• Pressure Below

Under your yard is a sewer, and it's full.

Floor to ceiling, every tunnel is packed with decades of muck, and buried in it is everything the town ever flushed, dropped or lost: rings, watches, coins, old cameras, the odd gold bar. You have a pressure washer, five lamps and a hose on a reel.

Walk down the service stairs, hold the trigger and carve your own way through. Wash your finds clean (clean sells for more), carry them back up into daylight and sell them at the stall in your yard to whoever wanders past. Spend the money on a longer hose, a bigger air tank, a stronger pump and a bigger backpack, and go deeper.

• Drain The Lake with a Spoon

Locals call it Bottomless Lake. You have a teaspoon.

Walk down to the water, dip your spoon, carry it back to the water company's depot and pour it in. They pay a dollar a litre. That's half a cent a trip. The counter says 72,217,347 litres to go: 14 billion teaspoons. Do the maths later.

Upgrade what you carry

Tablespoon, paper cup, jug, bucket, storage box, wheelbarrow, barrel trolley. Running shoes for the long walk. Every upgrade makes the next trip worth more, and the trips keep getting longer, because as the lake drains the water's edge walks away from you.

• Move the Mountain with a Spoon

Locals call it Mount Grumble. You have a teaspoon.

The Ministry of Roads wants it moved to the field next door. Walk up to the mountain, dig a teaspoon of sand, carry it to the new site and pour it inside the stakes. The Ministry pays a dollar a litre. The counter says 56,541,510 litres to go: 11 billion teaspoons. Better start walking.

The sequel to Drain the Lake with a Spoon.

Real sand

Every grain slides. Undercut a slope and it comes down on you. Pour a load and it cones out. Dig deep enough and you find the clay, the gravel of an old riverbed, and a granite heart only a pickaxe can break.

Bigger spoons

Tablespoon, paper cup, jug, bucket, storage box, wheelbarrow, barrel trolley. Every upgrade makes the next trip worth more.

Gold in the gravel

140 nuggets and 13 lost things are buried in Mount Grumble. A metal detector hears them, a ground radar sees them. Sell them at the assay office.