The Great Land Grab
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Game Help

Interacting with Land

To view the details of a piece of land and to purchase the claim you must click on the land. This will bring up a detailed information window about the land including who owns it, what the purchase price is, and how you are able to interact with it.

All land claims are paid to the land office and NOT the current owner of the land. You must be physically present with your device to purchase the claim on a parcel of land. When you purchase a land claim it belongs to you an no one else.

Being a greedy bunch, the land office will let a claims jumper purchase the claim for less the longer you own it. You can upkeep your claim for a small fee by going back to that piece of land and selecting Upkeep.

Value of Land

Every time a claim changes hands, the value of the claim increases by $1.
The rent yield is not quite so linear for land. Think of it like bowling pins. A claim valued at $1 will yield $0.1 an hour, land valued at $2-3 will yield $0.2 an hour, land valued at $4-6 will yield $0.3 an hour and so on. This means that the more valuable the land is the longer it will take you to recover your purchase cost.

The land office values the claim based on its popularity but also likes to make sure that the land changes hands quickly. Every day that land valued at over $10 does not change hands, the land office reduces its purchase price for the claim by 10%. This means that it is easier for those varmint claims jumpers to take your land.

Never missing an opportunity to make some money, the claims office will set the purchase price of your parcel to its maximum value if you pay 25% of maximum value as an Upkeep fee. You must be present in the parcel to Upkeep your claim. You will not be allowed to Upkeep if the purchase price is the same as the maximum value or if you have haunted the land.

Haunting your land with a ghost will keep the purchase price of your claim at maximum value. It is not known if the claims office is scared by the spirit or if they just think the land is inhabited by a federal agent.

Making Money

Money is made in three ways. You have your salary, rent, and ghosts.

Salary is money you get just for playing the game. Every hour you earn a plumb quarter. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. The only catch is after 12 hours of not logging in, you stop earning your salary. You have to be on the clock.

Rent is the money you get every hour for owning your claim. Rent is paid out based on the value of the claim. You also earn rent from the businesses in your claimed land. See the business section for more information.

Ghosts protect your land from claims jumpers. They are etherial so they can't actually stop someone from buying the claim, but they will take money from the varmint and give it directly to you.

Prizes

Prizes are hidden all over the map. If you click on a piece of land and you see a prize in the info window, that means the prize is ready for claiming. Be the first person to purchase the next claim on that land to win the prize.

Prizes are associated not just with the land, but also with the land value. There may be a prize buried deep in the land that will take some claiming to uncover. For instance, if the land is valued at $12 and the prize is set to be won at $15 the prize will go to the person who claims the land when it is valued at $15.

You will know that a prize is ready to be won when you see a little package appear in the lower right hand corner of the land on the map.

When you purchase a claim with prize you will get a dialog where you can accept or reject the prize. Rejecting a prize will randomly place the prize back on the map. In game items like ghosts and flares are not subject to the purchase limit when it is a prize.

Stores

If you see a building on a piece of land it means that a business is sponsoring that piece of land. That is currently the only way a store will appear in game. This sponsorship does three great things for you.

First, the land pays out an extra quarter an hour in rent because of the sponsorship.

Second, the real store acts as an in game store. If you are in the parcel with the store and look at the parcel details you will see a store button. You can purchase in game items in the store.

Third, the business could be offering a promotion only available to game players. Click the ad in the parcel detail window and save the promotion to your personal promotion list. When you want to bring up the promotion, just click the Promotions selection in the menu.

Make sure your favorite stores know they can sponsor a piece of this game so you can get good deals and more rent for your claim!

Items

When you are located in a parcel with a store, you can view the parcel details to find a store button. Here you can purchase in game items. You do not need to own the land to purchase items from the store.

Ghost- The ghost is an old timey spirit that has been specially trained to guard land. To get him to work you MUST be present in a parcel you own and click Haunt in the parcel details window. The ghost is just an apparition so it cannot stop someone from taking the land, but if some varmint does try the ghost will take 2-3% of their money and give it to you.
Once you get a ghost to haunt land, you cannot get him to stop until someone buys the land or chases the ghost off with a flare. If someone does buy the land, the ghost returns to you for reuse. If you already have 3 ghosts you cannot purchase another.
You will not be able to Upkeep haunted land.

Flare- The only thing known to be able to scare off a ghost is flare. When you use a flare it is gone for good and you only have a 25% chance of scaring off the ghost with each flare. When a ghost is scared off it is effectively destroyed. It does not return to its owner. If you already have 5 flares you cannot purchase more.

Location Finding

The location service is provided by Google and there are some tricks to getting it to work well.

GPS is the most reliable location finder but it only works well when you are outside. It also uses more power so your battery will drain faster.

If you are using the wireless location finder you can actually increase your accuracy and chances of being found if you turn on wifi. Again, turning on wifi uses more power.

I have received reports from some users that if GPS is on then the wireless location finding does not work as a fallback.