Probably Stolen Guide: 9 Starting Scenarios, Which to Pick

Probably Stolen is a shopkeeper sim from Questing Goose Studio, published by tinyBuild (also the publisher of Graveyard Keeper 2), set on a cyberpunk space station where your rent goes up whether or not your week went well. The Steam page puts the pitch plainly: "You're not choosing a theme for your shop, you're choosing which kind of trouble you're willing to monetize." That's what a starting scenario is. If you liked the grubby, contraband-heavy picks in our best indie cyberpunk games list, this is the shop version of that setting.

How starting scenarios work in Probably Stolen

You pick a scenario when you start a new game. It sets your trade, your opening stock and machines, and the trouble that trade attracts. Then, per the developer's 1.0 post, "after picking a starting scenario, you can choose between 4 difficulty options." The developer hasn't published what each difficulty changes. Starting perks sit on top of both; more on those below.

A scenario isn't a life sentence. In the demo, extra trades also arrived mid-run as Wild's Network upgrades: a Retired Water Merchant upgrade was added during the playtest, and the October 19 demo update added a Retired Aquafarmer, a "new retired merchant" who sells the equipment to raise fish in tanks. Questing Goose hasn't said whether every trade can be bought into this way in 1.0.

The goal is the same in every scenario. The 1.0 ending is "where you can purchase and own the store," followed by a stats screen with your most profitable sale and days survived. Rent is the clock. The store page warns that if you fall behind, "your store loses attractiveness, fewer customers walk in, revenue drops, and the gap widens."

All nine starting scenarios at a glance

The "Developer's line" column quotes the 1.0 announcement. The "What can sink it" column comes from the Steam page, which says "weapons bring inspections, chemicals bring addiction, water brings liability, contraband brings raids."

Run one: the Apprentice

The developer calls the Apprentice "best for beginners," and the rest of its line explains why: "Be a generalist. Upgrade as you go. Learn the game at your own pace." A generalist shop is how you learn the counter: reading a customer, checking an item's estimated value against what they're asking, and spotting a fake before you pay for it. Every other trade layers its own risks on top of that.

Price discipline is the skill to build here. In the September release date trailer, a Peat tooltip at 0:06 reads "Est. Value: 29" against "Base Value: 25" with a "Retail Markup" label, and at 0:22 a GloomBerry Wine offer to an Upper Levels customer stacks "Retail Markup (+15%)" with "Mid Level Contraband Markup (+70%)". Who you sell to changes what an item is worth. If you've priced relics in our Moonlighter 2 price guide, the instinct carries over, with a lot more lying involved; our Moonlighter 2 guide hub has the rest of that shop's systems.

Food stamps split demo players. "Buying food stamps means getting 15% more value at the commissary," one wrote, but they argued the money sits tied up until your next commissary trip and that buying Jackson's inventory to resell pays better. If you do take stamps, another player's five-point checklist for fakes includes "is the amount in multiples of 40" and "if the amount is over 120, does it have a seal". Those are demo-era details; check them against your 1.0 manual.

Run two: Water Merchant or Fence

Demo players have run both to good money, and they reward different habits.

Water Merchant is the trade the trailer sells hardest. At 0:40 a Thirsty Spacer asks, "I need something to drink, fast. Got Basewater?" At 0:42 a labeler turns "Ghostwater (-33% Value)" into "Basewater (0% Value)". At 0:52 a note on the counter reads, "Your fake water is killing us. You're next." That's the trade in three shots: grade your water, decide whether to tell the truth about it, and live with what happens. The in-game Water Trading Manual, shown in a Steam screenshot, sets the grades from Pure (99.9% and up) down through Basewater (98% to 99%) to Gutterflow (under 90%).

Screenshot: Probably Stolen Steam store page (Questing Goose Studio / tinyBuild)

It can carry a whole run. One player wrote that they reached a store worth 20k "by day 52 by mostly just selling water made from 2 moisture farms." Watch who you sell premium bottles to, though: Update 049 notes that "non-Upper Level customers and tourists will not accept" Premium Spring Water.

Fence trades on stolen goods, and the developer's line, "Move fast, stay invisible," is the whole brief. Raids are the risk, so your Security record matters more here than anywhere. A demo player answered another's question about where to find it: "The Mentor should have given you a red folder that has an always up-to-date copy of your record," they wrote. And on the long game: "Fence is more scalable, though I've heard full water trading is quite profitable," said another.

Our pick between the two: Water Merchant if you want a steady earner while you learn the station's politics, Fence if you already liked the haggling in run one and want a higher ceiling.

GODEEPER: Graveyard Keeper 2, also published by tinyBuild, runs its own trader economy with Merchant Day prices and looter orders. Graveyard Keeper 2 orders and traders guide →

The specialist trades: Gunsmith, Chemist, Hydroponic Farmer

These three hand you equipment up front and charge you in risk.

• Gunsmith starts "with Class 1 weapon permit, a stock of firearms and ammunition," per the developer, who adds: "Don't get caught." The Steam page lists the cost as inspections. One store screenshot shows a Revolution quartermaster at the counter beside a Peacemaker Heavy SMG tooltip that reads "High-Level Contraband," with an estimated value of 615, two days before rent.
• Chemist gets "chemistry lab equipment" and "closely guarded recipes." The store's warning for chemicals is addiction, which fits the starting perks: Update 049 made the addiction perks start you with one related item and begin withdrawal straight away. If recipe work is the draw, Graveyard Keeper 2's rune-total alchemy is a very different take on it.
• Hydroponic Farmer starts "with hydroponic machines and farming supplies" and ends, the developer says, "with genetically modified breeds of unique crops that people pay a fortune for." Space is the limit: the line opens with "grow crops in a limited space." If you enjoy a production chain more than the counter, this is your trade; it's the closest thing here to the crafting loop in our Graveyard Keeper 2 beginner guide, and our indie automation games list goes much further down that road.

Screenshot: Probably Stolen Steam store page (Questing Goose Studio / tinyBuild)

The breeders: Rat Wrangler and Aquafarmer

The Rat Wrangler is the answer to the "Probably Stolen secret scenario" search. It was hidden in the playtest until patch 48.3.12, which says the Rat Wrangler "(previously secret) is now visible alongside the other starting scenarios." In 1.0 it sits on the list with the rest.

Rats pay because of density. "They are the highest profitable source of food items. being the most credits per square," one demo player wrote, adding that rats "over 400g" give a luxury meat item when butchered. The top tip in a thread about sick rats was five words long: "Stop feeding them rat meat." The same thread explains why: feeding rats rat meat gives them prion disease. Inbreeding, by one player's account, isn't the problem: "I'm on day 240 of breeding my rat rancher starting rats with no new blood since day 30 and they are doing great!"

Screenshot: Probably Stolen Steam store page (Questing Goose Studio / tinyBuild)

The Aquafarmer is the gentler breeder. You start with "a stock of Tilapia and recirculating aquaculture systems," and the developer says "water quality, fish food and environment affect what kind of fish you end up with." When it arrived in the demo, Questing Goose called aquaculture "slower-paced, requires less maintenance and is more beginner friendly than Rat Ranching." Tilapia leads to eels and sturgeons, and Surgery Tools on sturgeons harvest caviar. If rats sound like too much work, start here.

Rock Bottom, and the setting the developer warns off

Rock Bottom is "Nothing. Start from scratch. Maximum difficulty." It arrived in playtest patch 48.3.10 as a "hardcore mode, you start with nothing," and by September the developer's playtest recap called it "a big hit." It's built for players who already know which deals to refuse. Don't make it your first run.

The 1.0 post has one more warning, and it's blunt: "do not play with Sentinel Collapse Disorder on your first run. Seriously, don't." The post doesn't say what Sentinel Collapse Disorder is or where you select it. Take the advice anyway.

Starting perks worth knowing

Perks are chosen at the start of a new game, and 1.0 adds new ones. What we know from the demo patch notes and players:

• Sawyer's Crew: "makes janitorial free and gives you access to the underground exchange from the start," per one demo player. Update 049's bug fixes confirm the perk is how you get the Underground Exchange Directive from Sawyer.
• Vigilant: the same player says it "eliminates the need for insurance/alarm and never fails."
• Model Citizen: Update 049 raised its credit bonus for reporting criminal customers from 20% to 50%.
• Intimidating: cuts evidence generation by 33% (up from 25%) and now costs 2 starting points instead of 3.
• Addiction perks: a bigger trading penalty (8%, up from 5%), and you start holding one item tied to the habit, with withdrawal starting immediately. Gambling Addiction buys scratch tickets for you.

Update 049 also added two starting perks "designed for challenge runs" without naming them in the notes.

For a fence, Sawyer's Crew and Intimidating fit the brief. For a water seller who plans to report shady customers, Model Citizen at 50% is the obvious buy. These are demo numbers and could change at launch.

GODEEPER: If organ trading is the scenario you're waiting for, the post-launch Organ Trader is pitched "for the Butcher fans." Graveyard Keeper 2 corpses and organs guide →

What the trailers show at the counter

We stepped through the release date trailer tinyBuild posted on September 14. Beyond the pricing tooltips above, it shows the station's other job. At 0:32 a poster lists "visible aug chip," "unusual pupils" and "uncanny expression" as signs to watch for, and at 0:34 the shopkeeper points a gun across the counter. The Steam page explains the context: a rogue AI chip "took its hosts with it," Augs "look like everyone else ... until they don't," and every faction agrees on the policy, "and you have the gun to enforce it." Misreading the signs costs you, which makes every customer a small solo version of the games in our social deduction picks. At 0:36 and 0:38 the trailer advertised three starting professions in the demo, "including the new Water Merchant."

Appraisal is the part of the loop one demo player singled out: "Still playing the demo. Appraising is more fun than I thought," they wrote under the trailer.

Coming after launch

Three more scenarios are planned: the Junker, "coming shortly after launch," plus a Street Food Vendor and an Organ Trader. The roadmap also lists a Main Storyline expansion that will affect the station and the ending, Expeditions where you hire people such as a scav for scavenging missions, and new appraisal items. 1.0 itself adds Steam Workshop support, Vending Machines that "sell goods overnight after your close shop," and 21 Steam achievements.

Demo saves and the move to 1.0

Your demo save will load, but the developer would rather it didn't: "Saves from the Demo are compatible, but we greatly recommend starting a new game to avoid potential bugs." The demo goes away at 1.0, and demo mods "will likely not be compatible." Steam lists no price yet as of October 24, and the game is Windows only with a low bar: the minimum spec asks for an Intel Core i3, 8 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 650 Ti. Once a price appears, weigh it against our best indie games under $20.

Our take

The one rule this Probably Stolen guide keeps coming back to: pick the scenario for the trouble you want, because that's what the game is built around. The Apprentice teaches the counter without a specialty's extra failure mode. Water and fencing are where the money and the moral choices sit, and demo players have shown both can carry a run. The breeders are for people who like tending something; rats pay more, fish forgive more. Rock Bottom and Sentinel Collapse Disorder can wait.

If you'd rather run a calmer shop this autumn, our Moonlighter 2 beginner tips cover a shopkeeper who sells dungeon loot instead of contraband, the ReStory review covers a Tokyo repair counter, and The Doll Shop has you repairing dolls in a snowbound village. If you want something already at 1.0, see our Dungeon Inn 1.0 verdict.

How we checked this

On October 24, 2026 we read the Probably Stolen Steam listing and its system requirements, every Steam announcement from the August 3 reveal to the October 21 "What's in Store for 1.0" post, including the demo patch notes, and the store screenshots used here. We stepped through the release date announcement trailer (timestamps above) and read its YouTube comments, and read threads on r/ProbablyStolen about fencing, water, rats, food stamps and perks. We haven't played Probably Stolen, its demo or its playtest, so the community tips above are quoted, not tested.

References

• Probably Stolen on Steam: release date, store copy, system requirements, screenshots.
• Steam announcement: Opening October 28, What's in Store for 1.0 Release? (October 21, 2026).
• Steam announcement: UPDATE 049, Release Date + New Demo (September 14, 2026).
• Steam announcement: Playtest Patch 48.3.12, The Rat Wrangler (August 7, 2026).
• Probably Stolen Release Date Announcement Trailer (tinyBuild, September 14, 2026).
• r/ProbablyStolen, community threads quoted above.
• tinyBuild, publisher; Questing Goose Studio on Steam, developer.