Yep. Even more grindy, more restrictive and even more retarded than before*, that's what this update is about. As many other people have mentioned in the reviews, the author's idea of "game play" is basically to grind. Grind to gain stats, grind to gain stuff (RNG shopping, scavenging etc). Work your ass off everyday to gain just 1 point of fitness and then lose 2 points whenever you sleep... I expect that it'll get worse and worse.
* Not to mention, way buggier.
IDK, seems to me that it doesn't take that much time to get into shape these days.
Assuming you never miss school (and school sucks. It will eat your mood and confidence really fast as is right now. It's not without benefit though, as it will drip feed you smarts, fitness, and occasionally allow you to earn a few hundred bucks.) you can get to 40+ish fitness by just being a bit diligent for about an in game week.
That's going from clearly fat to trim in *seven in game days* where you prioritize school. Compared to some of the more simulationist games out there, that's positively lightning fast.
Getting to "perfect fitness" (80-ish) takes about an in-game month, give or take a few days because RNG. Mind you, actually capping your fitness is basically impossible, I think. Of course, once we actually have to pay rent, things are going to slow down.
(I've played several simulationist games in the same vein as this one where getting to that level of physical fitness would take several in-game months.)
If I were going to complain about a grind, it'd be confidence/willpower. It's difficult to raise, easy to lose, and the consequence of not having enough of it is losing a ton of mood- which you have to then fix because sammy won't work, exercise, or study if her moods bad. This means either spending limited time being unproductive or wasting significant amounts of funds drinking. And it happens constantly. I don't think I've gone a single day in school without sammy getting bullied- sometimes two or three times in that single day. Maybe instead of being called a "bully", "stalker" would be more appropriate. Just him being around makes grinding out knowledge through independant study completely not worth it.
You basically *need* a decent amount of confidence, but the stuff is harder to build than a sandcastle with dry sand.
Sams already said that RNG shops aren't going to stay- and I will admit, they are rather annoying. As for grinding cash- scaving basically exist for those not willing to whore, basically. It's much more time and money efficient to work at the bar. Maybe if we could find stuff actually useful in our day to day I'd find it more worthwhile, but as is it's basically just something to do when you need to kill in game time because X isn't open yet.
