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Perhaps the most important menu is the Control Panel, which consists of 5 tabs. From the left, the first tab displays the strength of your social networks, measured in Kudos points. A series of connections, the higher the Kudos number, the stronger the connection. As a reward for being social and hosting activities, you earn Kudos. By playing the matchmaker, you can create new friendships and earns more Kudos as a result. Like real life, the friendships you create between people can become stronger than their relationships with you. And like real life, you may experience somewhat of an uncomfortable feeling as a result.Next is the Night School tab, your key to advancement in the corporate world. In this tab, you can choose classes from six schools: Drama School, Medical School, Law School, Technical College and Adult College (which offers basic living courses such as cooking and public speaking, not anything R-rated mind you). A class usually meets one to two times a week, and varies in cost. Fortunately, after you sign up for a class, you can go whatever week you are free, and you are only charged for the classes you attend. Many of the upper-level courses require pre-requisites, and their completion, along with necessary experience and life skills, allow you to pursue the career of your choice. The next tab is Solo Activities. At the outset, you can watch television (basic cable only, other channels must be purchased), take a bath, go jogging, take a nap, learn to drive, clean your home, and stare at the walls. The most engaging option, Shopping, is also available, though only on weekends. The fact that shopping is listed as solo activity is somewhat perplexing, but not as much as the restraint of weekend-only shopping. This limitation can be bypassed by purchasing a laptop computer, but this only leads me to believe that in Slough, shopping is only done online, and there are no public computers—what a frightening place! Purchasable items include cars, books, gaming consoles, pets, musical instruments, etc. and are displayed in your inventory on the upper left area of the screen. All of the solo activities vary in cost (jogging is free, learning to drive is 25 pounds per lesson) and affect you differently. But ultimately, they all contribute to your loneliness attribute, as they are solo activities. This brings us to our penultimate tab, Social Activities. This tab allows the player to host events and invite as many (or as few) friends as he or she wants. These events also vary, though I’m not sure what they exactly correspond to, and include dining out at various-cultured restaurants, watching a movie, going to a bar, playing tennis, etc. Depending on your friends’ interests and your mood before the event, these activities positively or negatively affect your personal attributes, the strength of your relationships with your friends, and your Kudos point total.
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