Buy Stick Life: The Daily Grind PC key

Stick Life: The Daily Grind is an open-ended life simulation set in a city where you start in a tent with $25. The city runs on its own clock, with one day passing every 24 real minutes, and its 50 residents go to work, walk their dogs and get into fights whether you are there or not. There is no story to follow: you can build a career, study, race, gamble, socialize, commit crimes or pursue your own goals.

Life in the city

Residents have names, jobs, homes, schedules and friends, and some are already dating. They remember what you do, from picking a fight to getting a new car or working five days straight. You can make friends who text you to go out, ask someone on a date, move in together and get married, or become rivals. Residents also spend their free time walking dogs, playing basketball and tennis, and taking part in other activities. Beth and Vernon play chess, Crispy runs three-card monte and cheats people he does not know, and Buster sells seats for the evening’s fight.

There are no permanent game-ending setbacks. If you run out of health, you wake up in hospital with a bill; if you miss rent, you have five days before you return to the tent. You can lose money, but you never lose your save.

Work and skills

BusinessCorp offers a career ladder: apply, interview, work shifts and ask your manager for promotions until you reach the corner office. You can then buy the company and earn money from it. Other job paths include the construction site, restaurant kitchens and warehouse dock. You can hold multiple jobs, and overtime is often available elsewhere in town after a shift. People on the street may also pay you to deal with their problems.

College, university and trade school provide qualifications needed for some promotions. You can study at your desk, work out at home, train at the gym and improve the skills you use in activities around the city. Better skills bring higher pay from gigs, which you play yourself:

• Rock shows: play rhythm games on recorded tracks at the Half Moon; the crowd notices missed notes.
• Stand-up: hit punchlines on the beat and handle hecklers at the Velvet Riff.
• Penalties: take shots on game night at the Crucible.
• AI training: train a model at Cortex.
• Title fights: fight for the belt.
• Drag racing: race Jack’s 10 rivals on Main Street, with each available to race once a day.

Fights use combos, and training lets you chain more attacks.

Crime and its risks

You can break into shops, offices and some houses after closing, pick their locks, search for goods and sell what you find at the pawnshop. Better locks require a steadier hand, and lockpicking improves through practice. Dealerships are closed at night, but their cars remain on the lot to be hotwired. Kody starts you selling fake watches and offers increasingly valuable goods, up to a replica painting worth $10,000. Shady buyers may take them; honest buyers refuse, and each refusal attracts attention.

Accumulating enough heat brings the police after you, and they are faster than you. If you reach your own front door, they let the matter go until the next day. If they catch you, they take some of your possessions, your contraband and your best weapon. The pawnshop sells weapons ranging from a copper pipe to a bazooka, including some joke items. Carrying a gun stops drunks from jumping you on the way home.

Money and possessions

You can spend money on homes ranging from a tent, studio and apartment to a penthouse in the Pinnacle, a townhouse on the Uptown mews or a mansion on Cash Money Oaks. The Crack Shack behind the pawnshop has no rent, power bill or tax. You can also buy 10 rental buildings, from a fixer-upper to the Pinnacle, and collect their income each night. Buying the Slumlord Specials means you no longer pay rent.

Build mode lets you furnish rooms with items from six stores, from cardboard furnishings to designer pieces. Rugs fit under sofas, lights hang from ceilings, and fireplaces reduce the heating bill. Construction Co. can add a pool, tennis court and swim-up bar to your yard. You can also improve cars with speed parts, or customize them at Certified Crankers with paint, rims and underglow. Apex cars can be taken to More Than You Can Afford Customs. There are two dealerships, cars with individual engine sounds, and motorcycles ranging from mopeds to superbikes; cars wear out and need servicing. Until you can afford a vehicle, you can get around on a skateboard or buy a pre-owned ostrich for half a million dollars.

Clothing affects your abilities, and the right shoes make you faster. Catch a Fade offers haircuts, while Bad Decisions offers face tattoos. Financial options include a bank that pays interest, loans collected on each morning, 10 stocks, daily lotteries and scratch cards. You can pay to repair sidewalks and potholes, then fund a park, library or new hospital wing. Reaching a billion dollars lets you give it all away at the statue and start a new life with your perks; each time, the challenge increases.

Pets and pastimes

You can adopt a cat or dog from the shelter, Someone Else’s Pets, or win over strays with the right snack. Strays live in three parts of town. Shop N Slop Plaza’s Menagerie sells monkeys, anacondas, wolves, tigers and elephants. You can pet and hand-feed animals, carry them, dress them in hats, sunglasses and gold chains, and buy them beds and toys. Aquariums range from goldfish bowls to reef tanks, and you can keep as many pets as you want. Elephants sometimes sit on furniture, while dogs may eat your shoes.

Activities include dice, slots, blackjack and the wheel at the casino; horse racing at the Salty Soup biker bar; league nights at Big Ray’s Bowl-O-Rama; pinball; and trivia at Wine Moms Incorporated. You can buy a stolen arcade cabinet from the pawnshop for your living room, or play MICRO LIFE, a small life simulation on your computer within the game.

Goals and multiplayer

The game offers 14 quest roads for players who want direction, including reaching the corner office, running the watch racket, falling in love, filling the garage, winning the belt and getting every stray off the street. Each step pays cash, from your first $100 to $10 million for the deed, and the map shows which door to visit. One quest road can only be completed with friends.

Up to four players can play together over Steam or LAN, in games with friends or the public. Each player gets a house on the same street in Cash Money Oaks. You can sleep on a friend’s couch, give them old furniture, bail them out of jail, spar or bet on the same horse together.

City features

The city has five districts in hand-drawn isometric pixel art, with day and night, four seasons, rain and thunderstorms. Your phone has apps for texts, cabs, tow trucks, stocks and a police scanner. You can save 10 characters, each under a separate name, and the game has 60 Steam achievements.