How to Succeed in Border Officer

These general tips and strategies will help you last longer and win the game!
Please give this guide a thumbs up b/c I worked really hard on it. Thank you!

Basics

Controls

• The controls can be tricky learn at first, but you'll get used to them. For instance, Q, I, F, and clicking a button can have the same function depending on the situation. You can see controls at the main menu and usually there is a list that appears when you're in the car and at other times.

Menus

• When loading the game, the loading bar has a habit of going to 90% and then stopping. Just wait. It might take a few minutes, but it will load. Just be patient.
  
• The pause menu allows you to flip the car. This is important since the car can occasionally flip over if you drive really, really crazy or if you drive over really, really crazy terrain.

Bugs

• You must have the car turned on to be able to turn your view to take money from hitchhikers. You'll learn about them in the next section.
  
• On rare occasions, when you get out of your car, you won't be able to move your view. Just press the Esc button to pause the game. Then un-pause.
  
• Documents can get stuck in certain places on the desk. Look at the in-game desk computer, press E on your computer, then click the Re-Upload icon on the in-game computer. It will respawn the documents! (There is also the Stamp-R icon which does the same for stamps if you lose them.)
  
• I have seen a typo on two date of birth entries on someone's documents. It matched on all documents, so it was okay.
  
• There are indeed, many bad translations in the game. Very rarely does this make game-play frustrating. I have also seen an instance of game coding being shown as text in the game. It is a bit disappointing, but some of it adds to the funny personality of the game.

Traveling

• The bus (which is actually a van) is cheaper than your car and instant. It goes to your house ("Home"), the main town ("Highway"), and the border ("Border"). It will stay at the last bus stop you left it at, but resets at your house every morning. You have to take your car the first day. The bus will be available from day 2 onward. It costs $6 on the second day, but will rise by $1 almost every day. Sometimes it won't go up. Once it gets to $10, it stays at $10. Make sure you save money for the next day if your want to take it
  
• When you get out of the car, activate the handbrake. You don't want to chase it 300 meters away.

At Work

• On your first day, after turning on the computer, look at everything on it. There is a lot of useful info, like an icon that will re-drop the documents (sometimes they get stuck behind an object or lost), an icon that tells you what was just spoken between you and the immigrant, a wanted list, and more.
  
• The computer will need to be checked every day for new announcements. Typically, every day your job will get more complicated.
  
• To close computer windows, click the minimize (_) or exit (X) buttons in the upper right corner.

• Important Tip: Not only will it save you time, but it's super useful! When you pick up two documents, click on the the same information on both. For instance, click the name found on each document. Once both are clicked, the game will tell you if the data matches. It does most of your job for you! (This does not work for all types of documents.)
  
  
• Dropping documents can be tricky on rare occasions, but it's always possible. You don't have to right click on a document itself. If it doesn't respond, click everywhere you can on the entire half of the screen where the document is.
  
  
• Do not arrest people for bribery, incorrect/inconsistent documents/speech, [[[or threatening to commit a crime???]]]. You can only arrest people for having weapons (in most cases), being on the wanted list, being escaped criminals, or being SCP agents.

At Home

• Family: If all of your family escapes or dies, you lose the game. Keep them happy and healthy!
  
• The game only saves when you fall asleep!
  
  
• Every night the rent will be paid automatically. It starts at $7 (I'm calling them $s for simplicity) so make sure you have at least $7 when you go to sleep! It will go up slowly over time too! (Usually $1 per day) If you can't pay rent it's game over!
  
• You start the game with one food item and one bag of coal. Put these in the fridge and furnace before you leave for work. That way you'll have more inventory space when you buy stuff on your way home. Every night when the finances and stats for your family are shown, you must click on the bubbles next to the amount of food in the fridge and amount of coal in the furnace! This is how you feed them and keep them warm! Keep filling the fridge and furnace and slowly get them as full as possible. Chopped wood will not work in the furnace.
  
  
• Livestock: You can access and do things to the farm by pressing E while looking at the wooden stable for the cows. Here you can buy livestock and feed them. You have to press E while looking at a cow or chicken to milk it/collect its egg. These things cost you energy. Only do that after you return from work.

Strategies

Making Money

• The best way to make money is working while energetic. For every four mistakes you make at your job, you'll receive a $5 penalty.
  
• Taking bribe money that's given with someone's documents won't result in a penalty. Approving them when you shouldn't will. Thus, you can take certain bribes, but not fulfill your end of the deal. Take these types of bribes if you want to make money, because you will always profit. However, it might interfere with you getting the Officer STEAM achievement. There are other kinds of bribes, however, that will pay off in the long run, but will cost you in the short run. For example, at one point in the game, someone offers you $5 for every person from Soshi that you reject. He comes back later to fulfill his end of the bargain. As I've said, four penalties will result in a loss of $5 from that day's pay. Some Soshi people will need to be rejected. So later you'll get $5 for each of them, incurring no losses now. Mathematically, the ones you shouldn't reject, but do, cost you $1.25 each. If you can afford the temporary losses now, you'll make a profit of $3.75 on each later!
  
• You can also sell items in your house, but as mentioned previously, this should only be done as a last resort.
  
• Also, you can steal from your neighbor. More on that later.
  
• You can dumpster dive too. There are many dumpsters around to look through. Finding garbage and other yucky stuff will decrease happiness, but you can find good stuff to sell at the pawn shop. I don't recommend this, but it can be used if you're strapped for cash.
  
• There is also your farm. I'll teach you more about that later.
  
• You can also chop wood. I do not recommend this at all. It's too time consuming, takes up a lot of room in your inventory, drains your energy (like every money making activity besides gambling), is super time consuming, and isn't even reliable! Don't chop wood!
  
• Gambling is another way to make money. If you win the coin toss, you will double your bet. If you win the horse race, you'll triple your bet. In my experience, the odds for both of these are in your favor, and you can become rich very fast at the gambling den if you're lucky. Also, there are two gambling STEAM achievements.
  
• Finally, you can send your wife and the uncle to work. Do this on the very first day before going to work. When you return home, you can collect money from them. You can take all of it, half of it, or none of it. The more you take, the more their happiness will decrease. Even just taking half from each will get you rich but you must keep them very happy or they will run away!

Traveling

• I recommend using just the bus at first, just because it's cheaper. Later, using both the car and the bus will be useful, but I've finished an entire game without ever using the bus. The car allows you to pick up hitchhikers. They are located a little ways before and just beyond the town. The young woman won't cause trouble, but others can bring your energy or happiness down. Still, I wouldn't turn down free money.
  
• Use the car trunk as extra storage, but try your best to keep one of each car item in the trunk. These are a spare tire, gasoline, oil, and antifreeze, and can be found at the gas stations located in town and at the border. Keep track of when gas, oil, and antifreeze are getting low. Open the hood to fill oil and antifreeze. Simply select a gas can and click the fill button or park next to a gas pump and use that to fill your car with gas. To fix a flat tire, click the empty wheel hub. Use the instant tire replacement service if you only have a few dollars because they won't refuse to change it. Even if you have $0, they'll change it for $0!
  
• Always engage the handbreak before exiting the car!

• There's a wolf that hangs out around town. It isn't dangerous, but it can be really helpful. ASAP buy some meat from the grocery store in town and give it to the wolf. You can then name it and tell it to get in your car. Bring it home and tell it to guard your house. I recommend telling it to sit and guard. That way it's easily accessible before and after work. This is very important because without the dog, a thief will steal house items. If an item in your house is stolen or sold by you, your family's happiness will suffer. That's very bad. Remember to feed it meat to keep it alive. Check its health regularly.
  
  
• The Strip Club: The strip club doesn't really get you anything. It costs $10 to enter for the day. There are three crates of beer inside (one on the bottom floor, & the others on the second floor), but that's it. You have a whole crate of beer at home and there is beer to buy at the store in town. It's dumb to go into the strip club.

At Work

• To start your work day quickly, when you sit at the desk, boot up the computer, use the loudspeaker to call the first person, and then pick up the metal scanner. Once you scan the person, drop the it and look at the announcements and wanted list on the computer. This is the quickest order to do things, and you'll be fast at it in no time! This doesn't help you in-game. It just saves time IRL.
  
• Be energetic before work. Drink energy drinks (I recommend two) before you sit at the desk. Energy will get you more money.

At Home

• The Thief: The first day, he will steal the uncle's bed. Selling the it makes him take your son's. Get the dog!
  
• Family: Keep them all happy. At the beginning, when you need to get money from your wife and the uncle, it's most important to keep them happy, rather than your son and mother-in-law. However, giving money to your mother-in-law may help your relationship with one of them too while helping her be happy at the same time.

• Livestock: You start with a chicken and a cow. You can have up to 8 cows and 8 chickens. I suggest getting food for one on the first day after work and letting the other one die. Here's why: Both get you the same amount of profit per item they produce when you sell the items at the pawn shop. But you must buy hay for cows and worms for chickens. (One hay bale and one worm will feed all of the cows and chickens respectively, no matter how many of each you have!) (Also, if all of your cows and/or chickens are dead, do not put their feed in the barn. Even though there aren't any animals to eat them, they'll disappear in the morning and be wasted.) If you have both cows and chickens, you'll need to buy both types of feed, which means an extra slot in your inventory is being taken up when you really don't need to have more than 8 animals. You'll be rich before you know it. Get to the maximum amount of the your chosen animal ASAP. This will help you make money quickly. I suggest using chickens since they're cheaper to buy and feed. You'll make the same profit per animal as with cows, but since you need to be economical at the beginning, it might help you when you're starting out.

• Neighbor: You can rob your neighbor, but he might shoot you. Robbing him brings your happiness down and if you're shot, you must pay hospital bills, but you won't ever die, even if you have no money to pay those bills. Make quick money by selling his stuff at the pawn shop! You can sell his old TV for $10, old radio for $7, old turntable for $7, and old camera for $6 (that's $30 total). I recommend shooting him with the rifle before robbing him. Otherwise, you might get shot many times and have to start the robbery over, losing tons of money on bills.

Random Questions

Q: How many in-game days long is the game?
A: [[[Unknown. One play-through I did took 12 in-game days. However, if there are multiple endings, another ending could be a different length.]]]

Q: Are there multiple endings?
A: [[[Unknown. There are likely two.]]]

Q: Does the military hat on my desk do anything for me?
A: [[[Unknown. One play-through I did without ever wearing it resulted in no military personnel, nor any SPC operatives coming to the desk. This could have been due to other factors though.]]]

Q: Does the rifle come loaded when I buy it?
A: Yes. It holds 5 rounds and comes fully loaded.

Q: Can I use the rifle to shoot people or my livestock?
A: The only animals and people you can shoot in game are the various kinds of deer, the dog (not while it's a wolf) (you cannot gain meat from it like you can with deer) and your neighbor. You will not be punished for shooting any of them.

Q: If some of my family escapes, can I pay my mother-in-law enough times to fix my relationship with them enough to bring them back?
A: This doesn't appear to be the case.

Q: How much money does my mother-in-law take when I give her money?
A: It's random. I've seen it from $2 - $8.

Q: Can I run over animals, people, or other cars with my car?
A: Every animal or person will immediately stop your car if you run into them, except for hitchhikers, who must be hit at a decent speed to be killed, and whom you will not be punished for killing. Permanently stationary vehicles and the bus will also stop your car if run into them. Vehicles that people are currently driving will slow your car down if impacted, but will not bring you to a dead stop.

Q: Where does the QR code on the additional entry permit link to?
A: It does not lead to anywhere useful or cool. Trust me. :'(

[EggBert]

how tf do i prevent robbers from stealing my famylies shit?

[userperla027]

how the hell do i start working what is the button to press on pc

[jesse from bonple]

thx soo much bro

[fikretsaka]

amınakoyum yapacagınız oyunuıjn param bosa gitti acılmıyor !!!!!!!!!

[SABERTOOTH]

Thank you again to those who have given awards. I just got a bunch more. Your generosity has not gone unnoticed!

[SABERTOOTH]

Thank you everyone who has awarded this guide! I am so grateful and hope that this has helped you.
P.S. I'm always checking for questions so don't hesitate to ask!

[SABERTOOTH]

Just left click and hold, dragging the item from your trunk to your inventory.
Unfortunately, this game also has some "inconsistent" controls as you can tell from the very first paragraph in my guide, so it might be tricky if you're new to PC gaming. Most games aren't like this, but I really love this game despite its kinks.

[Jim20]

Thanks SABERTOOTH how do i move from trunk to inventory sorry for all question new to pc gaming

[SABERTOOTH]

Gas is the one thing for the car that you use differently. Instead of finding a gas intake, you'll need to move it to your inventory from the trunk, click on the gas, then a button will light up for you to fill the car.
As for general inventory stuff, it should be pretty intuitive. Just make sure stuff is in your inventory, not your trunk in order to use it.

[Jim20]

How do you use inventory on this game for example i have gas in trunk but dont know how to use it