Let me give the conclusion first: If you think "Fall Beans Must Die" is a casual party game that follows the trend of "Follow Beans" IP, then you will most likely delete the game in the first half hour and leave a negative review. This stand-alone plot-oriented RPG developed by Xiamen Weihu Network is essentially a "time management simulator" cloaked in absurdity, or in other words, a black humor experiment about the ultimate destination of migrant workers. I played the game for 12 hours at a stretch over the weekend and unlocked all the endings. Now I will explain the core mechanism and profit curve to you clearly.
The basics of the game are pretty straightforward. You play as Timmy, a social animal who is told by the Soul Reaper in the elevator that he has 15 hours left to live. His only wish was to return to his bed and die peacefully. Sound simple? But the developers are full of bad intentions in the goal of "going home". The entire map is an open town. It takes about 2 hours in the game to walk from the company to Timmy's house. But in these 15 hours, you will encounter your ex-girlfriend asking you to get back together, colleagues begging you to bring documents, the fragrance wafting from a roadside stall, and even a homeless man claiming to be able to change the time of your death. Each interaction consumes time and leads to different ending branches. In the first game, I foolishly started talking to people I met, and ended up dying on a bench two blocks away from my house. It was a shame.
Therefore, the first core strategy is: clarify your "optimal path" and "plot trigger priority". The time consumption of the game is real. Each conversation takes at least 15 minutes, and some task chains require round-trip running, which is a pure linear time loss. You don't have to think about collecting them all, it's impossible to collect them all in one week. My suggestion is to prioritize the time node of the main line of "going home". In the game, the Soul Reaper will follow you like a ghost, and his dialogues contain key hints. For example, at the beginning he will say, "You can save half an hour by taking the shortcut through that park." This information is true. You need to take advantage of the terrain, the fire exit at the back door of the company, the rollover railing in the park, and the alleys in the commercial street. These hidden shortcuts can help you shorten your commuting time to a minimum.
I tested a few nodes here and gave you a data flow reference. Ignore any NPCs at the beginning, go straight to the company's fire escape, and then take the shortcut in the park. It only takes about 45 minutes of game time to reach your doorstep. At this time, the system will prompt you that "there is still plenty of time". But this is actually a trap, because if you go directly to the door and sleep, it will trigger the most common "bland ending" without any additional information. The real content of the game is hidden in those side quests that seem like a waste of time.
The Soul Reaper will reveal in the second conversation that the reason he gave advance notice is because Timmy once signed a "time buy-back agreement", which was stored in the shredder on the top floor of the company. This is the key to the true ending of the main plot. You need to go back to the company, which takes time. I suggest you don't go home in the first week and go directly to this quest line. The specific process is: go to the front desk on the first floor of the company to trigger a conversation, you need to wait for the elevator for 1 minute (game time), go up to the top floor and search for the shredder to get the agreement fragments, and then go to the cafe next door to find an old lady who is proficient in file repair. The old lady will ask you to help her find her lost reading glasses. The glasses are with the fish stall owner in the market. The fish stall owner will ask you to help him move a box of fish... You see, one link after another, all time-consuming.
This involves the core numerical system of this game - emotional value. Interacting with NPCs, especially helping with errands, will accumulate "merit" points, which is your implicit favorability. This point will not be displayed visually, but it will affect the outcome. When you help the fish stall owner move the fish, the old lady will tell you a secret: the elevator is actually a level set up by the Soul Reaper. It only opens to the "minus first floor" during a specific time period. There is a time machine there that allows you to go back 15 minutes.This information is too critical, which means that if you make a mistake in the previous task chain and waste too much time, you can correct it by going back through the time machine, but the cost is that you will lose the "merit" points gained during the period.
I suggest you follow this step: go straight to the top floor of the company to get the fragments of the agreement at the beginning. Don't talk nonsense to anyone during this process. It will take about 2 hours. Then go downstairs to find the old woman. Her branch is necessary because she is the only one who can repair the file. While running errands, I took on the tasks of the fish stall owner in the market and the NPC in the drugstore. Because their tasks were all in the same area, the time cost could be kept to a minimum by merging them. Finally, repair the agreement and go back to the elevator. At this time, you will trigger the "Silent Truth" ending branch.
The charging model is a single-machine purchase, with no in-app purchases, which I think is very conscientious. The game process takes about 6 to 8 hours. If you pursue the full ending and try every line of every NPC like me, it will take about 15 hours. The painting style is pixelated, but the music is surprisingly good, especially the late night soundtracks, which combined with the atmosphere of "you can't go home no matter what", can really catch people off guard.
Some people may ask whether this game is worth buying. Let's put it this way, if you're fed up with those "soul-based" difficulties that are disgusting for the sake of being disgusting, and don't want to play too brainless point-and-click puzzles, "Fall Beans Must Die" is very accurate in "making you feel helpless but ironic". It is not teaching you how to live, but asking a worker, is the bed you are trying so hard to get back to, is it really worth it? Okay, the data is all above, you can weigh it yourself. I'm going to try to see if I can sleep in the office with a bug.