A service game · real odds from the reef
You are a cleaner fish.
Your station on the reef serves thousands of clients a day. You could eat their parasites (honest, modest calories), or bite the delicious mucus you actually prefer, and pay for it. Regulars remember. Bystanders watch. Predators are clients too. Massage the ones who matter, and serve until dusk.
Best cleaners on the reef
| # | Player | Species | Score | Survived | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading scores… | |||||
How the odds work
Every core number is drawn from published studies. A day is 24 clients: ~55% are your six named residents (weighted by relationship), 37% visitors, 8% predators. A bystander turns out to have been watching with P = 0.5 — rolled only after you act, the way a real audience works — and each reputation strike makes the next client swim off with +20% probability. Honest cleaning pays +2 (+3 from residents whose relationship > 0.6, rel +0.05); a massage pays 0 food but +0.12 relationship (more when reconciling after a cheat) and calms predators; cheating pays +6 and costs relationship and reputation, or, on a predator, your life. At dusk your score is food ×8, plus your resident relationships and your remaining clean reputation (the fixed day length and score weights are the game's own tuning). Full sources and the natural history live on the Learn more page.