How prices move

While the market is open, Crash Hour works out all prices again at a fixed interval, every 30 seconds by default. That moment is called a tick.

What happens on every tick

1. Sales count as demand. Every drink sold adds to its demand. Old sales count less and less over time.
2. Above or below average. A drink that sells more than the average of your drinks goes up, one that sells less goes down. One beer in an empty bar is not a rush: the effect starts gently.
3. Back towards base. On every tick, each price is also pulled a little towards its base price. A drink nobody orders slowly returns to normal, and so does a drink after a crash.
4. Limits. A price moves at most a few percent per tick and always stays inside its price band.
5. Rounding. The price shown and charged is rounded to the outlet’s rounding step.

When the market is closed, every drink sells at its base price and nothing moves.

Market rules

Who can change them: owners.

Under Settings → Market rules choose a style:

Style	For
Relaxed	Calm prices, for restaurants and wine bars
Balanced	The default for new bars
Wild	Fast and big moves, for events and parties

Expert values let you set the details yourself:

Setting	Effect
Tick interval (seconds)	How often prices are recalculated. Shorter = livelier, but more restless.
Demand half-life (minutes)	After this time a sale only counts half. Short = prices react to the last few minutes, long = to the whole evening.
Max. change per tick (%)	Upper limit for how far a price may move per tick.
Pull towards base price (%)	How strongly prices are pulled back to base on every tick. Keep it well below the max. change, or sales barely move anything.
Rounding step	Prices are rounded to this multiple.

Save with Save in the bar at the bottom of the page. The new rules apply from the next tick.

Tip

Not sure? Start with Balanced, watch one night, then try Wild on a busy night.