Day 19
New day. New job. After some light activities to lift our mood we get ourselves a change in clothes and swing by the Job Centre to find another job; we'll start working as an Usher at the Footbath & Spa.
We've been getting our mood tested lately by the stress of making money; the debt, the approaching deadline to pay it and YaoYao's future. And, we need to stay healthy if we're to stand a chance to endure all these responsibilities!
We'll work this 9-hour job so that we have time for the Recycler job and to take care of our own well being.
If the Loan Sharks end up giving us a beating for not paying the debt in time, at least we'll be healthy and in the mood to offer resistance!
If it comes to that, we can only hope our sister comes to her senses and goes to college. At least there she should have some level of safety. No to mention that all of this work would have been for nothing.
We earn around 200 Yuan from the first day on the job. Easiest job we've done, by far!
After our first day's work, we grab a hefty Kebab meal and, with the remaining time of the day we peddle the remaining of our stock, at the closest Peddler Spot we can find.
We don't have an apartment where we could empty our backpack. If we did we could utilize the backpack's full capacity to carry all the Recyclables we can find.
So we'll try and sell off everything we bought off of dBay as quickly as possible.
157 Yuan profit in 3 hours [ with Current Demand for our products at 100% ].
"Peddling is a tough gig, but we were FINALLY able to pocket the 3K Yuan for YaoYao's college tuition fee."
We feel good about that, but, we're starting to feel that not everything is going to work out.
We're realizing the very real possibility that we won't be able to come up with enough money to pay the debt and that's taking a toll on us - we need to make money but at the same time, take time for our own self-care.
We now have a persistent -2 Cool points bringing our Cool down, hourly, from the Out of Funds Downs. This Cool level is reducing out job income by 30%.
Day 20
Day 20 and the Job Broker calls.
She offers us a long-term job at a factory; we can't do long term jobs as we need the money quick, from daily paid jobs. We ask about any other jobs to which she replies that the Galloway Mall needs Promoters, but they require us to have a diploma...which we don't have.
We start to question life itself and ask hey "why would they want us to have a diploma if it's just a piece of paper". She points out that they don't know anything about us, and have no reason to trust us - a diploma would have meant that we would, at least, had been able to sit through high school without causing any trouble.
We thank her, and think no more about other jobs.
We have no time to start other jobs; we need to keep at the same one, to reach it's max Base Wage before the 30 days are over.
Our spirits lift a bit at the Claw Machine (as fleeting as it is) as we finally are able to get a Panda.
"Yeah, i know your scheme now!"
We visit one business to buy Recyclables and spend no more than a few minutes, earning 150 Yuan.
The downside of buying Recyclables for a living is that the amount of scrap there is for us to purchase increases slowly, after we buy it all from a business. If we buy all the recyclables from one of the businesses today, only tomorrow there will be more, and there's less amount to buy that the previous day. It'll probably take a few days to refill up to decent amounts. In hind-sight, doing both Peddling and Recycling might be the way to do this.
We head over to the Job Center and get the job as Usher again. We should be pretty close in increasing our Relations with the Footbath & Spa, allowing us to bypass the Job Broker fee.
We increase the Charming Skill which will increase the tips we earn from the Usher job.
We decide to text YaoYao; our last call didn't end on good terms, with her yelling at us and hanging up. She was feeling frustrated about not helping us with the debt; and we think that that was the reason as to why she was thinking about not going to college.
We tell her we're supportive of her doing what she wants to do, and not what she feels she has to do. We tell her that she deserves a better life and that college is the way to a better life.
She shouldn't feel guilty that we are handling everything ourselves.
Day 21
We're a bit more spirited after the text we sent YaoYao last night. We decide to lift our mood a bit before the 9-hour work day ahead of us and play a quick game of Darts.
And then have a Sugarcane snack and a bowl of Intestines, at the Odds & Ends restaurant.
At work, we've increased Relations enough that we can start the Usher job without incurring the Job Broker's fee.
Proficiency is also increasing and now we're making 300 Yuan a day, at the job.
Still, with 9 days left and with 3800 Yuan in our pocket, our hopes of paying 10k Yuan to the Loan Sharks have all but evaporated. 3K Yuan will be going to YaoYao, leaving us with a mere 800 Yuan; nothing more than a sniff of the 10K we need to pay the Loan Sharks.
We'll continue at it, though. Working the Usher job, Peddling the rest of the items we bought from dBay and doing our Recycling rounds. We're not one to loose hope.
During our recycler rounds we get a call from the Loan Sharks.
They're checking in on how we are doing. Not money-wise, but as "friends" as they put it. We ask them what there real angle is, because we're not friends.
They ask us if anyone's called us; we're left without understanding who or what they are talking about.
We only know that they're trying to play nice with us, again, for some reason, and try to get us to agree with them, telling us that although we have a debt to pay them, and that they know it's been hard for us, they haven't been making our life any harder beyond that.
And that's it. They hang up, leaving us to wonder what that was about.
Day 22
We're clinging onto straws here and in desperate need of huge sums of money, so we call the Job Broker, in hopes of there being any job with high bonuses.
There's a job with a bonus and we accept it without even asking her what it is. She feels for us and spares us the broker fee. She says the job is at a Convenience Store in the park; they need someone to do promotion. But the bonus is less that what we do per day, now.
So we skip the bonus job.
And we keep at our Usher job, improving our Proficiency at it (therefore our earnings), doing the best we can, hoping everything works out in the end.
We have 8 days and need to come up with 1k per day which, so far, has never been the case. We work out of despair at this point, praying something good comes along.
Our Cool Level had dropped again, decreasing our job earnings by 30%, so we spent the rest of the day doing activities, washing up, getting new clothes. Everything to push the Cool level up.
Day 23
Early news today, and we read that the police have been cracking down on Loan Sharks and Illegal Debt Collecting, across the country.
We now understand that last call from the Loan Sharks, acting all nice.
We wish them a good time in jail if they get caught.
The End Is Nigh & We Succeed?
From Day 23 forward we kept our routine: constantly pushing Cool Level up, maintaining our Mood, meeting our Basic Needs, working the Usher, Recycler and Peddler jobs (until we ran out of items to peddle), and we increased skills pertaining to these three jobs with the earned skill points from levelling up our the Proficiency at the job.
- We tried MadConalds for the first time.
- We increased our Smart ability to Level 4 - reading books in the Bookworm book store - to increase XP earned in jobs, gaining more skill points, to maximize skills for our three jobs.
A few days later we got a call from YaoYao.
She decided to go to college, telling us that most colleges offer full scholarship! This meant that we didn't have to pay 3K Yuan for the tuition fee.
She said she would then get a part-time job or two while attending college and end up with extra cash to live off of. Then she thanked us, for everything. We told her there was no need for her to thank us. We only wanted what was best for her. We told her to keep her college plan rolling.
Happy with knowing that YaoYao is going to college, we kept our routine. More pumped than ever, knowing that we don't have to pay the 3K Yuan for her tuition fee; Perhaps we're able to pay the debt after all, in time.
More days go by.
Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat.
- We occasionally played some Liar Dice to lighten up.
We took advantage of MadConalds's 50% OFF EVERTYGHING deal and had some more fulfilling burgers.
We got another job offer from the Broker, as Chef Aid, and yet again didn't take it, as we were well off making 350 Yuan per day, from the Usher job alone.
We tried Malatang for the first time.
We nearly aced the Dancing Auntie's dance, not missing a single combo.
We tried Fried Rice for the first time.
Day 30 (The Last Day)
Last day to pay off the debt..
We go to work, knowing we won't make enough money today. Not enough for the 10K Yuan, and pay the debt, but we go anyway.
We also do our recyclables rounds as well.
And it's just not enough.
We have around 8K Yuan at the end of the day, just 2K short of succeeding.
We hit our last string of hope and tried our luck, twice, purchasing two lottery tickets, in a last effort to coming up with the remaining amount of money.
No...
Luck..
"You didn't have enough money by the end of the month. But you couldn't put YaoYao under risk, no matter what. You pulled every string to find money, both made and borrowed. Lucky for you, a few coworkers chipped in and you managed to pull through. And YaoYao, now away from your toxic parents, is doing great at school."
"Your eyes sting a little as the world blurs. You stand up and clear your throat loudly to make sure your voice doesn't waiver."
And this is the ending we got. We helped YaoYao get a good life, which felt great!
So, did we beat the game?
What I think happened in that, in the game (in the world we've been playing in), we paid off the debt with the help of friends and co-workers (they lent us the last 2k).
But, in reality, in the world you are reading this, we "did not complete the quest".
Hence the "failed" message at the bottom of the screenshot above.
Final Thoughts
However bizarre the ending is (giving us the win, without actually winning), this gams is just that! Figuring out how things work, why they work, where to get the money from and what choices to make and get the best result (ending) possible.
Because there other possible results. I don't recall the other ending i got but i don't think it ended with a toast. All i remember is that with the choices i made, i sent YaoYao down a "bad path". Oops!
So, the endings are really out there and can be varied.
And it's really like Mr. Cao said: "There's no win or loose. It's about how each of us play the game".
Gameplay wise, it's a lot of fun tinkering with all the mechanics. The jobs (which are basically mini-games) aren't hard per say and are fun, trying to maximize how much money we can make out of each shift (getting better at the mini-game, basically!).
As for everything else, there's just a ton of things to do at every corner! A ton of mechanics, interesting stories, replayability.
I think this game is a great game. I enjoyed tinkering with the mechanics and the story, and this game's a great mix between the two.
It was fun experiencing some of the Chinese culture as well, through the game.
Well, i hope that you, who made it all the way to the end of this playthrough enjoyed it as well! And play it!
There's so much more to do in the game than what we saw, so we didn't even experience half (rough estimate), especially with the multiple paths we can take and outcomes that come from them.
Not to mention that in this playthrough we only visited two locations (the downtown city area and Gadgetplex), out of nine locations in the wider area of the map.
I also want to emphasize how the conversations are much more nuanced and convey more emotion than how I have summarized them.
Well, that's it, I think!
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Thanks for reading, everyone, and the support!
Until next time.