Probably Stolen Beginner Guide: Survive Week One

Sources checked 2026-11-03 · Independent fan guide · Single-sourced claims are marked inline

Start Probably Stolen as the Apprentice on the easiest difficulty, keep the shutter open, read every note the Mentor leaves, and treat week one as a tutorial the game never labels. The developer's 1.0 announcement calls Apprentice "best for beginners", and Into Indie Games' day-by-day walkthrough confirms the first seven days teach one system at a time: customers, counterfeits, scavenging, machines and upgrades.

Choose a start and a difficulty

When you begin, you pick a specialization — the 1.0 release ships nine of them. Apprentice is the generalist start: Into Indie Games notes it is recommended for beginners, Tpose Gaming adds that it begins with extra credits, a Storage Bay and a stock of household goods and food, and GameSpew agrees it is the right first run. The specialist starts (Water Merchant, Fence, Gunsmith, Chemist, Hydroponic Farmer, Aquafarmer, Rat Wrangler) are better for later runs — the Chemist's Cartel quota has its own Chemist start guide — and Rock Bottom is deliberately the hardest — the developer's own list describes it as "nothing, start from scratch, maximum difficulty".

You then pick one of four difficulty options. Into Indie Games played on Price Gouge, which it describes as the cozy/easiest mode. Tpose Gaming names the normal setting Mark Up and the harder ones Thin Margins and Red Ink. One common trap Tpose calls out: Rock Bottom is a scenario, not a difficulty — you can pair it with harder modes, but your first run should not.

Perks come next. Into Indie Games reports that your first run cannot use active perks; from the second run onward you can have up to four active at once.

Day one: open the shutter

Into Indie Games' walkthrough is the best play-by-play of the opening hours:

• Open the shutter to start the day; a green button by the recorder calls the next customer in line.
• The Mentor arrives first with tips on running the store, plus notes on food (the station's most-traded commodity) and trading. Documents go into the dossier on the right.
• Check the receipt before selling. Opening the tablet shows each customer's Interests — what they actually want to buy. One early customer had 62 credits budgeted for food; another 106 for materials.
• A Security agent hands you the wanted-criminals list. If a wanted face appears, there is a button on the counter to call Security — though IGN's tip is to think before pressing it.
• End the day at the sleeping bag, pay the nightly power bill (5 credits in Into Indie Games' run) and read the morning report.

GameSpew's counterweight: you are never on the clock. The store page lists the game as playable without timed input, so inspect inventory and consider each deal instead of racing the customer.

Learn the Mentor's counterfeit lesson

Day three of the Into Indie Games run is a scripted lesson in fakes. The Mentor sells documents teaching you to spot counterfeits — the example is a pack of Hemingway cigarettes — checking the logo, the seal and the color against an identification guide. He also hands you the magnifying glass, the tool every later inspection relies on.

One confirmed discrepancy is enough to confront the seller and force the price down; Tpose Gaming warns the reverse also holds — accuse someone wrongly and your reputation takes the hit. On day four the Mentor brings a labeler, which lets you relabel counterfeit goods as genuine. Into Indie Games' rule of thumb for who buys them: tourists and upper-level customers are fine, scavengers are fine, lower-level citizens and Security are not.

Nights out: the Dumping Ground

Every night you can scavenge the Dumping Ground instead of going straight to bed. The trade-offs, per Into Indie Games and GameSpew:

• You stay up late and miss a customer the next morning (Into Indie Games notes a perk negates this, without naming which).
• Scavenging attempts are limited, and each attempt risks injury. The community-run probablystolenwiki.com read the exact odds off an official screenshot — 10.00% minor wound, 2.25% major wound per attempt, and you cannot scavenge while wounded — but flags them as pre-launch figures that may differ in 1.0.
• Pack a bandage. GameSpew and Into Indie Games both keep one in the bag; an untreated injury can block nights out for days.

On day four you also meet Joe Wild, who sells an overnight "insurance service" protecting the store from theft, according to Into Indie Games. His upgrade network matters later — see the rent and shop upgrades guide.

Your first machines

Dr. Jackson arrives around day six of the scripted week selling a Furnace that turns scrap metal into ingots overnight, Into Indie Games reports — feed it an energy cell plus two or more scrap before bed. He returns the next day with modules. Georgio shows up with bulk metal, and the Merchant, a premium seller, visits weekly with expensive components.

Tpose Gaming's caution: upgrade production slowly. A machine you cannot afford to power is expensive furniture. The full machine, module and price list is in the crafting and items guide.

Week-one checklist

Your script may differ — Into Indie Games notes customers are randomized outside the scripted beats — but the sequence of lessons is stable. When the week ends, the money guide picks up where the tutorial stops.