Hello Hivers and Gamers, and welcome back to this great little game!
I haven't been active because i've been busy creating this series, which i hope you'll like!
What i'll be doing in these series of posts is a semi-blind run through "Nobody - The Turnaround", trying to succeed at the game's objective, while showing many of the different things we can do in the game, plus exposing it's story - parts of it anyway, as player choices branch out into different occurrences and dialogues, etc.
I've finished the game's first story once but I failed to complete the objective. What ending i got, i can't recall; there are a few endings if I'm not mistaken. I then played it halfway through, twice. Each time understanding more of what I could tweak, so far as "how to play it better in order to win".
This forth time, i decided to log my playthrough because it seems i might be able to successfully complete the objective this time.
So, i hope you're all here for the ride and that it's an interesting one for you.
Btw, the game has a few different path you can take that'll lead you to different endings, so reading through it won't spoil the whole game.
Summary Of The Game's Interlude
The game starts with us (the main character) on a train, receiving a text message.
We're being forced to pay off a debt, left by our on-the-run father. Loan Sharks threaten us to settle our father's debt (because the debt "passes down to the family"). We need to come up with 10k Yuan in 30 days or they'll turn to our family and threaten them, or worse.
We have zero money, so we travel to the city in hopes to try and come up with the money.
After the back and forth of messages we call our sister and talk about what's going on; she knows about the Load Sharks, the debt and our trip to the city. She's in our home town, attending to our mother who is hospitalized.
Throughout this call our sister asks us three questions. Each question has multiple answers we can choose. Each answer chosen gives us a different Trait. Different Traits gives us different buffs that we we can take into consideration when finding jobs. We don't know what Trait each answer gives us until we select an answer, but by the the end of our conversation we end up with the Cautious, Insightful and Hunk Traits.
Cautious - Chance of being injured on job -10%
Insightful - Keen XP from jobs +20%
Hunk - Tough XP from jobs +20%
Our character has four "Abilities": Tough, Smart, Deft (speed & stamina) and Keen. These are leveled up as we work the jobs we take, and give higher boosts to our character as they're leveled up.
Day 1
We arrive to the city by train and take the bus downtown. As soon as we get off the bus we're approached by an Auntie; she's a landlord and wants to let us a room.
We tell her we're completely broke and that we'll probably sleep on the street. She take pity on us and offers us a free room for the night. We take it, obviously.
We're here to make some money so after thanking the Auntie we walk into the Job Center. Yet again we're approached. This time by a pretty girl which informs us about a low-fee, Vocational Training Centre that will soon open and can train workers who want good paying jobs. We're infatuated by her smile but quickly come to our senses, as she continues speaking, asking if we're interested in taking the vocational training.
We try hard to concentrate on the question, rather than her smile, and ask her about the price; we're broke, after all, but the fee turns out to be trivial (nothing that a few hours work can't cover), plus we won't have to pay anything upfront.
So we take the Hiring Exam as a first step into getting vocational training and we ace it.
We're still more interested in the girl than the exam and we try getting her WasApp, under the pretense to know when the Centre will open . She doesn't take notice to our intentions and tells us that there's no need; "the Centre will contact the workers".
Interacting with people may increase or decrease our Relations level with them, depending on the answers we choose during the conversation. Higher Relations means more dialogue opportunities, leading to job opportunities and perhaps more.
Not a second after speaking to Li Yuran (the pretty girl), another Auntie calls us over. This Auntie is the Job Broker who works at the Job Center. She's the one who posts available jobs for workers. She tells us to pick a job from the bulletin board.
Answers we choose in conversations may also affect other stats, not just Relations.
We see the Brick Mover job; We're perfect for the job!
The Hunk Trait we gained earns us +20% boost to XP earned working "tough" jobs, like Brick Mover.
We take the job.
Accepting a job through the Job Center will reduce our Base Wage, due the Job Broker's fee. Increasing Relations with businesses will allow us to eventually bypass the fee.
The Brick Mover job is hard work and a bit of a puzzle, but we can handle it; we collect the different types of bricks from piles on the floor, and "complete" a lift's "brick requirements".
We'll only earn our Base Wage if we can complete the Target. In this job, it's filling 3 lifts with the correct bricks.
The more "intricate" a lift's brick requirements are, the higher the bonus we earn at the end of the shift.
Hard work but at least we're happy the day ended without suffering any accident.
At the end of the job we approach the foreman to get paid but we get extorted, seeing him take a cut of our wage for himself.
"What is this? That's extortion, mate."
We stand up for our principles but in the end we get a beating.
Battered and with low Mood we find ourselves Injured and exit the construction site, slowly walking towards the Clinic to get stitched up.
Our Mood severely affects us in several aspects of the game; it's crucial to stay in good mood.
After getting stitched up at the clinic we make our way into our Hostel room to try and have a good night's sleep.
Day 2
The next morning, feeling slightly better from the beating, we speak with the Auntie landlady and rent the room for the following night.
It's not the best of hostels and it's a shared room, but it'll have to do; we're here to earn money and save every penny we can.
Our character's most Basic Needs, seen in the screenshot below are Fed, Neatness (how clean our clothes are), Hygiene and Satisfaction. Keeping these Basic Needs fulfilled will help fulfill our Cool Need.
Cool, like Mood is an important need to keep high and fulfilled. High, medium and lower levels of Cool incur in major buffs or debuffs to our character, accordingly. Our Cool Level depends on several factors. To examine how our Cool is being affected we can hover the icon in the bottom left side of the screen (screenshot below).
The Ups are giving us +4 Cool points. The Downs are giving us -1 Cool points. The Ups and Downs are added together, and the result, the Total will modify our Cool level, hourly. So, at the moment, our Cool is increasing by 3 points per hour. Cool is the single most important need to keep high; too low, and we won't be able to run, won't want to work, doubting life itself.
Feeling Hungry, we go to the first food street vender we see and have ourselves some Fried Dough.
Having eaten and feeling Cool and Motivated, we're still not in the best Mood.
We can see our Mood Level in the bottom left of the screen. It's not completely fulfilled. We can click the icon to access the Mood Panel.
During the day our Mood changes and we can find ourselves in any one of four different Moods. The mood we're in affects XP earned in jobs and also has an impact on our Cool level. Other buffs and debuffs associated with our mood exist and we can see them by hovering each mood's icon in the panel.
We can improve our mood level, or Current Mood (seen in the screenshot above) by doing Entertainment activities found around the city. These activities will give X amount of mood points, to help increase our mood Level, depending on how well we do at the activity. The Today's Trend activities, on the other hand, will give us a 30 point boost to our mood level, independently on how well we do at the activity.
We can improve out mood a bit more today so we decide to do some fun activities. The Ring Toss game is on our way to work and it seems to give out prizes.
Some activities are free, some cost money, some are easy, some require more skill.
Some activities can also reward us with cash prizes, or other stat increases.
While at the park we'll shoot some Balloons; that Ring Toss game didn't go so well.
Time doesn't stop when participating in activities.
"Perfect score!"
Feeling now very good about ourselves, we head off to work at the construction site. We'll be working as Bricker Mover today, doing a double-shift of 5 hours each in order to maximize our earnings for the day.
As we approach the food vender and grab us a Combo Meal for the day ahead, we're interrupted by a stranger who asks us if we can lend them some money. We lend him the money. It's just 8 Yuan after all.
This person turns out to be Mr. Cao, the construction site's supervisor, where we'll be working as Brick Mover. Lending him the money improved our Relations with him, enough so that he tells us that we can now come directly to work without having to go through the Job Center and incur the Job Broker's fee.
What luck too! We might have a concussion from the beating yesterday, because we forgot to go to the Job Center first, to get the job from the Broker.
We eat our hefty meal and walk into the construction site to do our first shift as Brick Mover.
Each job requires us to be at a certain level in the required ability for the job before we can do the job (Tough, Smart, Deft or Keen). Whatever ability the job requires from us, that is the ability we gain XP towards leveling up, when completing the job.
Levelling up each ability boosts whatever it is the ability grants us. Using the Tough ability as an example, the higher the level, the more stuff we can carry in our backpack, the quicker we walk when carrying heavy loads (Laden, or, unable to run because of heavy loads) and the quicker our recovery is when sick/injured.
The "Stats Change" section (in the screenshot above) are our stats, and the ones that'll be affected after completing the job. In this job they're: Tough, Relations (with Mr.Cao, which can increase or decrease, depending on how well we do the job), Hygiene and Neatness (how clean our clothes are).
First shift of the day, completed.
Along with earning XP towards levelling up our Tough ability, we also earn XP towards levelling up Proficiency; how good we are at the job. Each Proficiency Level we reach grants us an increase in our Base Wage for the job.
Between shifts we get another meal and head right back to work!
We've done two shifts now and we're earning nearly 300 Yuan a day; more than enough for rent, food and new clothes, whenever we need to buy some. At the end of the day we feel that we've improved at the job!
Levelling up Proficiency also gives us Skill Points which we can spend on upgrading several different Skills.
We'll upgrade the Dusty skill, which helps with increasing our Cool level; Each Dusty level gives us +1 Cool point, counteracting the negative Cool points we get from wearing dirty clothes, during the "dirty work" hours we spend on the job.
We could improve the Strong skill but this skill only applies to the Brick Mover job and we don't plan on being a Brick Mover forever. The Dusty skill, on the other hand applies to any job or activity that dirties our clothes, so it'll always effectively be boosting our Cool.
Having done two shifts, we're starving, dirty and our mood's gone down a bit. We eat some Cheap-Ass Noodles at a street vendor in front of the construction site and head into the park for some washing up [Hygiene Basic Need] and some activities.
Our cheap-ass room doesn't have a bath, but we can do a quick wipe down at one of the park's sinks.
We're lucky if we don't catch a cold.
Washing up (or "wipe down", how the game puts it) prompts a mini game where we much choose a card from three turned down cards. Basically it's RNG.
While at the park we find some scrap on the floor. There's a Recycler nearby which buys scrap. We should start selling them scrap for a few extra bucks.
Picking up scrap will mess up our clothes [Neatness Loss] and we might get dirty [Hygiene Loss] but we need the money.
And hey! We found some change amongst the pile of scrap!
Low levels of Neatness and/or Hygiene will temporary lower Relations with people who don't work dirty jobs, by quite a lot, denying you service and jobs. Simple fixed; wash up, and change into clean clothes before dealing with these people.
We continue picking up any scrap we find in the park; metal, bottles and cardboard boxes. Our mood's just OK so let's do some fun activities after a long day of work and scrap collecting.
Some activities might not be available, depending on the time of day.
As we're leaving the park we come across a Grandpa who challenges us to a game of Chinese chess.
Tasks (under Explore the City, to the left side of the screenshot below) may randomly appear when perusing the city, which are quick and easy to complete.
We'll need to learn how to play Chinese Chess if we want to get that "win"! Curiosity: RMB and Yuan are two interchangeable names for the Chinese currency.
Pay up, grandpa!
Completing said Tasks reward us with different stat increases, cash, and even mood boosts.
It's getting late and we start heading towards our shared hostel room. Still not with the best of mood but we want to try and get an early sleep.
Going to sleep before night time grants us the Energized Buff in the morning, giving us +10 Cool Points, and +10% job XP throughout the day.
On our way home, we buy some new clothes; we always want to have a pair of fresh clothes with us to change into [ and be able to avoid the negative impact that dirty clothes have on Relations ].
The cheapest clothes we can find are 20 Yuan, from street vendors - pretty cheap stuff. They have Low Durability, meaning each wash (using a washing machine) will gradually turn them unwearable.
When choosing to purchase clothes, the vender will randomly spread out the items you can choose from. Some of these clothes will give us a buff to some stat when wearing them. Most clothes are plain 'ol clothes, and won't give us any buff.
We head over to the Swam Laundry just to see how much they charge for a wash.
"20 Yuan to wash them? That's the same price as buying new clothes!"
Store bought clothes, which cost from 200 to 500 Yuan would benefit from being washed. These have durability of 100 and always come with some character bonus.
We back out of the laundry with two hands up - we can actually sell our dirty rags to the street vender; let's see how much they'll pay for them.
"10 Yuan for dirty clothes. Deal!"
We can effectively buy new clothes at 10 Yuan if we sell them our dirty clothes first. It turns out to be cheaper than washing them.
We're near our hostel and we still got some time before heading in. We see some trash in the river nearby; perhaps bottles and cans which we can sell to the Recycler. We change into our dirtiest clothes and decide to fish the trash out of the river.
Some folk see us cleaning the river and yell out Respect! [ Not really, but we gain +1 Respect for each patch of the river we cleaned up ]. We managed to find 5 Yuan amongst the river trash but no scrap so far.
Time to head home; we'll continue scooping out trash from the river tomorrow.
"Let's just grab this bit of scrap metal first..."
And we go up to our shared room for the night.
As we're walking up the stairs our phone vibrates. It's the Loan Sharks; since the beginning they told us that not only do we need to pay the 10K Yuan debt, but on top of that, they'll want a daily, 100 Yuan interest rate on the debt.
"Fucking bastards."
Sleeping indoors will increase several stats, depending on the quality of the accommodations. Hygiene and Neatness is always guaranteed a small increase.
Continuation: Days 3 - 5
As more posts come out (I'll be posting daily), the posts will have less content about the mechanics, and more about the story.
Thanks for reading & Happy New Year 2023!