Firstly: Pathological freezes when I click "apply" in the control changing menu. I have to manually edit the init.cfg file to change the controls (I rebound Inventory, Map, Status, and Messages to 1, 2, 3, and 4, with Quicksave and Quickload on F1 and F2. Makes the game much easier to play). I got around this issue, but other less technical gamers (who aren't likely to give Pathologic a chance anyway, but whatever) won't be able to.

Secondly: On the second day as the Bachelor, I was told to talk to a kid in an apartment in the northeast of town to be told where a plague house is, to get proof of the plague. I found the kid and talked to him, and he said the "Silent house" is right across from his... but I can't find it for the life of me. All of the houses near his are locked up, and they're ALL silent- I can't tell them apart visually or audibly at all. Does the first "House of the Living" from Lara's side quest count as evidence in its stead?

Lastly: Thank you for this game. Despite the difficulty in following the conversations and plot thus far (I got pretty much nothing out of the performance between the three main characters at the very start of the game, partly because it sounded like they occasionally broke into speaking Latin and partly because how heavily their speech echoed), despite the annoyance of the hunger bar (Our player character eats like a herd of horses. It takes about $10k worth of food to satiate him fully currently for me. At least everything else is fair to manage), I'm absolutely loving what I've seen and played so far. The mood, the atmosphere, the design of the city (which as far as I can tell has no name for the whole? Just the three districts?) is so enrapturing that it's trivial to ignore any and all other problems I might have. A game hasn't made me feel like this since I first played Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis.

Try downloading these files:


http://pathologic-game.com/files/city.zip - put it in the game directory to change the in-game map

http://pathologic-game.com/images/city.jpg - it's just a picture for reference.

It's in Russian, but it's still quite resoursefull

If the .zip is the same as the image, then that doesn't help. There's no buildings marked around the kid's place that I don't recognize already as the house of another character.

Though, that sparks a thought; is the kid talking about Isador's house?



Just checked and it was. Far from "across the yard", but sheesh at least I got past it. Now I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to end Eva's escape quest besides Maria ruining it, because I want to get the same results as in the Eurogamer review. I think I might've somehow screwed it up by trying to convince Peitr to leave before getting the disease proof.

Yes. Isador's house is marked as the "silent house" on the map in brackets (). Well it's really hard to screw a quest, but it's a possibility. Read the dialogs carefully and check the journal regulary. Optional quests often provide you with the resourses necessary to complete main quests, so I advise to try doing quest as simultaneously as possible.

Completed that quest and the Escape Town quest (I now have three revolvers!), and was hunting bandits in town for fun and profit, waiting for midnight so I can see the latest play then go to bed when one managed to kill me because the kitchen knife doesn't work as described. I backstabbed him but it didn't kill him in one hit and he turned around and killed me. I found one on a bandit corpse and decided to use it if I got a chance, and that messed me up.

I'll hock it and stick with the damn gun next time. I can consistently get one shot kills with it if I sneak close.

Thank YOU. We're glad that you liked the game!

As for the kitchen knife - it should be in a good condition and you should aim for the head from behind.

Well, liking; I'm still playing it after all, and am fairly early in. Just made it to Day Three.

I aimed for his back, I now see my error. It's something I dislike in games, though. In real life, invariably unless you're boxing you're supposed to aim attacks at the torso- it's a big, wide target chock full of easily damaged vital organs. I'm constantly getting killed and beaten in online shooters because by instinct I shoot at people's torsos rather than their heads.

Don't give up, pal. The game IS chalanging and some things might be quite frusrating, but it's beatable, really. The harder you'll make it to the end the more delight you'll rewarded with.

Those marauders are quite dangerous. Just reached Day Four.
The progress from day two to three to four has been encouraging, actually. Prices have gone down, I've made progress (though claiming the disease doesnt' survive outside living hosts is amazingly daft of the bachelor given the giant bloody scabs covering all the infected buildings...), and I've yet to lose an Adherent.
Of course, as I explore on day 4 I find that the day 3 plague area is open again, but there are now a bunch of smaller pockets of infected areas all over the eastern side of town (Where DO they get that many rat adorned scarecrows?).

Probably from the corpses of the infected ones))) I dunno, I really never wondered where they got the scarecrows from.

General advice: Don't forget about children, they exchange lots of useless trash to most variable kinds of stuff from food to drugs and bullets.

The children have been great- bullets for the needles, hooks, and random trash I find is a godsend. They're a good source of medicine, too, and the drunks who want water for some unknown reason (perhaps the water has slight sedative effect due to contaminate- it would explain why it increases your exhaustion when you drink it).

I've found that the marauders in fact die in a single hit from the scalpel- however, because how they move and how little I've actually used the weapon it's difficult to land a hit.

Question: I'm at Gryph's (as part of a quest) and I notice he's selling a rifle for 10,000, far less than in the previous days. Good purchase, or will it get significantly cheaper or I'll find a rifle laying around or on an enemy before I'd really need one?
Also, is rifle ammo bought and traded single bullet at a time as the revolver ammo?

Edit: Also, if I stick things in the end table next to my bed at Eva's (I've got a ton of lockpicks right now, need to free up some space) will they stay there day to day until I want them?

You'll find a rifle eventually (I won't spoil where and when, but beleive there are plenty free rifles). Rifle is the best long range weapon, kills almost everything in one hit, but you will not really need it until certain enemies appear.

I don't remember whether the items disappear or not, but I suggest you don't leave anything behind. Try to sell or exchange less usefull stuff and stick with the most needed items.

One more general advice: the key to victory is to keep people from Maria's list alive at all cost. The main quests (quest of the day) must always be done!

If you just leave items lying around - they'll disappear. Put them in the closet instead - closet contents in unique houses are saved.

Thanks!
Got to Day Five. Considering how long I've lasted just fine with an infection (since day three), and how many pills and medicines of all sorts all the townspeople have, I'm amazed at how fast the sand plague can make an area go extinct. Practically overnight.

People around are mostly steppes folk and don't take the traditional medicine seriously and the sand plague is no ordinary epidemy also (I wonder why they even translated it as a "plague" because it's no plague in Russian, while grammatically it'd more more correct to use the "plague" word for mass sickness, personally I'd use the "ulcer" word to give it an extra stress, though the meaning would be narrowed to a stomach defect for a native English speaker), it acts as if it had a wicked will or contiousness of a sort (won't spoil here). Don't try to put the events you are presented with into a frame of the casual and grey reality, just let your imagination free and have fun.

An ulcer is a bleeding injury in the lining of the stomach typically caused by stress. Not quite compatible.

Actually ingame, it's typically referred to by the characters as the "Sand filth". Most of the time other euphemisms for the disease are used besides sand plague.

Yeah, I said just the same thing. Ulcer would have been a very narrow meaning, but it's exactly as it is in Russian, though our perception of the ulcer definition is bit... wider, more meaningfull.

Day seven. I immediately set out at the start of the day upon finding prices were back down to Day Three levels to buy a rifle, because of just how poorly the quest to kill the Hunchback went the day before; I was left with only 2 bullets left in m gun and just a tiny sliver of health left. Bought a rifle... only to find someone would give me one in the Eva quest. Restarted the day.

I'm now on the quest to get the mask and cape of an executioner, and on my way back to the Inquisitor, I found twice in a row that the shot from the rifle has penetration- twice in a row I killed a town guard by accident with the rifle shell going through a molotov guy and into a guard on the other side. :O Double edged sword, I guess- that penetration would've came in handy in the one mission on the day Saburov was complaining about the slashers where I had to fight seven knife guys at once in a small warehouse.

Damn but children are hard to find. Good thing rifle ammo is cheap and plentiful, and I had about a dozen of it stocked up from the previous days when I had trade credit left over for kids and they had rifle and shotgun shells. I've got the same amount of shotgun shells too, in the end table at Eva's... or should I say my house now, apparently. I wonder if I can make that dancer maid do anything useful, like find food or recycle empty bottles.


Edit: I'd also like to add, BOO SCALPEL. I started playing around with the knife today and found that I could reliably melee fight the "shavers" (the guys in vests with knives) without taking a hit with the knife due to its better range and speed compared to the scalpel. I started carrying two to make up for the weakness of the blades, and over the course of day seven found a sudden bounty, and while crossing the city have found myself carrying FIVE due to lucky item drops in enemy pockets.

I got a shotgun! :O
Experimenting with it by going around, shooting random people shows it to be somewhat disappointing compared to the rifle, which I also got earlier in the same day. When a bandit with a knife arches his arm back to throw a knife, and I run in to try to shoot him, with as close as I can get before he throws (around 5 feet or so), and shoot, the one shot isn't enough to kill him, even if I angle it towards his head. The only advantage it has it that I've got some ammo for it, and it can fire twice (slowly) before reloading, and the revolver has it beat in that category.

Ah well, a weapon's a weapon. Rather have it than let those shells in my pockets go to waste.

I'm really enjoying these 'diary entries,' Mr. Lemming. They're making me extremely nostalgic for the ol' gray town in the Steppe.

I like to carry a selection of weapons, though the rifle is definitely my prefered Shaver-removal tool. But ammo is so scarce that you never know when that shotgun and collection of 6 shells will come in handy.

Shotgun has a more decent firepower in close combat than the rifle, I suggest you experiment wih it more.

Ammo's scarce? I've got 24 or so shells for it, and every day Gryph has 8 or so more to sell at 250 each (a steal!), and the town guards have them for trade, and seem to have them more often than shotgun or revolver ammo.
In addition, I've gotten used to knife fighting the shavers as long as I can dodge their first knife throw (I shoot them if I don't think I can avoid it, for some reason that attack does obscene amounts of damage). Wish I had started doing that earlier, I would've had plenty of saved up revolver ammo.

Shotgun is perfect against maradeurs (or how this word should be written in english?) They are fast, and you have no time to aim properly, but with shotgun you do not need to aim). And there are no more than 2 maradeurs on the floor, and there are exactly 2 shells in shotgun)

If you keep you're wits about you and are always looking both ways and taking routes that will give you warning you have exactly enough time for one aimed shot against the marauder/grabitel (or three unaimed shots).

The shotgun is very effective but the pistol works almost as well (it goes through ammunition a bit faster) and I found the rifle only useful for providing an extra challenge (ie. its disadvantageous).

As Bachelor I found ammunition for the pistol very scarce and had to adjust my schedule and routs in order to survive by day five or so. After the arrival of the army it becomes much less of an issue to be well armed.

Of course, I try to realistically avoid a fight (especially if I don't have surprise or firepower advantages) and avoid killing.