt doesn't compound into the £10,000+ range.

The optimal pattern: keep debt below £4,000, make partial payments every 3–4 days in Chelmsford, bank all surplus cash, and only clear the debt fully once you've built enough capital that it doesn't meaningfully constrain future trade.

Routing for Profit

Buying decisions should be made with a mental note of where you're going next. Before you buy:

Holding Zaza or Ket? Route through Leigh-on-Sea — they sell at a premium there.
Holding Mandy, Pingers or Ket? Check if Epping is active — rave nights pay 2.5–4× on all three.
Holding anything? Romford on K-Boxing nights pays big on rave drugs.
Low cash but good intel? Visit Pitsea Market — one cheap offer per day from the back of a Transit.

The Pocket Economy

Your pocket limit is the hardest constraint in the game. On Hard with 50 pockets (minus 3 for a weapon = 47 usable), every purchase decision is a trade-off. Prioritise high-value-per-unit drugs (Charlie, Crack) when pockets are limited rather than bulk-buying low-value substances (Balloons, Spice).

Extra pockets can come from lucky events (bigger coat, 8–22 pockets for £10), the LAKESIDE cheat (+50), or buying the Transit Van upgrade in Basildon (£800, +40 pockets but police +20%).

Banking Strategy

Bank whenever your cash significantly exceeds what you need for your next planned purchase. Keep enough to fill your pockets with whatever you're planning to buy, plus a small buffer for events. Bank everything above that. A mugging or bad luck event can wipe unbanked cash — the bank cannot be touched by anything.

HP Management

HP doesn't regenerate automatically. You need a pub (£30, all locations with pub:true) or Rossi's in Southend (£25, Builder: £15). Police fights and muggings chip away at HP fast — if you're below 50 and going into Harlow or Basildon, heal first. Dead means game over regardless of how much cash you have.

Reading the Event Log

The sidebar event log is the most underread part of the game. It shows tips (intel on cheap gear elsewhere), celebrity events, bad luck outcomes, and police tier. After a quiet run, check the log — if every entry says "All quiet" with no tips either, that's a sign to move locations and shake up the market.

The highest-scoring runs typically do one thing: they identify a crash event in a high-value drug (Charlie at £8, Crack at £4) and fill every available pocket. Then they sit on it, banking profit along the way, and only sell when they see a spike event or reach Day 27+. Patience with a large position beats churning low-margin trades every turn.

Pitsea Market

Available only in Pitsea, once per visit. A named market trader (Tel, Daz, Kev, Gaz, or Tommo) offers a random available drug at 35–55% of market price from the back of his Transit. This is separate from the main market — it can produce extraordinary value if the drug offered happens to be one you're planning to buy anyway.

Bad Luck Events — What Can Go Wrong

Every travel has a chance of a bad luck event firing alongside or instead of a lucky one. There are 15 in the pool. Most are straightforward — mugging, police tip-off, speed camera, bookies loss. Two are Essex folklore and fire under specific conditions:

🌾 The Ague: Marsh malaria. Costs −22 HP anywhere; −40 HP if you're at a marsh location (Tilbury, Canvey, Rettendon, Canewdon). If you're low on HP and deep in the marshes, the Ague can kill you. Heal before you go east.

🐕 Black Shuck: The demon dog of East Anglia. In rural locations (Rettendon, Canewdon, Epping, Leigh, Canvey): −20 HP and your heat goes up. In urban locations: −10 HP only. Keep your HP topped up if you're in the countryside.

Services Quick Reference

ServiceLocationCostWhen to Use
🏦 NatWestChelmsfordFreeEvery visit — bank surplus cash immediately
🦈 Big DeanChelmsfordWhatever you owePartial payments every 3–4 days, full clear when able
🗣️ Tip NetworkChelmsford£50First Chelmsford visit — 5 guaranteed tips, stacks, only burns on quiet turns
🍦 Rossi'sSouthend£25 (Builder £15)Cheapest guaranteed heal — use whenever HP below 60 and at home
⛪ Peculiar PeopleSouthend£15Cheapest option but 35% chance of nothing — gamble when cash is tight
🎰 Kursaal SlotsSouthend£5035% win at 2/1 — one go per visit, pure punt
🍺 Pub (various)Most locations£20–£35HP below 60 — Harlow cheapest (£20 everyone), Sugar Hut most expensive (£35)
🔫 Kev's HardwareBasildon£80–£380Before first visit to Harlow or Tilbury on Medium/Hard
🏪 Pitsea MarketPitseaVariableEvery visit — one cheap deal per day, never skip it
🚢 Port FenceTilburyVariableOnce per day — off-market deal off a Rotterdam boat, often very cheap
📺 Table TalkBrentwood£50Reveals all current spikes across active locations — cheaper intel than Murrell but location-specific
🐕 Greyhound DogsRomford£4032% win at 3/1 — best gambling return if it lands, once per visit
🍄 Forest ForageEpping£2050/50 full heal or −25 HP — only gamble it when you have HP to spare
🪞 Cunning Murrell's MirrorLeigh-on-Sea£55Best intel — reveals every current spike on the entire map
🐟 Old Sea DogLeigh-on-Sea£45Finds the best location to sell your current stash — essential before a big sell run
🌑 Dark RoadRettendon£45Police danger ×0.6 for 2 turns — worth it before travelling into a dangerous area
🔮 Cunning ManCanewdon£75Strongest police suppression in game — once per run, save it for when you're loaded
💀 Old George PickingillCanewdon£3080% police reduction for 2 turns — cheaper than Cunning Man but 20% chance of −20 HP backfire
🫰 Bent CopperOne random location per run£400Discover it by checking Services — police danger ×0.25 at that location for the rest of the run
ANALYTICS SERVICES — SERVICES TAB, ALL LOCATIONS
📊 Tony's Pricing IntelAll locations£50 + 1% liquid · Heat +10Full drug×location sell-price heatmap. One read per run. Buy early when liquid is low.
📞 Phone the MathsAll locations£60 + 8% liquid · Heat +15Top 3 buys given current cash and pockets. 3 calls per run, 4-day cooldown.
🔮 Rest-of-Run ForecastAll locationsFree200-run MC simulation from current state. p10/p50/p90 NW. Re-run freely.

Tyler from Romford

On about two thirds of runs, a rival called Tyler from Romford is working the same patch as you. Big Dean will mention him on Day 2 or 3. Tyler doesn't appear in the travel panel — his influence shows up in the event log and via WhatsApp messages.

Tyler events fire on roughly one in ten quiet travels. Over a full run, expect two or three encounters. What he can do:

EventEffect
📈 Price spikeTyler bought out supply at your current location — one drug goes up, market updates immediately
📉 Price crashTyler got nicked, his stash is floating — one drug crashes at your current location
💡 Intel tipTyler tips you off about cheap gear at another location. Annoying of him, being helpful.
📱 TauntPure flavour — Tyler's on your manor and making himself known. No mechanical effect.
⚠️ WarningTyler sends word the area is hot — useful heads-up, no direct effect
💳 Debt bumpTyler's had a word with Big Dean. Debt goes up 2%. Rare — happens about once every five runs.
🤝 The DealTyler's having a mare and offers you a drug at half price. Once per run. Take it.
Tyler's deal (half-price drug, one per run) is almost always worth taking if you have the pockets and cash. The price spikes and crashes he causes can work in your favour — a crash is a buy opportunity, not just bad news.

The Bent Copper

Somewhere on the manor, one location per run has an off-duty officer propping up the bar who's very relaxed about what you're carrying. You won't know which location until you open Services there and see the 🫰 Bent Copper option.

Paying him £400 drops the local police danger to a quarter of normal for the rest of the run at that location only. On Hard, where police chance at Harlow is around 38%, this reduces it to under 10%. At Tilbury or Basildon — both dangerous and worth repeated visits — the value compounds every time you return.

The Bent Copper is most valuable at high-danger locations you plan to visit multiple times. If the corrupted location turns out to be Leigh or Brentwood (already low danger), it's a lower priority — put the £400 into stock instead.
Chapter 10

THE ANALYTICS LAYER

Four paid services and three end-screen panels that turn your run into data. None of them are essential. All of them change how you play if you use them right. On mobile, rotate to landscape to see the full post-run debrief.

In-Game Services (SERVICES Tab — All Locations)

The following four services appear in the SERVICES tab at every location. They're separate from location-specific services.

📊 Tony's Pricing Intel — £50 + 1% liquid · Heat +10 · One read per run

Tony's been watching the manor all day. Pay him and he hands over a full drug × location sell-price heatmap — every active drug, every active location, colour-coded green/amber/red for high/mid/low prices. One read per run.

The cost scales with your liquid (cash + bank), so buying early is cheap. Wait until Day 15 with £20,000 in the bank and you're paying £250.

Best used Day 4–8 when you have capital to act on it but haven't committed to a route yet. The heatmap shows you which drug has the widest price spread across locations — that spread is the trade.

📞 Phone the Maths — £60 + 8% liquid · Heat +15 · 3 calls, 4-day cooldown

Tony runs your current cash and pockets through an optimisation and comes back with the top 3 buys: drug, quantity, expected profit. He's working on today's prices only — not a crystal ball, but fast and specific.

Three calls per run with a four-day cooldown between each. Cost scales hard with liquid — early calls are cheap, late calls with a full bank are expensive.

Call on Day 1 before your first buy for a clean starting position. Again around Day 12 when cash and pockets have settled. Third call on Day 25+ for final position confirmation.

🔮 Rest-of-Run Forecast — Free

Runs 200 simulated futures from your exact current state — same cash, same debt, same pockets — and returns p10/p50/p90 final net worth estimates. Runs in under 10ms. No heat cost. Re-run as often as you like.

p10 is the bear case. p90 is the upside. The gap between them tells you how much variance is left in the run.

If p10 is deeply negative, you're in a debt spiral — stop trading and bank. If p50 is comfortably above your current NW, you're on track. Re-run after any large event to see how your position shifted.

🎯 Win Probability — Stat Bar (Auto)

A logistic regression model trained on 874,000 simulated snapshots, live in the stat bar from Day 2 onwards. Shows the probability of finishing in the top quartile for your difficulty. Updated every travel.

Win probability drops sharply when debt compounds faster than cash builds. If it's falling every turn and you're not making trades, act now — bank, pay Dean, or take a large position.

The End Screen

Three panels appear after every completed run. On mobile, rotate to landscape for the full view.

📦 Box Score

A clean record of your run: biggest single flip, top earner drug and margin, most-visited location, police encounters, miles covered, Dean payments, peak heat, lowest HP reached, most cash held. No spin — just what happened.

🎯 Best Ball

The game runs a perfect-foresight solver on every price it logged during your run and asks: what was the optimal play with complete price knowledge? Shows optimal net worth, your actual finish, efficiency %, and the top 3 missed price windows.

Above 80% efficiency means you played a near-optimal route given the prices available. Below 50% usually means a wrong hold or a missed sell window.

Efficiency over 100% is possible — the solver assumes no travel costs or police interference. It's an upper bound. 70–85% is genuinely strong play.

🎲 Skill & Luck

Two percentiles benchmarked against real player data from the last 30 days on your difficulty. Skill percentile is where your net worth sits in the distribution. Luck factor measures spike events caught vs the median player, with a verdict ("Outplayed the dice" / "Carried" / "Worth another go").

Only shows on standard non-cheated runs once enough comparison data exists — may be sparse on the first run after a new version ships.

📊 Public Stats — essex-endz.com/stats.html

A live map of the Essex manor showing which locations get visited most, average net worth by location, and heat levels across the player base. Updates as run data accumulates. Filterable by difficulty.

Secret Chapter

THE CODES

Type these anywhere during a game. No input box. No button. Just type. The game listens. Scores set using cheats don't count on the global leaderboard — it knows.
BIGDEAN
Debt wiped to £0 immediately
Big Dean's gone soft. Must be a sign.
PROPERFACE
+£5,000 cash, no questions asked
Someone slipped you an envelope.
KURSAAL
+£10,000 — Kursaal jackpot
Don't tell anyone. Seriously.
CHEEKYGREGGS
HP restored to 100
Free sausage roll. Feeling brand new.
ROSSIS
HP 100 + £200 cash
Rossi himself served you. And slipped you a few quid.
LAKESIDE
+50 pockets — biggest coat in Essex
Someone left it in Lakeside. Their loss.
ENNIT
25× random drug appears in your coat
No idea how that got there. Don't ask.
TOWIE
Triggers a celebrity event immediately
The WAGs lot heard about you.
WAYNECOMINGROUND
Debt doubles immediately
You activated Wayne. On yourself. Absolute mug.
PCDARREN
Triggers a police encounter immediately
You rang the feds on yourself. Classic.
Using any cheat code marks your run as ineligible for the global leaderboard. The end screen will show exactly which codes you used. Sharing a cheat-flagged score in the group chat is on you.
Scoring

SCORING & RANKS

Net Worth = Cash + Bank − Debt at Day 30. That's it. Your rank is determined by that number alone. Difficulty affects how hard it is to achieve — not a multiplier on the number itself.
🦁 ESSEX BLOODY LEGEND
£25,000+
You understood the market, managed the debt, got lucky in the right places and made it pay. Top tier. The golden mile is yours.
👑 THE GOVERNOR
£10,000–£24,999
Proper result. You traded well, kept Dean at bay and banked enough to matter. This is the benchmark of a solid skilled run.
😎 PROPER FACE
£5,000–£9,999
Good play. You made money and survived. A few more event breaks and this becomes Governor territory.
💎 DIAMOND GEEZER
£2,000–£4,999
You know what you're doing. Positive finish, decent trades. Room to improve the routing and debt timing.
😤 PROPER ESSEX LAD
£500–£1,999
Profitable but only just. Something went wrong — an arrest at the wrong moment, debt spiralling, or missing a key sell window.
🤷 GEEZER IN TRAINING
£1–£499
You survived. Just. Re-read the debt chapter and try again — you're one strategy change away from Proper Essex Lad.
💀 ABSOLUTE MUG
Under £0
Big Dean won. The interest outran the trades. Wayne collected. It happens. The A127 is long and the compounding is brutal.

The Global Leaderboard

The global leaderboard shows the top 10 scores from all players who've connected through the game at essex-endz.com. It loads on the end screen after every run (no cheats), and shows name, archetype, difficulty and when the score was posted.

Your own entry is highlighted in pink. To compete for the top of the board, Hard mode is almost mandatory above £10,000 — not because of a multiplier, but because Hard's constraints mean a £10,000 Hard finish represents genuinely better play than a £10,000 Easy finish.

Local Leaderboard

Your top 8 personal scores are saved in the browser (localStorage). Each entry shows difficulty and archetype so you can compare your best Hard run against your best Easy run.

⚡ QUICK REFERENCE
Price Signals
📉 Crashed → BUY MAX
📈 Spiked → SELL ALL NOW
🟢 P&L border green → profit here
🔴 P&L border red → sell elsewhere
Sell Routing
🌿 Zaza → Leigh-on-Sea (×1.35)
🐴 Ket → Leigh-on-Sea (×1.35)
💜 Mandy → Epping rave (×2.5–4×)
💊 Pingers → Epping rave (×2.5–4×)
🐴 Ket → Epping rave (×2.5–4×)
🛍️ Mixed bag → Brentwood (safe)
Debt Priority
1. Keep debt below £4,000
2. Partial pays in Chelmsford every 3–4 days
3. Bank all surplus above next buy budget
4. Pay all only when cash comfortably covers it
Police Options
💷 Bung Him — safest if you have cash
🏃 Leg It — good on Easy/Geezer
⚔️ Fight — only with Machete (67%+)
🙏 Surrender — last resort. No cash lost.
Hard Mode Only
🚨 3 warrants = INSIDE. Wayne wins.
Bribe is the cleanest option — 0 warrants
Services Quick
🏦 Bank → Chelmsford (always)
🦈 Big Dean → Chelmsford (partial pays)
🍦 Heal → Southend Rossi's (cheapest)
🔫 Weapons → Basildon (Geezer: −30%)
🏪 Market → Pitsea (one offer/visit)
Cheat Codes
👾 BIGDEAN → wipe debt
👾 PROPERFACE → +£5,000
👾 KURSAAL → +£10,000
👾 CHEEKYGREGGS → full HP
👾 LAKESIDE → +50 pockets
👾 ENNIT → 25 free units