To start with an apartment or not

[Serath]

Is the apartment meant to be the main money sink in the game? I can't decide whether or not to start a new game with an apartment or not because it looks completely furnished from the get go. Would there still be plenty to buy afterwards, or are there even bigger apartments you can unlock later in the game?

[orb]

Depending on the seed you may find a big apartment for around 30000 on one of top floors. You don't unlock it later in the game. It can appear on one of the boards in bars or cafes from the beginning.

I personally after checking out newly generated map without taking any jobs, but just looking around, restart the game to play on it with the "Dead of the Night" scenario, so it gives me some feeling of progression and some background story (i.e. from losing an apartment, getting the "basement" to have a place to sleep, putting there some essential furniture, and then earning money to get some bigger apartment somewhere above the ground, but not necessarily on top floors).

[Serath]

Originally posted by orb:

Depending on the seed you may find a big apartment for around 30000 on one of top floors. You don't unlock it later in the game. It can appear on one of the boards in bars or cafes from the beginning.

I personally after checking out newly generated map without taking any jobs, but just looking around, restart the game to play on it with the "Dead of the Night" scenario, so it gives me some feeling of progression and some background story (i.e. from losing an apartment, getting the "basement" to have a place to sleep, putting there some essential furniture, and then earning money to get some bigger apartment somewhere above the ground, but not necessarily on top floors).

Was losing your apartment more or less the end of the start city tutorial? Or is there more to discover? I played that initially and was reaching dead ends into my next case. So I'm thinking of starting over in Sandbox, as I saw some tip videos on Youtube showing Sandbox and I think they were generating things not in the starter city.

That, and I read a long time ago that killers can eventually leave the city for too long so that's why I was starting over, but now I'm also finding out that that may no longer be the case, and there can only be one serial murder at a time, so waiting for a second murder to happen can help. This did happen in my game in the starter city, but I didn't know this at the time.

[orb]

Originally posted by Serath:

Was losing your apartment more or less the end of the start city tutorial?

Getting into the free small basement (or rarely a backyard apartment on ground level for some maps) and reading notes pinned on board of its wall is the end of the scenario. After solving the 1st case and losing your apartment you need to find a person from your former job, who will give you keys to that place. Then you play the game like in sandbox, but with the tiny apartment you can use until you earn some more money. You may be even able to re-buy your former apartment if you wish.

I wouldn't call it however the start city tutorial (unless you select the pre-generated city and select to guide you through tutorial while starting new game), as while the case and its story is generally the same, different people and locations are used for it on different maps.

[Serath]

Okay yeah, I reached the end then with the basement apartment and starter sync disk. I think I'm going to start in Sandbox again but with no apartment just so I have something to look forward to.

[Maya-Neko]

There's no real gameplay impact for either of those choices in the end. The starting apartment provides you with a few things early on, most notably the option for a bed. However you could get a bed in the hotel as well.

Other than that, you can always just by a new apartment and sink as much money in those new buildings as you want (currently, money doesn't really matter that much anyway).

As for the Tutorial, every seed you're starting with it will turn into a normal sandbox mode, once you've reached the basement apartment, so there's no need to start over after it, unless you want to create a completely new city.