Companionship or Girl Next Door, playing the Student or the Wage Slave
The same system with a different person in it: Companionship is the Student's, Girl Next Door is the Wage Slave's, and the stages, the scoring and the requests are identical. One person to keep alive through a three-stage rescue of 1300 progress: 500 + 500 + 300. Send what they asked for (45 a parcel) every day from week one; the requests rotate every 15 days and draw from 9 categories you also want. Answer each crisis with 3+ items. If they die, the ending is gone whatever else you do.
Rescue, any character
Build the Rescue Beacon Furniture Packages 100 g 2×3 cells Keeps indefinitely It looks like a reflective work of art that can be spotted from far away. Waiting for a chance to place it somewhere! and place it in the 2nd Floor or Balcony or Sunroom, then survive to the check on day 71. Nothing else is scored, so this is the ending to fall back on when a character’s own line did not come together. The endings you build for has the rest of the house-based lines.
Stranger, playing the Wage Slave
6 survivors alive at the check on day 71, each eating 24 Satiety a day: 144 a day for the group, 3.0× what you burn yourself, from day 5 onwards. Budget that from the stockpile before you agree to anything; the stranger economy has the delivery schedule.
Open the endings list The people endings alongside the rest: who reaches each, the deliveries the track takes and the deadline.
Four of the endings run through other people rather than through your house, and they split into two kinds. Companionship and Girl Next Door are about one person you keep alive, and both can be lost outright. The ending checks that they are still there. Rescue and Stranger are about people you never meet, and neither can be lost, only missed.
Which of the four is available depends on who you are playing: Companionship on the Student, Girl Next Door on the Wage Slave, Rescue on every character, and Stranger on the Wage Slave alone.
The one you keep alive
Companionship and Girl Next Door are the same system with a different person in it. Each runs on a three-stage rescue, and the ending needs all three stages finished, plus the person alive at the end.
| Stage | Progress it takes | Word back at | Crises it can throw |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 | 500 | 100, 250, 500 | 7 |
| Stage 2 | 500 | 100, 250, 500 | 7 |
| Stage 3 | 300 | none | 3 |
That is 1300 progress in total, and progress comes from what you send across.
What a delivery is worth
Every parcel is scored the same way:
- 30 progress for sending something at all.
- +15 more when it is one of the things they actually asked for.
- +20% of the item’s own value on top of that.
So the difference between sending whatever is to hand and sending what was asked for is 1.5× before the value bonus is counted. Over the whole track that is 29 deliveries instead of 44, 15 fewer parcels, each of which is food or materials you are not keeping.
The requests rotate over 15 days per stage and draw from 9 categories: Food, Meds, Books, Household, Tools, Materials, Seeds, Fertilizer, Fuel. Everything on that list is something you also want, which is the real cost of these two endings. The supplies list is the fastest way to find which of them you are carrying spares of.
Crises pay a flat amount, plus a rate
Each of the first two stages carries a 25% chance of throwing a crisis. Answering one pays 30 to 40 progress plus 5 for every item you put in, with a 3-day cooldown between them and a window of 1 to 4 days to answer, depending on which crisis it is.
That flat amount is worth reading against an ordinary parcel rather than assuming it beats one. A delivery of what they asked for is 45 before the value bonus; a crisis starts at 30. It takes 3 items in the crisis to match that, and fewer if the crisis is one of the 40-progress ones.
So the rule is not “always answer”. It is answer, and put enough in. A crisis answered with one spare tin is worth less than the same tin sent as a normal parcel; a crisis answered properly is the biggest single jump the track offers, and it is the only part of it with a deadline attached.
Losing the ending
Both of these endings check that the person is alive. Nothing else in the game has that shape: a stockpile can be rebuilt and a door can be replaced, but a run that lets them go is a run where the ending is simply gone, whatever else you do with the remaining weeks. If you want one of these two, the rescue track is not optional content you get to when the house is finished. It is the run.
The two you never meet
Rescue is the simplest ending in the game to describe. You build a Rescue Beacon Furniture Packages 100 g 2×3 cells Keeps indefinitely It looks like a reflective work of art that can be spotted from far away. Waiting for a chance to place it somewhere! , put it upstairs, the 2nd Floor, Balcony, Sunroom all count, and hold out. The game’s own description of it: "A makeshift distress beacon assembled with its antenna pointing skyward. Set it to full power and your coordinates can be transmitted far and wide." It is available on every character, which makes it the fallback when a character-specific line did not come together.
Stranger is the other end of the scale. It asks for 6 survivors still alive at the check on day 71, and each one eats 24 Satiety a day. That is 144 Satiety a day for the whole group, 3.0× what you burn yourself, from day 5 onwards.
It is the most expensive ending in the game, and the cost is food out of the same stockpile that keeps you alive. The stranger economy has the delivery schedule and what the relationship is worth.
What to do
- Decide in the first week whether this run is about a person. If it is, treat deliveries as a fixed daily cost, not a leftover: 19 progress a day clears the track by day 71.
- Send what was asked for. 30 becomes 45 the moment the category matches, before the value bonus.
- Answer every crisis inside its window, with at least 3 items in it. Below that the same goods are worth more as an ordinary parcel.
- For Rescue, build the beacon and get it onto the 2nd Floor well before day 71.
- For Stranger, budget 144 Satiety a day before you agree to anything. 6 is the number, and it is checked once.
Quick reference
- Can be lost: Companionship, Girl Next Door. The person has to be alive.
- Rescue track: 500 + 500 + 300 = 1300 progress.
- Per delivery: 30, or 45 when it is what they asked for, plus 20% of its value.
- Per crisis: 30 to 40 plus 5 an item, answered within 1 to 4 days.
- Worth answering with 3+ items, or the goods do better as a parcel.
- Stranger: 6 survivors alive on day 71, at 144 Satiety a day between them.