Auction — free browser game

You are the auctioneer in a salesroom: 8 antiques cross the stage one after another and you need to sell each for as much as possible. The moment an item appears, the floor bidders start throwing bids — each one pushes the price up by 5 to 25 lira, the big number flashes on every bid, and the 'Excitement' bar on the right springs back to the top. Your only job is to press the gavel (Space, Enter, or the on-screen button) to close the bidding; the current price becomes the sale price and is added to your score. The key: bids arrive more slowly with each round because the floor grows cautious as the price approaches the item's 'true value' — so near the peak you'll see gaps of 2-3 seconds between bids. The excitement bar visualizes the time since the last bid: high (red-orange) means the floor is still hot, falling (blue) means it's the moment to drop the gavel. A thin timer at the top counts the 14-second ceiling per item. If you never hit the gavel, or no new bid arrives for 3 seconds, the sale auto-closes as 'crowd dispersed' and you collect only 60% of the last price — so hesitation always costs. Strategy: don't rush the first 2-3 bids — gaveling before roughly twice the base price caps your score; wait until the spacing between bids widens and the excitement bar drops to about half, then strike. The 'Recent bids' column on the left shows the heights of the last 6 bids — if the increments are shrinking you're near the peak. After 8 items your total balance is compared with your best; the best shift balance is saved in your browser.