Where Planning Points come from, and what a Time Loop costs

Open the talents list Every talent with what each of its levels costs, which is the unit this page prices a rewind in. It opens on Early Riser, the cheapest first level in the tree at 10 points.

One currency does two jobs. It buys the permanent talent tree between runs, and it buys the rewinds that flip the journal back. Both come out of the same pot, so the real price of a rewind is not the number on the button. It is the talent levels those points would have bought.

This page sets out all five parts the system runs on: what a day settles, what Morale does to it, what the furniture hands over, what a rewind costs, and what the phone will lend you.

The five parts of the system

Everything the run earns is counted in survival points first and converted at 0.2 into the currency you spend. That conversion is why a day looks so small next to a talent level: the survival line’s 5 survival points come to 1 a day in the currency, and the cheapest first level in the tree costs 10.

What a day settles

The first line is fixed at 5 survival points, whatever the day held. The second is not, and it is the one you decide hour by hour.

The other two describe themselves in words and carry no figure the game exports. Wishes Fulfilled and Cumulative Reward both pay on top of anything counted below, and neither is in any total on this page. Every day figure here is therefore a floor rather than a sum, and the interest on a saved reserve in particular is a rate this site cannot price.

Morale is the lever

Morale pays nothing until it passes 50. Above that, every 5 points of it buys one more survival point at the close of the day.

Ending days at 100 rather than 50 is 3 times the income for the same number of days survived. Nothing else in a run multiplies like that, and keeping Morale up is a shorter list than you would expect.

Because the reading is taken at the end of the day, a press in the evening is worth more than the same press in the morning. Priced in the currency, the standing sources are cheap.

That last column holds only while the press is what carries the end-of-day reading above 50. On a day that would have ended at 100 anyway it pays nothing, because the line is counted once and not per press. Keeping Morale up has the full furniture list and what each press costs you in Stamina.

The buttons that pay the currency itself

Press both in one day and that is 4 Planning Points, against the 3 the two counted settlement lines pay at the very top of the Morale range. Two buttons beat a whole day of surviving.

Neither object is for sale. They are things to notice and come back to rather than furniture to buy, so the habit worth forming is pressing both once a day, every day, from the day you find them.

Nothing else in the interaction tables pays this currency. The rest of the buttons in the house pay Morale, which reaches the same pot through the settlement line above and at a slower rate.

What else the settle screen counts

The screen at the end of a run names 4 sources in its own order.

The crisis row is the one worth reading in full, because a crisis pays twice: some of it in the currency outright and some in survival points that go through the conversion with everything else.

The days tell repeated names apart. 3 of the 15 scheduled crises pay nothing when they end: Rat Infestation (day 21), Mold (day 33), Rainy (day 41). The crisis calendar has what each one sends and when it warns you.

Two more feed the same pot. A relationship converts at 0.5 per point, so the work in the endings that need someone else pays twice. And entering Endless Mode grants 300 Planning Points, which is 300 days of surviving at the floor rate. Take the grant as the whole of it: the game’s own ending screen says no more Planning Points can be gained in Endless Mode and no more Time Loops will be available. Endless Mode is what you get for the trade.

The money you can borrow

The phone carries a lender called Quick Loan, and it is the largest single sum a run can get hold of before the outbreak.

The app states its terms in the language of a payday lender, and the tables charge none of it. Its own wording is "Only $15 fee for every $100 borrowed", over a stated "annual interest rate 468%, with additional charges for overdue payments". Nothing exported takes a dollar back, adds a debt, or names a due date. What the data does carry is the visit, and it is the same visit at every tier: all three loans bring one caller, on the same days and at the same hours, with the same three answers.

Of the 3 answers, exactly one changes a stat: Yell back through the door pays +5 Morale, which is 0.2 Planning Points if it is what carries that night's reading above 50. The other 2 move no stat the reward tables carry. One of them names its own price in its wording, and the tables do not say what that price is: Play dead and stay silent, Compromise and give away items.

So on the figures the game exports, the largest loan is $500 of prep money for one scripted knock on the door between days 9 and 10. What to buy in the prep window is where that money goes.

The rating is almost entirely one thing

The end-of-run record scores 7 dimensions, and the weights are not close.

Days Survived is worth 10, and the next dimension is worth 1, which is 10 times less. Everything below it is a rounding adjustment by comparison: the whole bottom half of that table together does not outweigh a few extra days.

The statistics screen turns that score into a stamp it calls the Survival Rating, in 5 bands.

Read those bands as the statistics screen’s own scale and nothing else. They are not the daily settlement, which pays its flat 5 survival points a day whatever band a run ends in. The bands run to 500, and the weights above can carry a long run past that on days survived alone, so what the screen does with a score above the top band is not something the data says. The band names and their thresholds are.

So the rating rewards length, and the points reward length played well. There is no clever way to score well on a short run.

What a rewind costs

Each rewind is dearer than the last: the price multiplies by 1.6 at every use.

The five-day rewind only unlocks after day 20, and the journal keeps 6 snapshot slots to flip back to. Which days those slots hold is decided in code and is not in the tables.

Chances are for the restart, not for the rewind

The number the game calls a chance is not a rewind allowance. Its own tip reads: "After death, you can spend Planning Points to rewind your journal to previous days, that doesn't consume chances." A chance buys the other thing on that screen: "You can also use up one chance to return to before the disaster occurs and prepare anew." So the price table above is the only limit on how often you flip back a day, and the 3 chances are spent on going all the way to the beginning.

The first spends one of the 3 and settles everything you earned. The second costs nothing and settles none of it. The game’s own game-over line counts them by the save file rather than by the run: "You've used up all your available time loops in this save file."

On a run that reached day 74 at good Morale, tearing out to avoid spending 15 throws away about 222 points. Use the tear-out for a round that went wrong in its first week, and the chance for anything longer.

The rewind screen also mentions a Max Life cost. In the balance data that cost is set to zero, so a rewind takes points and nothing else. The interface keeps a slot for it, which is worth knowing in case it is ever turned back on.

Worked examples

What a whole run settles

A run of 100 days that never lifts Morale above 50 settles 100 Planning Points off the first two lines. The same run ending every day at 100 settles 300, because a day that ends there is 15 survival points rather than 5.

Add the calendar and the gap widens rather than closes. Every scheduled crisis surviving to its end is another 37.4, so a full run played for Morale settles about 337.4 before wishes, interest, records and relationships. Against 2,630 for the whole tree, that is about 8 runs rather than the 27 the floor rate alone implies.

What a rewind buys instead

Points are abstract. Talent levels are not.

Three five-day rewinds is 310 points, or 310 days of surviving at the floor rate, to undo three stretches of one run. The decision is this: a rewind is worth it when the run it saves is worth more than 5 talent levels. Early in a save, when the cheapest levels cost 10 points and every one is a real improvement, it usually is not. Late, when the next level is expensive and the run in front of you is a good one, it usually is.

What the largest loan is worth

$500 is 50% of the $1000 the Wage Slave starts with, so taking it is the difference between one prep window and one and a half. Nothing in the exported tables charges it back, and the only cost the data attaches is a visit on day 9 or 10 between hours 22 and 24, with 3 answers to pick from.

Set against the settlement, that is a lot of money for very little. The whole crisis calendar pays 37.4 Planning Points across 100 days; the loan pays no Planning Points at all, and buys prep instead. Treat it as a decision about the shelf you start with, not about the tree.

What to do

1. Get Morale above 50 and keep it there to the end of the day. Below the line the second settlement line pays nothing; above it, every 5 points is another survival point every night, and 100 pays 3 times what 50 does.
2. Press the 2 objects that pay outright, once each a day. They are worth 4 together, more than the 3 the day itself can pay.
3. Compare first levels in the talents list before you spend, and do not budget for maxing the tree. 2,630 points is about 8 runs played for Morale.
4. Hold the cheap rewinds. The first back-one-day is 15; the third is 38 for the same day back, and the five-day version does not exist before day 20.
5. Never tear out a long round. Flipping to the title page credits everything the run earned; tearing out credits none of it and refunds only what you spent on abilities.
6. Take the loan for the prep window if you want the shelf, not for the settlement. It pays no Planning Points, and the caller arrives on day 9 or 10 either way.
7. Count the Endless grant once. 300 points is 300 days of surviving at the floor, and it is the last Planning Points that save will earn.

Quick reference

• A day pays 1 to 3 Planning Points, set by Morale at the end of it.
• Morale below 50 pays nothing; above it, every 5 points is one survival point.
• Conversion: 0.2 Planning Points per survival point.
• Objects that pay outright: 2, worth 4 a day together, neither for sale.
• The whole calendar of crises pays 37.4 across a run.
• Whole tree: 2,630 points, about 8 runs played for Morale.
• Rating: Days Survived at 10, everything else at 1 or less.
• Rewinds: one day 15 / 24 / 38, five days 60 / 96 / 154, five days unlocking after day 20.
• 3 Time Loops a save buy the return to before the disaster, not the rewinds.
• Tearing the round out settles nothing and costs nothing.
• Loans: $100, $300, $500, one visit, no repayment in the data.