Get Settled: how to play Get Settled is an online audio game. You live in Vesper Bay, a harbour city, alongside other players: walk and drive around it, talk, eat and drink to stay well, work, buy a car and a home, ride the buses and cabs, use your phone, make friends, and farm in the countryside of Brackenvale. Headphones are recommended. GETTING STARTED 1. Unzip the folder anywhere and run "Get Settled.exe". Always start the game this way: it checks for the newest version first. While an update downloads, Space says how far along it is, 1 its size, 2 the download speed and 3 the time left; Escape skips it. If a download stops part way, start the game again and it carries on. 2. Choose Play. 3. The first time on a computer, the game shows its rules, terms and privacy. Up and down arrows read them a paragraph at a time; at the end you choose whether you agree. You can't play without agreeing. They're also on the main menu and in F4, Help. 4. Type a character name (3 to 16 letters or numbers). A new name makes a new character. 5. Type a password. It's sent encrypted, but choose one you don't use anywhere else. 6. For a new character, choose whether it's a woman, a man or nonbinary: it's how others hear about you. You can change it at City Hall's front desk once a calendar month. 7. Type your email address. A 6-digit code is sent to it; type the code and you're in. It can take a minute, and may land in your spam or junk folder. The email is used only for codes like this and is never shared. Up to 3 characters can share one email. After that, the main menu offers "Log in as" for each character you've played on this computer. Forgot your password? Choose Forgot my password on the main menu: a code is sent to the character's email, and you choose a new password. In any menu or list, a letter jumps to the next item starting with it. MOVING AROUND - Arrows: up walks forward, down steps back, left and right step to the side, relative to the way you face. Hold Shift to run, or press R to always run. - Alt+Left and Alt+Right turn 45 degrees; Alt+Down turns around. F says which way you face. - B: where you are, and the nearest corner. C: your coordinates. - P: the people and animals you can see near you. Walls and doors block your view. - W: what's ahead within 30 meters, nearest first, and the first wall or solid thing ahead. - F6: everyone online. Control+1 on a name says where they are. - T: the locator. Choose a place and a beacon leads you there. Its first choice is a search: type a name, or what you're after, like coffee or medicine. For a place that covers an area, like a park or a car park, the beacon leads to its nearest point you can walk onto, and stepping onto any part of it is arriving. Space gives directions. TALKING AND OTHER PEOPLE - Slash or Enter: type a chat message to everyone. Backslash: nearby chat, heard within 40 meters, or inside a building only by those within its walls. - Y, held: talk with your voice to people within 20 steps. Alt+Y opens the voice settings: push to talk or toggle, your microphone and its volume, others' volume, and a test. - Alt+I near someone: say hello, wave or bow; shake hands, hug or high five; ask to be friends; see their profile; or block them. Anything that involves the other person is asked of them first. When someone asks you, you hear a chime, and Alt+I answers. - Friends: you hear when a friend arrives in town or leaves, and friends grow closer by spending time together. - Going out together: close friends who have both said they're 18 or older can ask each other out with Alt+I. Couples can hold hands (the other walks with you), kiss on the cheek and cuddle up, and either can break up at any time. Dates bring a couple closer: dinner or coffee at the same table, a walk hand in hand on the boardwalk or in the park, a night on a bench by the Starfall Fountain, a drive together, or an evening in at home. - F4, People: your friends and how close you are, the people you've blocked, do not disturb (no requests from anyone), whether you're 18 or older, and your profile's line. - Blocking someone stops their chat, voice, calls, texts and requests from reaching you. They are not told. - To report a player, type /report, their name and what happened in chat, or open a ticket in F4. - Buffers: everything you're told is kept to read back, sorted into buffers. Left and right brackets move between buffers; comma and period read older and newer messages; Control+C copies the one you're on. EVERYDAY LIFE - E: use what's beside you: a door, a car door, a counter, a bench, a fridge, a stereo. - I: everything you carry. 1 and 2: what's in your left and right hand (eat, drink, look at it, put it away, put it down, give it). Shift with 1 or 2 takes something into that hand; X swaps hands. You can carry 15 kilograms easily and 25 at most; a backpack holds more. - Q: hunger, thirst, energy and health. Eating and drinking go a bite or a sip at a time. - Z: sleep, beside a bed at home or on a cot in the Driftwood Community Center. - Benches and chairs: E to sit and rest. At a table in Saffron & Salt or the Sleepy Kettle, E orders, and your food is brought to you and eaten there. - M: your money. K: the time, the date and the weather. - What you wear keeps you warm and dry. Threadbare & Fine in Copperline Mall sells clothes and umbrellas; in the cold you tire faster, in the rain you get wet and colder. SHOPS - Copperline Mall, on the corner of Copperline Street and Pinnacle Boulevard, south of the plaza, has most of the city's shops on two floors, with an escalator and a lift, and two levels of parking underneath. - At a counter, Space describes the item you're on. Right arrow puts one in your cart and Left takes one out; with Shift, ten at a time; with Control and Shift, a hundred. Shift+Enter types how many. Alt+Enter says what your cart comes to. Enter buys everything in it, or the item you're on if the cart is empty. With your car or truck parked nearby, you're asked whether to load it straight in. - Galloway Motors sells the Halvorsen Wayfarer family car (9,000 dollars), the Haywain pickup truck (15,000) and the Kestrel sports coupe (30,000), each with a choice of gearbox and colour. One car and one truck each. - Fuel Fox, east along Copperline Street: park beside a pump, switch off, get out and press E at the pump. Fuel is 1.50 dollars a liter. Its shop sells jerry cans. - Vending machines and drinking fountains are around the city, the mall and the hospital. HOMES - City Hall's front desk keeps the homes register: apartments in Tidewater House on Wren Lane (5,500 dollars) and houses with a garage on Bramble Row and Lark Mews (40,000). - Your key locks and unlocks your door (L). Share keys with others from the home's menu. - At home: a fridge, a wardrobe and a storage cupboard to keep things in, a sofa, a bed, a stereo that can play music for everyone in the home (its menu can pause, skip, or repeat the song), and wall sockets to charge a phone. YOUR PHONE - Buy a Lumen One at Lumen Mobile in the mall. Take it into a hand and press Alt+P. - Phone, Messages and Contacts; Maps, for turn-by-turn directions on foot or by car; My car and My home, to find or lock them from anywhere; Jobs; and Cabs. - Anything you do from the phone, such as booking a cab, closes it; Alt+P opens it again. - A call rings where the phone is, for those near to hear. Alt+P answers; while the phone is in your hand, your microphone is open for the call. - Charge the phone at a wall socket: E beside it with the phone in your hand. GETTING ABOUT - Buses: four lines round the city from 6 in the morning to midnight, game time, all meeting at Starfall Circle. A ride is 6 dollars. E beside a stop's sign says which buses stop there; E at an open front door gets you on. Shift+E rings the bell for the next stop. - Cabs: book a Lantern Cabs taxi with the phone's Cabs app, from wherever you are to wherever you're going in the city or Brackenvale. The fare is 15 dollars and a dollar for every 25 meters, paid when you're dropped off. DRIVING - Hold the car's key and press L to unlock it, then E at a door to get in. - Shift+S turns the power on with the key; S starts and stops the engine. - Up arrow drives, down arrow brakes and reverses, left and right turn 45 degrees. H is the horn, V your speed and gear, Shift+V your fuel. - Alt+Left and Alt+Right work the indicators; Alt+W the windows; Alt+B the seat belt; U the wipers; Alt+O the radio; Alt+E moves you to the other seat in your row. - Control with left or right arrow: the side mirrors. - Crashes hurt you, less with your seat belt on, and damage the car. Rivet & Wrench Auto Workshop on Copperline Street repairs cars; a tow truck can take yours there, called from the phone's My car (300 dollars). - The gate at the west end of Emberly Boulevard leads to the proving ground, for practice. WORK The phone's Jobs app lists the jobs and leads you to them. - Shelf stocker at Pennywhistle General Store, barista at the Sleepy Kettle, delivery driver from the post office, dock worker at the Ironwhistle Freight yard, park keeper in Hollowmere Park, and fishing (sell your catch at the fish market). - Shifts: tow truck driver for Hook & Haul and paramedic for Lighthouse General (E beside one of their vehicles at the depot starts a shift), and taxi driver for Lantern Cabs in your own car (started from the phone's Jobs app). Calls come to your phone; Alt+P accepts one or lets it go, but let two go and your shift ends. The companies' vehicles are always fuelled; if you damage one, have it repaired before your shift ends, or the repair is taken from your pay. BRACKENVALE AND FARMING Drive or walk north up Pinnacle Boulevard out of the city: it becomes the Brackenvale Road. - Rent land at the estate office: an allotment (150 dollars a game week) or a farm with two fields and a barn (600 a week). Brackenvale Farm Supply sells tools and seed. - Stand on a row and press E to work it with what's in your hands: hoe, seed, watering can, spade or sickle. G tells you about the row; Shift+G about the whole field. - Crops grow over game days, even while you're away. Water them, keep the weeds and pests off, and harvest when they're ripe. Sell your harvest at the produce market. - On a farm you can keep hens, cows, sheep and pigs, bought at the livestock market. Keep their feeder and trough full. PREMIUM CARS If you bought the Halvorsen Solstice convertible or the Halvorsen Atlas, it's yours for good: collect it free at Galloway Motors' counter, as well as your one car and one truck. HELP AND SETTINGS - F4: Help. Keys and how to play lists every key by topic. What's new lists each version's changes. A ticket asks the game's team for help or reports a problem; My tickets reads their answers. - F8: settings, in tabs: Audio, Voice, Driving and Gameplay. - F3: your ping to the server. Page Up and Page Down: volume. Escape: leave the game. - If something goes wrong, the game writes what happened to game_log.txt in its folder. Open a ticket saying what happened; the team may ask you for that file.