Start with twelve people you trust. Mostly.
Choose 12 distinct cards from the 120-card Sable City roster. Every playable card is available from the start, and auto-build can put a crew together for you. The four roles are Brains, Muscle, Wheels and Face.
Each card has a Haul — the loot it adds to your bag — and Heat, the amount it adds to the alarm. Big hauls can carry big risks. Your crew needs at least three different Heat values and no more than seven cards at the same Heat.
Two crews, three vaults, one alarm.
You and a rival enter each vault with empty bags. On your turn, Flip to reveal your next card or Bag It to leave with what you've collected. You must flip at least once before leaving. While both crews are inside, turns alternate; after one exits, the remaining crew can keep flipping.
Haul goes into your own bag. Heat goes onto an alarm meter shared by both crews. Your rival's next flip can be just as dangerous to you as your own.
Watch the meter. Respect the tripwire.
The alarm trips when a flip takes the meter above 18. Everyone still inside loses the loot in their bag. Anything already banked is safe.
Each crew also has a hidden Tripwire shuffled into its deck. It cannot be one of your first two cards, but from the third card onward it can end the vault immediately. Its odds climb as you keep flipping. Even room on the alarm meter doesn't make a late flip safe.
The game displays risk information to help you decide. The next card stays secret, so there is no guaranteed formula for the perfect exit.
Bag it. Then come back for more.
Bag It moves your loot into your banked Take and gets your crew out of the vault. If you flipped all four roles in that vault, your Full Crew doubles the bag when you leave.
The crew with the bigger total Take after three vaults wins the Job. A tie goes to overtime. Sessions are designed around five minutes, including a Job and a Case File opening.
A first-job tip
Watch what you stand to lose as closely as what you might gain. If the rival has already left, only your decisions can raise the meter — but the tripwire is still in play. A small banked haul can beat an ambitious bag that never makes it out.