River Rebel guide: clean the river faster, hire well and form the company
To do well in River Rebel, pick up floaters before they drift downstream, sell often at the Kachra Point, put your first money into a bigger sack and the gloves and net, hire a helper once the daily wage is safe, build a drain screen as soon as level 3 opens it, film before and after reels for followers, and save for the Kachra Chakra trash wheel at level 5.
What is River Rebel?
River Rebel is a free 3D game about cleaning a dying river in a small Indian town. You play Sonu, a student with Rs 3,000, standing on the bank of the Ajnar Nadi. The water is grey, the bank is covered in bags, bottles, tyres and puja flowers, and the river health meter reads in the low twenties: dying.
You clean it by hand, one sack at a time, and slowly turn one boy with a sack into a crew, a fleet of machines and a company. It never ends: days and nights keep rolling, and the town keeps growing and throwing more into the river.
It is inspired by the news of young people cleaning India's rivers by hand, like Bittu Tabahi on the Ajnar in Biaora. Sonu, the town and every number in the game are made up.
The basics
- Walk and wade with W A S D or the arrows (the stick on a phone). Hold Shift, or push the stick all the way, to run while your stamina lasts.
- Hold E or Space (the big button on a phone) to do what the prompt says: pick, net, dig, cut, talk, or empty your sack.
- Sell by walking into the green Kachra Point. You get paid by the kg, and different garbage pays differently.
- Sonu can't swim. The deep middle of the river is off limits until you buy the boat.
- Floaters drift downstream and leave the river for good. Grab them before they go.
Your first day
Start on the near bank and in the shallows: bags and bottles come out fast, and the first 25 kg get you to level 1. Sell often rather than walking around with a full sack. A tyre takes a long heave on your own but goes quickly with anyone from your crew nearby, so leave the tyres for later.
Every level pays cash, from Rs 500 for level 1 up to Rs 60,000 for level 11, so the early levels come with money for your first upgrades.
What to buy first
- Bigger sack (Upgrades tab). Fewer walks to the Kachra Point means more kg per minute. It goes from 12 kg up to 40 kg.
- Rubber gloves and the long net (level 1). Gloves keep your skin from suffering in dirty water; the net scoops three floaters at once from 3 m away, even from the bridge.
- Quick hands, then the shovel and sickle at level 2. Sludge and water hyacinth are slow by hand and four times faster with the right tool.
- Gumboots at level 3 to wade faster, and the boat at level 4 to reach the deep middle.
Hiring a crew
Each hire costs a signing fee of four days' wages, then a wage every morning, so hire when your money keeps coming in, not the moment a role unlocks.
| Role | Opens at | What they do |
|---|---|---|
| Helper | Level 1 | Picks up anything near the bank and helps heave tyres |
| Netter, digger | Level 3 | Nets floaters, digs sludge |
| Boatman, hyacinth cutter | Level 4 | Works the deep middle, cuts hyacinth |
| Sorter | Level 5 | Sorts at the depot so the recycler pays 20% more (two at most) |
You can have four crew at first and fourteen once you form the company. Volunteers also turn up for free every day once you have some fame. Crew training and crew baskets in the Upgrades tab make the whole team faster.
Stop it at the source
Picking is only half the job, because the town keeps throwing. The yellow rings on the bank are build spots (press B):
- Dustbins and the flower bin (level 2) give people somewhere else to throw, and the flower bin takes the puja flowers.
- Drain screen (level 3) catches what the town's drain would have dumped in. Build it early.
- Float boom and sign (level 4).
When someone walks up to tip a bag into the river, you can talk to them. Be kind: it works better than shouting. At night, watch the far bank for the tractor that comes to dump.
Machines
| Level | Machine | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Kachra Chakra (a googly-eyed trash wheel that catches floaters) | Rs 15,000 |
| 5 | Bio-Bugs (microbes that eat the sludge) | Rs 8,000 |
| 7 | Skimmer boat, JCB, collection truck | Rs 40,000, 55,000, 35,000 |
| 8 | Hyacinth harvester, recycling unit, constructed wetland | Rs 45,000, 70,000, 60,000 |
| 9 | Sewage treatment plant | Rs 2,50,000 |
Every machine also has a daily upkeep. The collection truck empties the trash wheel, the drain screen and the flower bin for you, and the recycling unit makes everything sell for 60% more.
Reels and fame
Press R to film a reel: one shot before, then one after you clean the spot. Reels bring followers, and followers bring newspaper stories, volunteers and sponsors who pay every morning. Fame goes through ten stages, from the mohalla WhatsApp group to prime time TV.
River Rebel Pvt Ltd
At level 6, with enough fame and Rs 25,000, you can form the company. It raises your crew limit to fourteen and opens a bank loan, a municipal contract, CSR money and a state grant, and lets you speed up the day. That is when the river starts to run itself.
The leaderboard
Create a free account to put your total kg on the River Rebel leaderboard. It counts everything you, your crew and your machines have collected, and updates every morning in the game.
Free browser gameRiver RebelClean a dying river one sack at a time. Wade in, dig the sludge, cut the hyacinth and talk litterers out of it, then hire a crew, buy a googly-eyed trash wheel and turn one boy with a shovel into a company.▶ Play free
