Schedule 1 player follows NPCs around for a week to reveal their surprisingly thoughtful, dynamic lives
Schedule 1 is the sort of indie game that only gets more impressive the longer you stare at it. It's a drug dealing simulator, so you expect to grow weed out of a cramped apartment by day and hustle by night, but Schedule 1's complexity can catch you by surprise once you poke around its clockwork town full of named citizens with jobs, homes, schedules, desires, and unique habits.
Jessi, for instance, has quickly become a community favorite for her, um, distinct personality. She's one of the first regular customers you can bring into the fold of your burgeoning empire and a real firecracker.
She's kind of a jerk, but I appreciate a straight shooter and respect Jessi's dogmatic belief that the caps lock is there to be used. You always know when Jessi's hitting you up for another order, because the text pop-up reads something like "HEY, I NEED 7 BIO STINK RIGHT NOW. I HAVE $400".
As you might have deduced, Jessi is also a favorite because she buys a lot of drugs. So much that you can easily upsell her on more units or straight up overcharge her.
On the other end of the spectrum is Kyle, a supremely chill dude who smokes weed and then walks to his job at Taco Ticklers. Kyle was the first subject of an ongoing peoplewatching experiment by Reddit user _inferno_44. They followed Kyle around for a week and recorded exactly what they did each day. The results are as mundane as you'd expect, but I was surprised to learn the poor guy is severely overworked:
- 7 am to 12 pm: Working at Taco Ticklers
- 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm: Break at the Skatepark
- 1:30 pm to 9:00 pm: Working at Taco Ticklers
- 10:00 pm to 4:00 am: At home
Kyle, my man, they have you pulling 14-hour shifts at the taco place? That's rough, but actually, I've never seen anyone else in a Taco Ticklers uniform around the restaurant, so I suppose he's the only employee (Krusty Krab-style).
"Dude pulling doubles every day. No wonder he's employee of the month and needs so many drugs," wrote lonelystone81 under the post.
To make matters awkward, it's also possible to purchase the Taco Ticklers as a money laundering front, which makes us the baddies flagrantly ignoring OSHA protocol. What a cool and non-crucial detail to include that 30-minute lunch break in the simulation, by the way. Not even Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a grand RPG with routines and jobs, has lunch breaks (though people do walk to the tavern after a hard day's work).
Next, inferno followed Kyle's roommate, Austin. I can't remember if I've met this guy in my save yet, but judging by his habits I bet we'd get along. He leaves the house a bit later than Kyle and walks to the community center, where he presumably works until his 30-minute break at 10:30. Then he heads to the Taco Tickler to eat lunch and hang with Kyle, then promptly darts over to the arcade where he games for the next seven hours. At 11 pm, well past police curfew, he walks home. What a gamer.
"Homies gotta be the local pinball wizard spending all that time at the arcade," added user Exact-Trash2360.
The latest subject is Jessi herself, who maybe has the most dynamic yet dull routine of the trio. In true stoner fashion, Jessi's day doesn't start until early lunchtime, 11 am. Her routine is one big smoke tour: First she smokes at the Taco Tickler, grabs a Cuke from the vending machine, then walks to the town hall and smokes there, before teleporting to the boardwalk to sit on a bench and smoke. To top it off, she smokes down at the docks and then walks back to her motel room to bump loud music. No wonder she goes through a jar of my best weed strain in a day.
Part of me thinks that Jessi's lack of a job, hobby, or interest beyond smoking in empty spaces and drinking soda is an oversight by TVGS to give her any real life, but on second thought, that's a pretty believable lifestyle for a true connoisseur.