Hello again, Gamers and Hivers!
Welcome to the continuation of the "Nobody - The Turnaround" playthrough!
Or, the other less-known title of this game "Make it or break it!"
Day 3
What happened in previous days...?
Early morning.
As we walk down the stairs of the hostel, an incredible smell of Fried Dough invades our nostrils. We bolt towards the food stall and shove our mouths with more dough than we can chew. Then, a glass of Soy Milk to wash it all down.
Some food vendors offer smaller (and cheaper) meals. We'll can take that into consideration when looking at how hungry we are (our Fed basic need) and how big of a meal we actually need, until full. Every Yuan counts!
We're in a good mood so we Rent-a-Bike and go directly to work; we want to get there as quickly as possible today, so we can have more free time, in the evening.
And, the bike rental is just 2 Yuan.
As we're heading towards the construction site's entrance, we spot Mr. Cao, the site's supervisor, to whom we lent money to. We greet him and decide to allow him to repay us the 8 Yuan. Doing so, he let's us in on a valuable piece of information: our job-issued gloves and hardhat are "crap". "You should buy your own gear, for proper protection".
"Appreciated, Mr. Cao."
We head over to the Tools street vender stall.
"...yeah, gimme those gloves and that hardhat."
Each Tool will only be in effect at the job it's specifically meant for. Tools don't affect any other aspect of the game, outside jobs.
With proper gloves and hardhat equipped, we take our shift.
Our Tough level affects our movement speed while carrying heavy stuff (Laden).
After finishing our first shift, we start pondering our Life Goals, while we eat our mid-day meal. We don't want to be a Brick Mover forever; we want better Life Goals because that means access to higher paying jobs.
Unlocking Life Goals gives us access to higher paying jobs, but we also expect our life to have better conditions. Not meeting those conditions incur in Mood penalties.
Meal finished and we decide to change what we think of ourselves and no longer be called a "Sorryass", but instead, a "Nobody"! Small difference in wording but what counts is the inner feeling!
We're making enough Yuan to maintain a daily room rental. And we're more than capable with dealing with any cold we might catch from washing up in public sinks. Renting a more expensive room, for the sole purpose of having a private bath cuts much more into our earnings.
With our Life Goal figured out, we waste no time and head back into the construction site, for our second and last shift of the day.
The timing for purchasing that proper protection couldn't have come at a better time; during work, a loose brick fell square onto our hardhat, damaging it pretty badly.
Fatal accidents do happen and result in the progress of the entire day being lost, resetting the game to early morning.
It was a hard day's work and both our Cool and Mood stats are quickly going to take us into bad places.
Some fun activity is what we need right now; beating Grandpa at a Chess Game always does the trick. We'll do that right after we gulf down a big Combo Meal, wash up at the park sink and change into some fresh clothes.
"The old man has upped his game...or he cheated."
"Who am i kidding. I got lucky the first time - i don't know how to play this 'old mans' game."
This chess loss got us thinking about our Life Goals again. If we're gonna be called a Nobody, we want better pay. Tomorrow we'll start the Heavy Lifting job.
It's the same 5 hours as Brick Mover so we can continue doing double-shifts and, although we'll start by earning less than Brick Mover, our earnings potential is higher.
Working different jobs levels up different Abilities. To unlock a new job we need to have reached the level of the Ability that the job requires. Some jobs, require us to reach levels in more than one Ability.
Each job has a Notes description in their info box from where we can take a hint about the job, possibly making the decision to take the job, just based on that.
We max-out our Dusty skill level, further counteracting negative Cool points from wearing dirty clothes. We start improving our Reflex skill, which reduces the chances of getting injured in jobs.
Injuries can be costly to get treated at the Clinic as well as deadly.
After the chess game with Grandpa, we start heading home. We take out our phone to check something we remembered hearing from the news; we've heard that the Heavy Lifting job consists of carrying heavy packages to several businesses around the city, but some areas are still in Quarantine lockdown. That could make our job of traversing the city somewhat harder and possibly c.
I had actually had this happen in previous playthroughs, but it totally slipped my mind i this one!
Not getting packages to customers in time means no pay. We need all available roads and routes to be traversable to do this job.
So we realize that, in the meantime, we have no choice but to continue as Brick Mover. At least until the Quarantine lockdown is lifted.
A quick pat on the stray doggo to improve our mood, and his, as we're nearing our hostel.
The river we started clean yesterday still has some trash to remove so, before calling it a day, we fish out some more trash out of it; there's still some patches left and if we gain nothing more than the river just looking cleaner, so be it.
"What's that?! A Rent-a-Bike bicycle?!". We try and fish it out.
Not also is the bike in working condition [ Fishing it out added a Rent-a-Bike to this location ] we also found some scrap which we can sell.
The river might be cleaner now, but we are not.
"Alright, that's enough for the day. People are starting to avoid us due to our smell. We need a wash!"
We use the Rent-a-Bike that we just fished out and take a quick ride to the public toilet to do a quick wipe down.
As soon as we get off the bike, our Loan Shark "buddies" text us, with their "nightly extortion request".
We transfer the money and do a quick wipe down, at the toilets, near the Job Centre.
"There's always people there, even at night. Some even sleep at the Job Centre to get an early start on finding a job. Poor bastards, down on their luck."
Luck is not on our side either, it seems, as we catch a cold and get Sick.
We could try to sleep it off and hope to get Cured by morning but we don't want to risk it. We need to be in good health to be able to work by tomorrow morning. We're earning more than enough to afford a visit to the Clinic and get some "sick medicine".
Being Sick will affect our Cool level by -2 points, per hour. Sleep itself already reduces Cool, with the negative points from the hunger increase; we should minimize our Cool loss potential during long events, like sleeping or jobs.
30 Yuan at the Clinic is an acceptable price for a quick recovery.
Feeling the weight of the cold and the medicine numbing our senses, we stumble up the hostel's stairs for a, hopefully good, eventless night.
Day 4
After a blurry night of cold sweats and high fevers we wake up Cured, and to the News; they're announcing a Quarantine lift for certain areas of the city.
This is great news! We might be able to start the Heavy Lifting job today, after all.
Interrupting us from the news report, the Job Broker calls and informs us that there's a new job available; Security Guard. We agree to take a look and we thank her, knowing that we rather do double-shifts at the Heavy Lifting job, as it would pay more.
We've been increasing our Tough ability level for upcoming, better paying jobs, which only require the Tough ability, and Security Guard is not one of those jobs.
Not working the job we're offered by the Job Broker will decrease Relations with her.
Thinking back to the Quarantine Lift news, we open our dynamic city map on our phone to see which parts of the city have been lifted. We could very well start a better paying job right now.
But, to our dismay, the areas that are under Quarantine still constitute a problem; there's just not enough accessible area for foot traffic.
We think about the Security Guard job but we'll still earn more from the Bricker Mover job, so we'll keep working as Brick Mover. After work, we'll visit that locked-down neighborhood and try to get information on when the quarantine will be lifted.
We walk out the hostel and grab some food. Our mood isn't great but not bad either and we need to keep making money, so we head straight to the construction site.
We're able to do a first shift but we're definitely not in the mood for another. We have our mid-day, hardy meal and head out to find some new activity to lift our spirits.
We should be able to get back to the site in time for a second shift.
We stop by the Galloway Mall and take a quick look inside; there's a Movie Cinema, Food Court, Electronics & Appliances store, Clothing and Gift Stores. We're definitely out of the slums now; this is the "high-end" part of town.
We take a look at their Clothing store.
"They're more durable than our cheap 'street stall' clothes but they're expensive. Maybe some other time."
Indoor clothing stores exclusively offer clothes that give our character bonuses.
After a quick look around the Mall, what we're really up for is some entertainment so, we check out the Claw Game machine, just outside the Mall.
"Damn! No luck getting that Panda. These machines are rigged to not get the prize 9 out of 10 times. Still fun though."
Feeling in the Mood to work again, we cycle back to the construction site, just in time, and finish our second shift; we're getting pretty good at moving bricks.
We've earned some Skill Points, from levelling up our job Proficiency. We upgrade the Reflex skills, further reducing the chance of being injured at a job.
We're feeling good about the work we did today. But we're dragged back into the reality of things as we get a call from the Loan Sharks. They tell us that we're to pay them their interest fee on the debt, weekly, instead of daily.
The amount remains the same: 100 Yuan per day.
We have no say in the matter but we're tired of these bastards calling us every day, anyway.
The call gives us a quick reality check, to increase our efforts and come up with the money. We've slowly been collecting scrap these past few days so we'll need to pick up the pace. We decide to stop by the Recycler to sell the scrap we've collected so far.
We've hadn't had much free time to collect scrap due to our double, 5-hour shifts, but we sell her what we have anyway.
Plus, we've only just begun looking for scrap and we're not good at it; the Auntie knows this and she doesn't pay us much.
The more we interact with someone the more our Relations improves, providing us with more interaction opportunities during conversations. Possibly leading to bigger earnings or opportunities.
We're close to the Quarantined area so we head over to inquire as to when it'll be lifted. We want to start the Heavy Lifting job.
"November 9th".
"Damn, that's still five days away."
We don't really have any other option but to keep working as Brick Mover. We re-consider the Security Guard job again; it has a Base Wage of 140 Yuan per day and it's a 9-hour shift. We're making 300 Yuan per day, doing the double-shift as Brick Mover but that's 10 hours per day. There's no comparison in monetary terms, but it leaves us with one hour less in the day, to look for scrap.
We'll continue as Brick Mover and we'll try to make an extra effort to collect more scrap.
The day has 10 hours (Morning until Evening). Jobs, with exception of selling scrap to the Recycler and Peddling Stalls (which we'll do later, as well) can only be done during this time period.
The evenings has 4 hours. This is the time i've been utilizing to take care of our basic needs, Mood and Cool. And now, to try and fit in scrap collecting as well.
Nights i use solely to sleep, to get the Energized buff in the morning (+10% job XP).
Day 5
Early morning and we head over to the same street food vender as we do every morning, and have some food; we're eating the same food everyday and we're starting to get no Satisfaction from it.
We should start eating other foods, from other street vendors, and vary our diet. We'll do this at the end of the day, after work. While we walk around looking for scrap we'll try to spot other food stalls.
Now, there's work to be done, money to be made. So we head to work.
Our stale diet is obviously affecting us and we get unreasonably bothered at work from randomly seeing some guys work more efficiently than us.
We start our second shift anyway, even with this mood drop.
At the end of the work day, we're starving. Instead of eating outside the construction site, like we always do, we go looking for a different food vender that offers a big, satisfying meal.
"Clay Pot Soup. Yum Yum!"
"Pretty satisfying and fulfilling. And for 32 Yuan each bowl, it had better!"
Time for some fun activities to get our minds off those efficient muscle hunks. We're nearing the end of the day so we walk home, looking for scrap along the way and for some activity to take part of.
We see a sign that says Freestyle eSports Centre. Hell, yes! Some games!
"Nobody (modded)? Sounds like a hard and complex survival game."
"Might even be a virus. I wonder what happens if we were to click it..."
I'll leave "what happens" for you readers/potential players to be amused by the curious / expectation / subversion gag.
"Whatever..let's try 'Air Fighting'"
" This is the mindless fun we need right now!"
Thanks so much for the support on the first post! I hope you keep enjoying the game! Thank you!