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Hi yes I'm getting off my rear end and finally doing this thing I've been putting off for the past several weeks  This thread has migrated to another forum, LPBeach, and will continue there with additional content: https://lpbeach.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=82 What is this game and why have I never heard of this in my entire life? Miss Management is a time management game developed and published by a game studio known as gameLab back in 2006 if you ask Wikipedia and 2007 if you ask the in-game copyright marker. There's very little information on the internet about this game anymore; it doesn't even have its own article to link to in gameLab's list of developed games on Wikipedia. Suffice to say, I played this when I was rather young. I don't remember what year I played it, but I probably wasn't a teenager yet. Anyways, time management; you control Denise as she manages an office of 1 to 5 other employees, designating when they take breaks and when they do work, picking up supplies from the office store across the street, and helping your coworkers achieve their goals to proceed the story. The game has a level-by-level structure where gameplay segments are individually contained (referred to as "Episodes") in small arcs of the story ("Seasons"). In case that didn't make it abundantly clear, this game more than likely takes some inspiration from The Office and similar sitcoms that probably exist that I'm not going to spend time looking up, and the writing is... actually, it's shockingly good, all things considered. I liked it as a child, and looking back on after getting older and getting job experience, the characters and their situations only get stronger with context and age. The gameplay's no slouch, either, with an experience I'd ultimately consider a masterclass in time management for all the little tweaks and QoL adjustments that would go unnoticed by most but make the game a more satisfying experience to play. They even show extensive proficiency in knowing what to show the player to make them fully confident in their ability to play the game, while keeping more specific information the player doesn't necessarily need somewhat hidden, but not unnoticeable to those looking for it. I'm going to revel in being able to show off all those little quirks as we go along, but as for the plan... So what's your plan for updating this thread? Long story short, update schedule is "When I'm done with the update." Things are kinda busy for me right now, but this helps me relax a bit. I have no way of knowing when I'll have the time to do this, but I can at least say I shouldn't be gone for over two weeks unless I'm moving or something. As for the updates themselves, the first one will be the Episode in its entirety, since the story and gameplay segments are mixed together in that one. In future updates, I'll be splitting them up between Story and Gameplay updates. I'd like the writing to be able to stand on its own, and updates might get cluttered if I put them together. More often than not, this means you'll get Story, Gameplay, Story, Gameplay, and so on, except for a few cases where an Episode has an Outro, typically near the end of each Season and each Season Finale (not an official term in-game but come on, you know that's a missed opportunity) plus a few other episodes with important events at the end. All updates will have a video alongside them to see exactly how things progress in-game, which will be vital for the gameplay segments due to SPEEEEEEEEEEED and helpful to show off all the little touches they made for presentation in story segments. I'll also be posting writeups for each employee as we go along, though the ones for our first 5 employees will be waiting until we unlock all the necessary mechanics to properly discuss their unique sets of skills; this should happen near the middle of Season 2, which shouldn't take too long. Oh, and needless to say, we'll be breaking the game over our knees in places, so I might include a strategy from a later level behind spoiler tags if it's notable enough. Depending on how your Dark Mode is set up, if you use it, you might be able to see through the tags without scrolling over them (like me), so beware of that if you wanna be surprised at someone's potential. This is leading into a Spoiler policy, huh?Yup! None of those! Absolutely none! I'd say to use spoiler tags, but those don't cooperate with some Dark Modes, so I'd recommend just restraining yourselves until the mechanic/story beat comes up. Or just hope the people using Dark Mode can't see through the tags like me. I probably won't get fussy with spoiler tags, honestly, just keep that in mind. Speculation is fine, since the game itself lets you see grayed-out versions of each Episode's thumbnail. There's no avoiding people seeing that. Just refrain from mentioning if you know what's going to happen in the future, even if it's mechanics. Anything else we should know? I won't be piloting the characters to make jokes or extra skits or anything like that. This isn't to say there won't be jokes (the game has them in spades), but I once again need to reiterate that I really, really want the writing of this game to speak for itself aside from inserting my own thoughts on the matter where appropriate Also, music will not be posted. I'd grab it, but gameLab has a... unique way of doing music in their time management titles. It's very nice music, but the way it's set up doesn't lend itself well to being put in the thread aside from in videos. Lastly, comments made by myself will often be in italics. Feel free to point out places I forget to italicize that are clearly being spoken by me; there's a lot to go through, so I feel like that'll happen at least once in this LP. Table of Contents --Season 1--
LPFinale fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jun 30, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 01:15
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Jun 16, 2020 01:15
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Episode 1, Story/Gameplay: First Day on the Job Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIWxGwUb65I Upon beginning the game, we're greeted with this:  There'll be one of these titles for every season. They only appear once per save file, ever, so I'll need to be sure to get footage of them unless I wanna do a marathon of the game just to capture one of them again.  If the desktop wallpaper and confetti are anything to go by, it's the holidays, or just after them. Seems we'll only have one employee to work with. I can hear the screams of "Tutorial" from here. And yes, the mouse cursor will be following us throughout our time at work. It's kind of impossible to convey exactly what the hell I'm grabbing or pointing at or highlighting without it visible, so it'll be our little sidekick in this journey. Also, this will be explained a bit later, but those three stars are our rating for the level; completing everything required, completing everything, and then being a speedrunner. 2-Star ratings are markedly unimpressive in most cases, though there is one level in particular where even a 1-Star rating could be seen as impressive...  Let's begin, shall we?   Hello? Weird... this is definitely the address in my acceptance letter!Pondering how sure she is that she got the address right, presumably, Denise walks further into the... office. Or what's left of an office, it seems. Hello? Is anyone here? She manages to draw the attention of a layabout on the couch.  Great first impression, I'm sure.  Ah! It is my sorrow to turn away such a stunning young flower... ...but I'm afraid we're closed! Actually... Whoa, no way!Yes way? I mean... how about that! Yes! A new sexy gazelle in the office! A new challenge... for Mahavir!  Might wanna keep your master plans inside your brainscape instead of outside your mouth, just a bit of advice, Mahavir. This IS Conkling Associates International, right? Indeed it is, m'dear. C.A.I. for short.I could draw attention to that "m'dear," but I think it's far more noteworthy to wonder how classified our work is with a company name so coincidentally close as that.  And I... am Mahavir!Might've announced that to us and the 6 adjacent floors already, but the proper introduction's appreciated. Naturally, you'll need a new friend to show you the ropes around here, right? Uh... sure, why not? My name's Denise, by the way. So does anyone work here besides you? Oh, it's barely past New Year's. We're a small branch office, and everyone's gone home for the holidays.Did they take their desks with them? Do we have a closet for those? Do they have to go through the IKEA furniture assembly process every time they come back from vacation or a transfer to disincentivize taking time off? Either way, we at least know our time frame for sure now. Start of the year, maybe January 2nd or 3rd. And you're just... here by yourself? Sleeping? Well, I didn't feel like going all the way back to Bombay. It's a 23-hour flight, but if I stay here and hang around the office, I get paid! I see... !Sounds like a nice deal for ya, but if you're getting paid, won't they still be sending you- Oops, break's over! They'll start sending tasks for us any minute....work. Yes. There it is.  Oh... um, you mean the one over there with the phone? Yep, that's the one! Let me just find the new employee orientation manual...Oh, this'll be just riveting, I bet. Welcome to your first day at C.A.I., Denise! You're joining a team providing industry-leading solutions for... blah blah blah, this stuff doesn't matter...Seems we're on the same page as Mahavir for once, though that did manage to throw out our one opportunity to learn what the hell this place even does   Ah, Tasks... ingredient number one to the perfect storm that is Denise trying to prevent this entire office from exploding. These'll be around for our entire time working here, and you'll either be praying for them to show up to complete a goal or cursing their existence as they keep pouring down a seemingly endless pipeline. The central office sent it over, and they want it done pronto! You'd better go pick it up and put it on my desk...While the office manager's job at C.A.I. getting reduced to being a gofer for the rest of the office is kinda silly, we still have to do as he suggests and click the task, then click the spot on his desk that looks like one of those things you slip a calendar inside, I dunno. Don't worry about being that precise in the future, though, the amount of acceptable space to click expands if I remember correctly; this is just to condition you to click a more accurate spot so you don't shove the task on the wrong employee's desk somehow.  And thus, Mahavir will demonstrate employee work for us.  Every time I finish a task, the central office raises our petty cash budget a bit! If we want money to buy snacks and office supplies, I'll have to keep working...Two things: one, I'm not gonna mention the specifics until writeups, but rest assured Mahavir does Tasks in anything but an expert manner. Two, that amount of cash it mentioned from finishing the Task? It's inflated a bit. Normally we'd get $1 from this tier of Task, but the game would like us to have a bit more cash than normal for something later. Since we have no idea where to get "snacks and office supplies" as of now, you can probably guess. New tasks will keep showing up on your desk until closing time! They definitely like to keep us busy.A blue Task appeared on the desk, by the way. Just keep 'em comin', cute stuff!Fiiiiine. We have him polish off that blue Task, and...  Are you sure about that Drudging away at this busywork is not what's important in life, is it? We all have other goals. Personally, my plans for today involved sleeping on the couch over there. I know... you can help me take a break!Translation: "You can authorize my workplace naps." ...well, anyway, we can click an employee to begin controlling them instead of Denise, and then click a location for them to go to. Don't worry too much about deselecting Denise; if you click something only she can do, like picking up a Task or walking to her own desk, the game will automatically reselect her and tell her to do that.  And now for our first instance of a message from the game itself:  Employees like Mahavir get a little stressed out when they work on tasks, but they have ways of relaxing, too.  Ingredient number two of the perfect storm: Employee stress levels, lowered by sending them to take breaks. To finish an episode and move on in the story, Denise has to help her fellow employees finish their goals.Number three: Goals we need to complete, separate from the average work-stress loop.  When we mouse over each of the Goals, we see...   ...that Mahavir has some very simple ambitions for now. This will stop being the case rather quickly, I assure you.  I rarely wind up using this feature since the mouseover feature works so well, but there's no denying that someone out there must've found it useful, since it allows you to read up on all the Goals without any time passing.  It's even displayed in such a way where you can see what the progress indicators for active Goals are in the background. Very nice. Speaking of those indicators...  Goals that require a certain amount of time to be spent doing something are sectioned off into four segments; each one will give you a small notification when you reach it. You can't see it in the gif, but you can certainly see it in the video, and I have a visual ready to demonstrate one of them later on for those of you uninterested in the video. Oh and, uh, while we were busy staring at that, a green task appeared on our desk and is now flashing red.   ...oh. Well then.   Ingredient number four: Denise's own stress level when Tasks are left incomplete. Her stress level gradually rises when an overdue Task is in the office, stacking with multiple overdue Tasks. That can get lethal very quickly if you choose to ignore it. If she becomes totally stressed out, you'll have to start the day over!And I do mean lethal. Starting the day over means you lose all progress towards goals you made that day, and the day count still progresses. If you're going for a 3-Star rating, you might as well restart the Episode if you let Denise have a meltdown. Don't freak out, sweet cheeks! I guess we can deal with that pesky task before I get back to more important things...Sure. More important. Anyways, there's a second line here that's bugged and disappears almost instantly. I couldn't get a gif of it since it's on screen for literally 1 frame, but I managed to get a picture of it thanks to YouTube's single-frame advance/rewind features.  In any case, we can bring Tasks to our employee's desks, no matter where they are.  Taking note of our employees' lack of agency, we send Mahavir back to his desk, and...  ...we take note that the Task is no longer considered overdue when it's being worked on. Whenever a task gets work done on it, it buffers its time to become overdue by a few seconds, even if it's already overdue. The timer also freezes when it's being worked on. When no overdue Tasks remain in the office, Denise will calm down over time. I only got through part of my nap... but that's OK, I'll just pick up where I left off later.Here, we're introduced to how Goals are affected by the day ending. Some goals are the kind of thing you have to get done in one day... Pictured above: a lie. Well, for now it isn't, but it sure as hell is gonna become one eventually, you can count on that. ...and that's all there is to it! Hmm, I think I get how it works! Good job! We got through the day and the office finally has some petty cash again!So were you not doing work while you were here on your own? ...well, I guess it's the office manager's job on the line when the work's not getting done, not yours, so... guess they couldn't do much about it...? Tomorrow I'll show you where to buy donuts... Donuts are half the reason I stay in this country!Probably gonna find out reasons contributing to the other half later on, just saying. Anyways...    Before each day, we get a report on what Goals we've completed, what Goals are remaining and what we need to complete the remaining Goals, our amount of petty cash, and what day number it is today. This helps keep you up to date on how on-track you are to getting a 3-Star rating. Now, once we begin...  You'll notice that a "HALF WAY THERE!" appeared over Mahavir. At the start of each day, notifications for the progress towards an Employee's goals will appear over their heads, assuming you've at least reached the first milestone in their progress. Helps nudge you towards Goals you've gotten started on. Anyway, we all know Denise is gonna see what Mahavir's favor he wants is, so let's try to make the most of it. Sure, what's up? I don't think I'm going to be able to make it through the day without a donut... can you go pick us up some? Pleeeeeease?I counted the number of Es, by the way. That's exactly as it's typed in-game. As you can see from the post-its above, Mahavir still has a couple goals he wants some help with. More gentle reminders about what Goals are left unfinished, and helps fill some possible dead air in the day. He wants to nap some more, and eat a donut. You have as many days as you need to finish the episode, so there's no rush! However, if you can finish every single goal fast enough, you could earn a bonus for your performance...You know what that means.  We get most of our snacks and office supplies from OfficeTown, across the street. Take some petty cash and check it out! Denise can use the office budget to buy various items that can boost productivity and lower stress, among other things. And thus, once we click that button...   Welcome to the office's number one source of boosted productivity, powerups! It may not be much right now, but things we'll see here later on will be invaluable to  We get a rundown of its effects. I'll do a full writeup of OfficeTown once we unlock all the items, which will be... a while, but don't worry, I'll still tell you exactly what each item does when it gets its "Unlocked" blurb. The Donut will have to wait until next time for that since it's just here for tutorial purposes, but rest assured it lowers an Employee's stress significantly for its price at this point in the game. Not the most efficient, but still useful.  For our purposes, we buy three of them. It'll make sense shortly after we return.  We click on the Donut, click on the empty front-facing portion of Mahavir's desk (again, the valid space to click increases after this), and...  ...we complete a Goal, simple as that. Simplicity will cease after a while, so appreciate it while you've got it. Whenever an employee finishes a goal, the entire office gets a morale boost, which reduces everyone's stress. Right now, there's not much effect since Denise and Mahavir are pretty relaxed... but it'll come in handy later!The above couldn't be more true. You feel less tense in real life whenever you get a Morale Boost at the right time, honestly. Sometimes I try to save Goals to be completed explicitly for the Morale Boost they'll give.  I don't mouse over it in the video, but that goal predictably reads "Eat another couple donuts. (2 Donuts)" This is why we wanted those extra Donuts. Saves time for myself. Anyways, each Optional Goal is tied to the completion of a specific Required Goal. Not all Required Goals unlock Optional Goals, but I'll make a note at the end of each gameplay update about the Goal list and what unlocks which Goals. ...it should be pretty clear what this one was unlocked from, right? You don't have to finish optional goals to complete an episode. But if you get every goal in the episode done, you'll earn a bonus star!1-Star ratings are for doing the bare minimum, the Required Goals. 2-Star ratings are for doing everything. 3-Star ratings are for getting good and managing the office efficiently. Needless to say, a lot of the enjoyment in regards to gameplay comes from improving your efficiency and going for 3-Star ratings, but for people who just wanna do the story, 1-Star ratings exist, and for people who wanna complete all the goals but aren't into time limits, 2-Star ratings exist. It's rather inclusive in that regard. Thanks, cute stuff! That really hit the spot. Although now that I think about it... I guess I could squeeze in a couple more if I really tried!That does sound kinda silly, but... how big are these Donuts, anyways? They cost $3, more than any individual regular, chocolate-frosted donut with sprinkles I've seen. They must be pretty big. ...I'll take a baker's dozen for, uh, research purposes. My only other important goal for the day is to finish my beauty rest... But heck, you're the new office manager, you can decide when it's time for a break!And with that, we're given free reign to play and complete these Goals. This is where the video picks up the pace a bit. Other notable bits include:  This Task looks a bit different from the others, doesn't it? There's 3 little wi-fi bars on it instead of 2, making it a 3-Bar Task. You might gather from this that it'll take about 1.5x as long, but... well, it's close to that, but that's a topic for another time. It's longer, that much is certain, and it gives us $2 of petty cash upon completion compared to the usual $1 for 2-Bar Tasks, which is far and away more efficient for building up funds for  Several things worth noting here. Firstly, you get a little notification of your progress on goals where you give Employees a certain number of items, as seen above Mahavir's head. Second, and more importantly, giving them items interrupts their work. When they get an item, they'll put their current Task back on their desk. However, they'll put it on the bottom of their pile of Tasks, making it so that they'll do other Tasks first. You can get overdue Tasks to be worked on more quickly like this, and you can even take a Task an Employee was working on to give it to another Employee for them to finish it, counting it toward their own Goals. This is the only way you'll ever see 1-Bar Tasks or 0-Bar Tasks. Of course, the Tasks retain the amount of work they've had done on them; I'll get into specifics another day, but rest assured that they aren't just waiting a certain amount of time to suddenly trigger an event saying "Remove 1 Bar from the Task." Work on Tasks is additive; the Bars are simply there as a general indicator. Anyways, we have Mahavir polish off a few more Tasks that come in, give him another Donut in the process to complete that goal, then have him take a nap to finish things off. Great, I've finished all of my most important goals! Ahh, nothing beats the satisfaction at a job well done. Welp, head office better hope these Tasks weren't too important, because no one's gonna finish those like this.  Besides, all that matters to us is the satisfaction of the game telling us we did a good  So as you can see here, the game will track how much petty cash we have at the end of an Episode for a high score. I don't care too much about petty cash scores as much as I care about the number of days they're paired with, and believe me, I'll be doing everything in my power to keep the recorded runs as quick as possible. Next time in the office... we'll get introduced to someone new, and bear witness to the last factor that turns the management loop into a perfect storm that needs to be handled carefully. See you then. Goal Writeup Required Goals
Optional Goals
LPFinale fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 24, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 01:16
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Always nice to see a Big Fish Games special. I'm following this!
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Jun 16, 2020 02:11
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Oh dang, I remember this game! I was big into the "1 Hour Downloadable Free Trial" stuff Big Fish Games and other sites like it (Gamehouse comes to mind), and I remember this game pretty drat well.
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Jun 16, 2020 03:04
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Ooh, more management sims! Definitely here for this.
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Jun 16, 2020 04:28
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Nice to finally have a name to a game I vaguely remembered from over a decade ago.
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Jun 16, 2020 08:09
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Ooooooh. Now this takes me back more than a few years. ...Don't remember beating it though. Bumbling got me fairly far, but clueless persistance only did so much.
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Jun 16, 2020 11:14
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Oooh, this sounds interesting.
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Jun 16, 2020 12:31
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Arcanuse posted:Ooooooh. Now this takes me back more than a few years. I... might have an idea of where you got stuck, depending on how far you got. There was one level much later on that completely stonewalled me as a child and basically forced me to learn the most efficient way to use some later items, as well as using certain items together. For one, it's the level that I mentioned I'd consider getting even a 1-Star rating in to be impressive.
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Jun 17, 2020 05:33
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Jeez Denise desperately needs a PA if she's the manager for the entire office and yet she's the one popping to the corner shop. Still, this looks fun! Reminds me a bit of Diner Dash which I was a big fan of, but man that game got hectic. And very dependent on matching colour combos...
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Jun 17, 2020 07:17
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Chinely posted:Jeez Denise desperately needs a PA if she's the manager for the entire office and yet she's the one popping to the corner shop. The early Diner Dashes were all right, but they really nailed the formula with Diner Dash 5: BOOM! Pity they never made any more after that.
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Jun 17, 2020 07:35
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Quackles posted:The early Diner Dashes were all right, but they really nailed the formula with Diner Dash 5: BOOM! I'm of an opposite opinion, but that's probably personal taste. I kinda got really bored with BOOM since there was never any need to think about good Seat Color setups; every single group of customers that came in could be matched perfectly to a table, with no effort. I no longer felt smart for constructing sets of tables that were likely to chain colors for long enough to get insane bonuses to my score because the game just... did it for me. A lot of the new mechanics felt kind of out-of-place to me as well. Then there's the way that Noise got butchered as a mechanic by having it be this big circle that was sometimes rather unclear as to what tables it could hit instead of just "The adjacent tables get hit." I kept playing all the way to the end hoping that it would take off the training wheels, but it never did. I do greatly appreciate BOOM's production value, though. I remember finding the cutscenes rather enjoyable, as well as the updated visual style in general. Soundtrack was wonderful as well.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:10
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LPFinale posted:I kept playing all the way to the end hoping that it would take off the training wheels, but it never did. That might explain our respective different opinions. I, uh, have a harder time comparatively with time management games. I still might LP Airport Mania someday, though. That one was quality. I'd probably pre-plan the ideal sequence for each level, though. LPFinale posted:I do greatly appreciate BOOM's production value, though. I remember finding the cutscenes rather enjoyable, as well as the updated visual style in general. Soundtrack was wonderful as well. Agreed to all of that, especially the music. Did you ever play Avenue Flo? The Diner Dash adventure game.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:14
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I only ever played Diner Dash 2, which I liked but I'm... also not very good at them! I started choking around the Mexican place and then never really recovered. Although I did like the ability to fix up and decorate. Please tell me we can get rid of that hideous carpet in Miss Management.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:29
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Quackles posted:That might explain our respective different opinions. I, uh, have a harder time comparatively with time management games. Mmhm, both of them! They're in the pool of Point & Click Adventure games that manage to never really frustrate me for knowing what I want to do but having absolutely zero idea what I'm expected to do to get there. I also played Dinertown Tycoon, which, uh... I may have a small folder of papers with detailed data on each area of the game before younger me got more familiar with Google Docs. I remember enjoying it quite a bit, but I'd have to go back and replay it to give a more solid opinion. Maybe another day.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:51
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Chinely posted:I only ever played Diner Dash 2, which I liked but I'm... also not very good at them! I started choking around the Mexican place and then never really recovered. Although I did like the ability to fix up and decorate. Please tell me we can get rid of that hideous carpet in Miss Management. I can at least say it'll stop looking like someone left several years' worth of dirt in it with confetti sprinkled on top.
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Jun 17, 2020 08:52
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Episode 2: Story Update Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLJvEqhN5xc I think we're in need of a fresh face to spice up the gameplay after the tutorial, don't you?  The game sure seems to think so. Also, the 3-Star Rating asks for 2 Days. Remember that for later.  I'd sure hope we can handle it, it's only Episode 2. Anyways, we begin with Denise contemplating the situation at a piece of office scenery that was sorely missing: the Water Cooler.  It's all kinda strange though. Mahavir has this whole place to himself? He seems nice, even if he is a bit... A bit suave? A bit sophisticated... with just a hint of mystery and danger?Boo   While I might not use any of those words to describe Mahavir's Good morning, sunshine! Do you always talk to yourself when you're alone? Well... only when I'm trying to figure something out, really.I see we have an ally in the mystery of the office's desk situation. Hmm, I thought I should tell you... Timothy's back in the office today. Timothy?Ah, maybe not. She seems to not have noticed the new desk that's appeared overnight, complete with a nameplate and profile picture. He's the office's accountant. Real whiz with numbers, so you can give him any financial tasks that come in, instead of making me do them!"Financial tasks" is green, by the way. I cannot make it green, so bold is what you get for all these colorful terms unless you're watching the video. Anyways, seems like company/client finances are part of the regular work schedule, colored green for one of the most common colors for cash in media. ...unless that's just a thing in US media. Probably, since I can't really think of other places where the money is green. But he's a little, well...Cue entrance!  Hi Timmy! Most everyone's still gone for the holidays, remember? This image tastes of concentrated essence of "Done With This poo poo"  Please don't call me Timmy... I asked you not to call me Timmy. Who's this girl... ? Where's Pearl? Where's Pearl?...Pearl? Pearl? Pearl didn't get the job, oddly enough... this is our new office manager, Denise!...I'm sure that won't become a problem later. What? This is very worrying! Skittish and anxious, or  ? You decide. Do you know what you're doing, miss? As well as Pearl? Can you handle it?Dude, it's  Well... yes, I can! I just take the tasks and I... Oh... oh! The tasks! You'll have to be quick about that... there's so much work we need to get done. Okay, I know I said we'll be okay, but I'm starting to wonder whether Timothy is included in "we" in that statement... See what I mean? Yeah, he's a little...Stressed? Fragile? In desperate need of therapy and work-life balance? Skittish? Anxious? A total basketcase?Or we could go with that, yes. I'd say he needs a vacation, but he just came back from one, so...  Oh dear... I'm worried about him!Denise is good and pure and that's my entire comment Oh, don't be. He loves being at work. If he gets too stressed out, just get him to take a break at the water cooler!BEGIN THE LESSONS!   Mahavir, for instance, relaxes best when he's lying on his couch! Every employee has at least one favorite spot...As stated above, the Water Cooler can help any Employee calm down. It's not as effective as a dedicated spot for them, but it's faster than just waiting for them to calm down naturally. This isn't quite relevant yet, but you can send two Employees to the Water Cooler at once! When two Employees are at the Water Cooler, they'll begin talking to each other. This doesn't speed up their stress relief normally, but there are often Goals involving having two Employees talk with each other, and their Stress modifiers are often different in these cases. Timothy's favorite spot isn't here yet, but thankfully, we won't be needing it in any capacity for what the Episode will throw at us. I'm gonna rest for a bit, OK? I was out late last night and I need some more, you know... Some more coffee?Denise. Honey. We all know that's not what the man who greeted us by groggily waking up from a nap is gonna say. Some more beauty sleep! And with that aneurysm, we're introduced to the fifth and final ingredient in the perfect storm that is trying to keep this whole office from burning to the ground: Stress from the activities of other Employees. Watch out... Some employees get more stressed out if other employees do something they don't like! So to recap, the plates we'll be spinning simultaneously are:
These plates will get harder and harder to spin as time goes on, and the videos will get more and more hectic as a result.  Ah right, this is important to mention, too:  Some employees excel at certain kinds of tasks, while others aren't as good at them.So the blue Tasks are essentially things for the I.T. department? ...we're lucky that quality of finished work isn't a mechanic, honestly, imagine somehow creating one of those I.T. horror stories from doing work that bad.  Mahavir's just OK at everything, it looks like... but Timothy's good at financial stuff! Employees finish work they're good at faster and get less stressed out as a result!To be clear: this is a vast simplification of what's really going on, but it works. It works so well. You, as the player, quite literally don't need to have any more than this told to you to handle Tasks properly. Optimally? No, but properly? Absolutely. It's a wonderful case of only showing the player what they need to know while having all the finer details in the background to guide the experience, in addition to those details being quite noticeable if you take the time to observe things carefully. ...it also helps to have files from what I assume is a slightly older but accurate build left behind in the game's directory, but that's just for concrete numbers. You can still gather the vast majority of this stuff on your own with practice to better improve your management!  And as we've previously mentioned, I don't care much for the amount of cash you get as a score, just the number of Days. We'll be singlehandedly making OfficeTown turn a profit, I assure you. Next time... we show off a couple of staple items, as well as some basic Goal completion and Stress management with the training wheels taken off. See you then. LPFinale fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 24, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 08:53
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Oh no. I was not expecting people to get pissed off at what other people do, but it makes an awful lot of sense if you've ever been in an office. Reminds me of a Limmy's Show sketch, actually. Also I wonder what Timothy's favourite spot is going to be. Some sedatives, perhaps. Or a punching bag that looks like Mahavir.
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Jun 17, 2020 09:03
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I'm yet another person who loved playing this years ago but never finished it. Looking forward to seeing how it's done!
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Jun 18, 2020 02:26
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Oh, man! I remember playing Miss Management a long time ago so I'm feeling a lot of nostalgia from this. I'll be following this LP, that's for sure.
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Jun 18, 2020 03:50
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You know what point-and-click games I was really into? The Samatha Swift ones. Well, technically they were like point and click/hidden object game hybrids, but still.
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Jun 18, 2020 03:54
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Did...did the writers/game devs code (ie give personality traits, behavioral tics, etc to) Timothy to be autistic? If they did, this is simultaneously the poorest attempt at inclusion of a neuro-atypical personality I have ever seen and also the most approachable way for children to start the process of learning about those sorts of things. I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel. Might be reading too much into this...
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Jun 18, 2020 05:49
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HereticMIND posted:Did...did the writers/game devs code (ie give personality traits, behavioral tics, etc to) Timothy to be autistic? If they did, this is simultaneously the poorest attempt at inclusion of a neuro-atypical personality I have ever seen and also the most approachable way for children to start the process of learning about those sorts of things. It's possible, especially given a later scene, but at the same time, the kind of stress Timothy is under on a near-daily basis is... well, it reminds me of the days at work where I'd be ready to explode at a moment's notice, just saying whatever I need to in order to get by to the next half hour without said explosion, and I'd meet anything threatening to push me over the edge with something said either coldly or desperately, just trying to get across that it needs to stop. Even while going over-the-top with the depiction, it feels sadly relatable. I'd recommend giving it a while before making a final verdict on this, though. Further context in future Episodes will at least offer all the possible evidence and talking points you can get. Edit: The above is in reference to the writing. As for coding, I can at least say that every Employee has their own custom parameters for their work and their coworkers' behavior. The former is mostly consistent, but the latter can change in each Episode to reflect changes in the story. I'm not sure if Timothy's particular stress parameters lean towards autistic, but he does get really stressed out compared to the others. Guy's not holding up well in the office. LPFinale fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 06:12
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Plenty of people are just overstressed because of personal life issues, no need to sort them into 'neurotypical or not boxes' unless you happen to live with them.
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Jun 18, 2020 06:14
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I know exactly how you feel. I came into this game hoping that finally a dev team would deliver a nuanced representation of sex-addicted narcoleptics, but instead they gave us the stereotypical Mahavir. I am very disappointed. It's like they aren't paying attention at all to the wide range of personality traits that neuro-atypical people can have.
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Jun 18, 2020 06:49
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Episode 2: Gameplay Update, "Can You Handle It?"Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtDSKxAfSoI In general, I recommend watching the gameplay videos of each Episode at some point to get an idea of what things look like in action beyond the gifs I post. They'll probably make the most sense after reading the screenshot section, to give action-based context to all the things happening With the story taken care of, let's move on to the gameplay, shall we?  These are still relatively simple Goals, to get us used to having two Employees affecting each other. The Optional Goals for this Episode will mainly be to offer us an opportunity to put new mechanics into practice. Now, I should mention, now that we've gotten a new Employee outside of the tutorial, the game is going to give us a brief rundown on their abilities:  This was skipped over for Mahavir and Denise, but their bios do exist; you can view them at any time if you click them and then click "Employee Info," which is right next to where "Goal Info" is positioned. I'll post them when we get around to Season 2's writeups. As for Timothy himself, this bio gives us his general work proficiencies, his favorite relaxation spot ("RELAXES BY"), things that will often be part of his Goals besides his favorite spot ("LIKES"), and things that will tend to raise his Stress level ("DISLIKES"). If this didn't make it clear, Timothy is going to have an issue with most anyone doing things other than working, likely from all the mounting stress here at the office. He's the sort of Employee that will be a staple from here on out, the one Employee who acts as a Stress sink for just about anything happening in the office. On the flipside, each individual thing bothering him will usually be low-impact. Managing his Stress level will be one of our main priorities once we get more Employees than just him and Mahavir in the office. Also, I promised you item explanations once their Unlock blurbs came up, so... BEGIN! Ah, the Donut. A classic, and one that I wish I had IRL right about now. Just look at its delectable frosting! Mechanically, the Donut is our basic Stress reduction item that will be a staple for a long time. To keep it brief, Employee Stress Meters track from 0 to 100. When at 0, it's not on screen, and there's a bit of buffer in the first and last 5-ish units of Stress where the meter remains static at its position of either Empty or Full. The Donut, for a measly $3 of petty cash, lowers an Employee's Stress by 40! Keep in mind Denise has to deliver it to their desk from all the way over in the item cubbies, though, so her movement speed needs to be taken into account when reacting to high Stress.  Where the Donut is a good way to relieve Stress, Coffee is a wonderful way to prevent Stress from becoming an issue in the first place. For, again, a measly $3 in petty cash, this thing will make someone work way faster. This is one of the few items I couldn't get concrete numbers on, but from observing its effects, I'd estimate that it roughly doubles an Employee's Work Rates for 15 seconds, or about 13 effective seconds since a few are used holding the item up in celebration. We'll be buying a not-insignificant number of these from OfficeTown when they'll help, believe me. Side note: There's now a clock in the top right corner. This acts as our timer for each Day. It'll be consistent within an Episode, but I'm unsure whether it changes throughout the Season. It probably does, considering one of the later Goals this Season, so let's track that in the Goals section at the end of the Episode, shall we? Gives some context to the Goals that require time to be spent doing something.  Timothy's not looking so good while working. This sort of expression occurs during gameplay when an Employee's Stress modifier reaches +5, or about 5 Stress gained per second. When they aren't working, Employee's Stress modifiers rest at -1, calming down slowly over time if nothing's bothering them. When they start working on a Task, they lose this bonus, essentially causing Tasks to add 1 more Stress to the modifier than they're listed as in the code. You might think Mahavir's the reason Timothy has reached +5 while working. Unfortunately for Timothy's mental state, he isn't, but he is making the situation worse by about +1 to Timothy's Stress modifier while napping. Without getting into the hyper-specifics that'll be saved for writeups in Season 2 and beyond, every kind of work causes Timothy to reach or breach the +5 breaking point for these expressions. He'll look like this when working no matter what we do, even on his specialized Task type. Work has worn him down into a very fragile state.  Anyways, I send Timothy to take a break after the initial wave of Tasks. I contemplate calling Mahavir back from his nap to give Timothy more time to relax more effectively (the Water Cooler further reduces the Stress Modifier of any Employee at it by 1; and yes, Timothy gets +1 to his own modifier when anyone is at it, stacking with multiple Employees, unless he's talking with the other person at the Water Cooler, in which case, them being there won't bother him).  I ultimately decide against it since we can finish off another Task that came in to complete both Goals as fast as possible, calming Timothy down with the Morale Boosts, but there's something else I didn't realize when doing this...  Notice how Timothy stopped gaining Stress when that tutorial warning about his Stress level popped up? For those of you watching the video, you'll notice that the Clock has stopped completely, yet Timothy is still allowed to work on the Task he has in his computer. I imagine this was left in as a mercy to players still learning, but you'd better believe I'm glad to exploit it unnecessarily. Even better, it might look like the Goals didn't gain ticks for the Tasks performed during this freeze in the video, but...  The game catches up with us once it's done freezing time, meeting the Goal in an instant while shaving off a few seconds.  Since I have the power of Good to know there's one way to get him to work besides Denise's decisions as the office manager. Anyways, we'll want something special to help with that Goal, so we head to OfficeTown.  ...but first, we did just complete all the Required Goals. We could end it off right here, and the game would let us continue on to the next Episode, no questions asked. However, we all know I'm sticking around for that 3-Star Rating. It's pretty clearly an unspoken rule that I'm gonna get all of these 3-Star Ratings.  As you might've guessed, we're here for a Coffee. I'm so excited at the prospect of shoving liquid time down Mahavir's throat that I'm already clicking on it in the screenshot. However, giving it to him immediately would just be... so wasteful of a few precious seconds, ya know? So instead...  We put it on Timothy's desk, since he's not here to drink it. With that in place, I wait for some work to come in, and...  ...get Mahavir his Coffee while the boost will still be useful to complete these Tasks faster.  This would've been even more effective in terms of reducing his Stress if I'd sent him to his couch before putting the Tasks on his desk, but it's fine.For those of you who'd like a comparison, remember when Mahavir first did a Task for us? Well, get ready to truly watch in amazement. And before you ask, yes, Mahavir's base Work Rate is the same for all types of Tasks, so this next one being Technical doesn't matter.  See what a little caffeine can do for us? And with that, we also complete Mahavir's Optional Goal for the Episode!  Ah, right, this message appears when we're in the last sixth of the day, as you can see off in the top right corner. Fair warning to finish up any Tasks you want done or Goals you need to complete before time's up.  Timothy wraps up his time at the Water Cooler. Sadly, Employees' little celebration animations gets cut off by walking, whether they're ordered to go somewhere in the middle of it or they're already walking.  Remember the time goal for this Episode? Remember how it was 2 Days? Don't get used to shattering the 3-Star Rating this hard, but savor it in the levels where it's possible. There's few other feelings like shaving off another day in a level's 3-Star Rating.  Next time, we get acquainted with yet another member of the office. See you then. Goal Writeup Time Per Day: 90 Seconds Required Goals
Optional Goals
LPFinale fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Jun 24, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 08:51
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LPFinale posted:It's possible, especially given a later scene, but at the same time, the kind of stress Timothy is under on a near-daily basis is... well, it reminds me of the days at work where I'd be ready to explode at a moment's notice, just saying whatever I need to in order to get by to the next half hour without said explosion, and I'd meet anything threatening to push me over the edge with something said either coldly or desperately, just trying to get across that it needs to stop. Even while going over-the-top with the depiction, it feels sadly relatable. Ah, ok. I probably should’ve waited a bit before I passed judgment. As I mentioned before, I might be reading too much between the lines and be looking for things that aren’t even there. By popular demand posted:Plenty of people are just overstressed because of personal life issues, no need to sort them into 'neurotypical or not boxes' unless you happen to live with them. Yeah, you’re right.
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Jun 18, 2020 08:52
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Microwaving beef stroganoff... well it's not quite sedatives, but whatever makes you happy Timothy! Also this thread has started making me play Diner Dash again. I can't wait until the office is filled with ten people all having a mini-breakdown because somebodies stress relief is microwaving herring.
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Jun 18, 2020 10:16
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Popping in to say I’m loving the presentation of the LP so far and am enjoying the content. I feel bad for Timothy. He probably should take a holiday or see a therapist or he could get an aneurysm .
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Jun 18, 2020 16:51
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Junpei posted:You know what point-and-click games I was really into? The Samatha Swift ones. Well, technically they were like point and click/hidden object game hybrids, but still. The Samantha Swift games were awesome! Samantha Swift, Chocolatier, Puppetshow. I have good memories of so many franchises I first encountered on Big Fish.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:45
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Quiet Python posted:The Samantha Swift games were awesome! Samantha Swift, Chocolatier, Puppetshow. I have good memories of so many franchises I first encountered on Big Fish. I've thought about LPing Chocolatier 2 before, but couldn't figure out a good format.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:08
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For some reason, the art style of this game really reminds me of the Professor Layton games. Were they done by the same artist?
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Jun 19, 2020 01:39
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Delvio posted:For some reason, the art style of this game really reminds me of the Professor Layton games. Were they done by the same artist? 'Fraid not, or at least unlikely. Artist credits in Miss Management are listed as Jacqueline Yue for Art Direction, Carolina Moya for Character Design, and Phil Weber and Sun Yang for Visual Design. Layton's two primary artists listed in the series article on Wikipedia are Takuzō Nagano and Jun Suzuki. It's not impossible for some of the artists here to have been minor members of the team, but even that becomes pretty unlikely when both games (Miss Management and the first Layton game) were developed and released in extremely similar time frames, with Layton releasing in February of 2007 and Miss Management releasing either near the end of 2006 or the start of 2007.
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Jun 19, 2020 02:29
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Episode 3: Story Update Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir9ZhROgHTI New Episode, new face, since there's still not much the game can throw at us with only two Employees.  And what a welcome face it is to see with what the game's ready to start throwing our way. Our 3-Star Rating still lets us have 2 Days at most, but we'll see if we can shave that down.   Oooh, new Task type! And you can probably see why Timothy in particular is panicking, given the indicators on his desk. You know, besides the severe stress and anxiety. How should I know? I'm not an artist either! Hey guys... what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? We're DOOMED, that's what's going on!I, uh... I think we can say for certain that having just these two in the office would've been bad. Good thing people are returning from their holiday vacations. Doomed?! A new presence has arrived, and as is traditional, her desk was assembled beforehand by unknown benefactors. See this orange task on Timmy's desk?I think we just had a talk yesterday about calling him that being a bad idea, but he seems to not be in any state to hear you right now, so...  Ah, this type is pretty self-explanatory, at least. Lots of big companies like this need design work done, whether it's for their clients or for big meetings with graphs. I do wonder what kind of place this ultimately is, considering the type of work they send down even to small branch offices like this one, and in such quantities, too. The central office is sending over a whole bunch of them today... Problem is, neither of us are any good at art. And it's really stressful to work on stuff you're no good at, believe me!I mean, yeah. Though, I'm the one who has the game's code for Stress modifiers, and it says you don't actually treat them any different than Financial and Technical Tasks, meaning you're equally bad at them. Nice try, big guy.   They actually have the same Work Rate on Art Tasks, it's just that Timothy has an insane Stress modifier for them, highest in the game for any Employee! Well sure, it's not hard to be better at it than YOU... But I can't spend all day drawing. I might develop a callus!Theeeere it is. There's the reason. Do the Financial Tasks made your hand cramp from tapping the NumPad? Do the Technical Tasks siphon away your soul like a pact formed with an eldritch being? Oh my god... oh my god... what are we going to... Well, I'm sure there's something... Tara! Tara! Tara?Tara!  Um... who's that new lady? Oh! Hi there, I'm Denise. I'm the new office manager, and you must be... Tara?We didn't chant the name of an extremely helpful Employee for nothing, Denise, but I appreciate your continued pure, considerate approach to things. Oh. Uh... nice to meet you, Miss Denise. Uh...  Psst! Tara's kinda shy, so don't worry about it.If you say so, Mahavir. Hopefully it's just a matter of her getting used to us. The good news is, she's an artist!  It'll all be fine... I'll do the financial tasks, and Tara can do the art tasks... It'll all be fine!    Well, I'm glad we have a place for him to relax, even if it's something as specific as... ...pieces of sauteed beef served in a sour cream sauce, with variations including rice, noodles, mushrooms, et cetera... That he's somehow making in a microwave.  Stroganoff? The guy's only comfort in life is beef stroganoff. Don't ask. I can't stand the smell of the stuff.Probably because he's making it in a microwave. Also, take note of this, because now Mahavir has something to get mildly annoyed at.  I have yet to meet someone at this company who doesn't like taking breaks, Mahavir, considering even Timothy likes them a lot. Thanks, you're a peach! I'll be over here.I don't have to show you where. ...Stroganoff? It feels really good to see him happy after several instances of mounting stress and potential panic attacks. It really does. This is the weirdest job I've ever had!Oh yeah, that reminds me, what's your work experience like to get this position, Denise? Sure, the ONLY job I've ever had... but definitely the weirdest!So, uh... maybe we should look into this company? I feel like this might've been a mixup or something weird's going on. And I can feel a looming dread creeping down my back regarding the person who didn't get the job.  Oh right, uh... lessons? I dunno, this one's pretty easily explained and that nervous tension is still in the air.   I actually forgot Pearl gets this many details on her before she arrives. I'm curious to see what the thread is thinking about her at this point.  And I'm out of markers... I could really use some more, miss. I certainly hope so, Denise. Things are beginning to heat up in the office. Next time, we see what we can do with three Employees affecting each other. See you then. LPFinale fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jun 24, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 02:35
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You can definitely make beef stroganoff in a microwave. It's probably foul, though.
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Jun 19, 2020 03:18
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I foresee Denise needing years of therapy.
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Jun 19, 2020 03:41
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As someone who has memories of playing this game, I'll keep my opinions on Pearl close to my chest for now.
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Jun 19, 2020 03:52
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Someone did actually use to microwave... I think it was stroganoff? Where I worked. It doesn't smell bad exactly but it's pretty strong. So I'm glad their microwave is just in the middle of the office.
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Jun 19, 2020 04:50
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Might be leftovers. Cuz beef stroganoff is fukkin good
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Jun 19, 2020 05:32
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