This game is unbearably bad. Primarily because it's damn near impossible to stay clean. Take a bath, 2 hours later you smell bad but you can't take another bath. Cool, brush your teeth and smell better. An hour later you stink again. Cool, shave and you smell better. An hour later you stink again. But now you can neither bathe nor brush your teeth/shave. Then the nanny leaves because you walk in the living room smelling bad? The fuck? I'm exaggerating a bit, but not by much...
Thus I started cheating, now it's better. Damn shame it comes to that. Game isn't so bad with cheats. I don't like cheating tho... ah well.
You can avoid all that, the problem is you kinda need to schedule things up. I posted a schedule and suggestions on how to proceed for the first few weeks (page 7) as the walkthrough on the opening post is one I wrote for 0.3 and in Rags.
Several of us who are helping with translation etc have pointed out that while we as experienced players know our way around the pitfalls, its very very harsh on new players for the exact reasons you stated. Things that worked ok on Rags just arent the same in QSP.
What you need to realise its not designed as a straight up lets fuck game but the set up is you're on the verge of divorce, the nanny is there to do her job, not you (best to avoid her to begin with, only talk to her after dinner). You need to tread carefully and build those relationships up. Now I assume your using the 1.06 version (it will be 1.07 in a few hours no doubt.) You are warned on most of those potential game overs to avoid it, there was no warning in the earlier versions. Kinda expected you to not walk in on people who dont want you there (albiet you had no idea they were there).
I do agree hygiene is a bit too harsh when theres little you can do about it, my schedule just keeps it afloat. But Ive made some suggestions to the developer which might alieviate without making the game too easy. I mean right now you can buy a new bed and Im not 100% on what it does as I havent bought it. Rags version it gave more energy over the start bed. But this new start bed randomly will not reset hygiene/energy and has a cap of 70 hygiene, I think the bought bed stops the randomness but it might also bring hygiene to 100 at the start of the day which is a lot.
My suggestions have been a couple of consumables (deodorant and cologne) and a purchasable bathroom upgrade to allow the second shower/bath per day. Right now I just assume the town is on water restrictions so you cant get more than 1 bath in per day.
There is an in built cheat system the "fast save/load" abuse it, I do. That means save before attempting anything new.
Cheating by raising stats may block progress as the relationships build up in stages, some stages in the Rags version were in conflict, ie one would start at 350 and the next 370, if you didnt see the one at 350 before getting 370, viewing the 350 would get blocked by the 370 and progress couldnt be made. Im hoping that QSP has allowed the fix of those situations. Being school holidays I just dont have the free time to play too much and havent got them that high before a new release (which I restart each time for bug testing)
With the schedule I posted above, Im including information on events as I unlock them (Im trying to narrow something specific at the lower levels atm), but really after a month (gametime) of following that schedule I would hope that anyone can start to explore the game properly and find things out for themselves having laid a good foundation.
But as we are still pretty much getting daily updates you might want to hold off playing for a time while things are ironed out. These are things I know are happening.
- Translations are ongoing.
- Hygiene is being looked at.
Something to take notice of, hygiene currently is quite costly on the 4 hour session.
4x1h sessions will cost 60e and 40h, giving 400 words (aprox).
2x2h sessions will cost 60e and 40h, giving 480 words (aprox).
1x4h session will cost 50e and 55h. giving 540 words (aprox).
Ive raised this as a possible error and suggested it to be brought to the same hygiene levels per hour.