Garbage Beginners Guide for Areas 1 and 2

Garbage is a game, similar to Punch Club or Domina, in which you set out to train a hobo army, gradually increasing the hobo’s skills in three categories: Strength, Agility, and Stamina. You train your hobos by left clicking them and right clicking the workout equipment you wish for them to exercise with. Over time, their skills will improve and unique abilities will become available. However, working out costs energy, and eventually your hobo will tire out. Building a bed will allow him to rest. Not to mention the smell! You should build a shower as well, or else your hobo will get filthy and sick, leading him to impending death.

As your hobo continues to get stronger, so will your enemies. Every three days, your home will be invaded by other hobos similar in strength to you. Don’t worry, though, you don’t have to do a thing! Your hobo will automatically fight (and hopefully defeat) any enemies you encounter. Be careful, though, as if you lose a fight or a hobo gets knocked out mid-fight, you are at risk of receiving a bleeding or fracture effect.

There are three basic workout equipment you will be able to craft at the beginning of the game. The bar bell is by far the cheapest, and is used to train strength. The mat is more expensive in paper, and is used to train stamina. The punching bag is more expensive in plastics, and is used to train agility. All of the three categories, strength, stamina, and agility, all have their unique abilities and allow your hobo to specialize in three different classes.

Overall Level:
Whenever your hobo increases a skill in any of the three categories, your hobo’s overall level is increased. This means your hobo will have more health and more stamina. Also, whenever you level up any category, you will earn skill points, which can be used to unlock new fighting abilities in the skill forest.

Strength:
Training with the bar bell will increase your hobo’s strength. The skills in this part of the skill forest are focused on dealing damage, at the cost of using high amounts of energy. At the beginning of the game, strength attacks are the go-to in order to wipe out any pesky low level hobos that stand in your way.

Stamina:
Training with the mat will increase your hobo’s stamina. The skills in this part of the skill forest are focused on being defensive. This skill group will help give your character more health and more options to defend themselves and their fellow hobos. Building up stamina for a few levels is helpful early on, but sticking with a tank build is more useful further on in the game than in the beginning, where damage is high and defense is low for everyone.

Agility:
Training with the trash punching bag will increase your hobo’s agility. These attacks are focused on being quick and energy efficient, at the cost of doing low damage. The agility skill tree is useful to learn for a few levels early on, as this will unlock the dodge ability, which can be the difference between winning and losing in many fights. Having a hobo specialize in this category is extremely helpful later on, as trainers, which will be explained later, allow your hobo to unlock lightning fast attacks and deal quick bursts of damage, which can be like an “entry-fragger” for those who are familiar with the term.

When you first start off, after you have built your workout equipment, bed, and shower, you should be training your character. Before going out to the map, make sure your character is fully rested, as for some fights you cannot retreat, and being out of stamina will make you vulnerable to crits, and ultimately a knock-out, which could put your hobo at risk of getting bleeds and fractures. The Map can be found in the bottom right corner of the garbage home you live in. The first place you unlock will be called “Electric Avenue.” Click the little circular picture next to the name to travel there.

Important Note:
Areas change based on if you visit them at day or night time. New traders will appear and often times new enemies will too! Plan your moves accordingly.

Looting:
Some loot will be highlighted in yellow, some in red, and some in blue. Yellow loot can be clicked on with no issues, granting you immediate resources which can be used to improve your base. Red loot is guarded by an enemy, and clicking on it will send you into a fight sequence. Blue loot requires a key, which are unlocked at later points in the game. Specifically for car keys, they are a one time use. Postbox keys and cargo container keys are multi-use.

Enemies:
If you see an enemy with a yellow/red fist above their head, it means they can be fought. In electric avenue, there is a bumbling hobo that you will need to scare off in order to get access to more loot. After the hobo is defeated, more will show up. It is suggested that you talk to the hot dog dealer in order to fight them, as after you defeat them the hot dog stand will provide your hobo with easy access to food once every day, although it comes as a fairly hefty price for early game. In nearly every area of the map there is loot that is guarded by enemies. Be ready to fight them, as some may be 1 on 1 fights and others may put you at a disadvantage.

Boss Enemies:
Boss enemies are typically a single person, with the exception of the two kids you will find in the playground. They have elevated stats and typically have high damage or high defense capabilities. Many bosses require you to have two hobos to double team against them, as they are too strong to fight 1 vs 1. Defeating bosses will often drop unique loot and will change the story depending on who you choose to fight.

Traders:
Many sections of the map will have traders, some of whom are present during the day, and others at night. The traders will provide you with resources you typically need early on, although many of the resources come at a rather tolling amount of money. Defeating some enemies will remove the chance for you to trade with them later on. If you feel you made a mistake, you can always reload your game to the last auto save and try again.

Quests:
Some NPC’s will have a yellow exclamation point above their head, signaling they have a quest for you to do. Most quest items are unique specifically to that quest, so you do not need to worry about giving the item to the wrong person. This excludes the tool box, which can be bought in the second district of the map.

Your hobo will slowly run out of food, hygiene, and warmth. All of these stats must be kept up, or else it puts your hobo at risk for developing issues that will lead to your death. These debuffs will appear after your hobo reaches 0 percent in any of the categories, alerting you that the hobo is close to death. Losing too much food will cause your character to obtain a malnutrition debuff, which can only be cured by keeping your hobo above at least 15 percent satiety for an extended period of time. Losing too much hygiene will cause your character to develop a virus, which is the hardest to get rid of, and is best solvable with a cure, which is hard to obtain until later in the game. Losing too much warmth will cause your character to develop a fever, which will result in death should your hobo not be kept above 50 percent warmth for an extended period of time.

If you lose a fight, there is a small chance your character will begin bleeding or have a fracture. Do not fret, as these debuffs are not fatal. In order to remove these buffs, your hobo must sleep in the bed for a long amount of time. Bleeding makes your character regenerate much slower, while having a fracture reduces your character’s max health, which can be substantial in fights where an enemy does high amounts of damage.

As you progress through the garbage streets, you will come across some NPC’s that have a symbol of a man in a sort of Y-pose above their head. These people can be recruited and join your hobo army. However, they are scarce in number and if they die, they cannot be replaced. These recruits will need all of the same things your original hobo needs: food, hygiene, and warmth. Do not recruit new hobos if you believe you cannot support them. Also, when you recruit a new hobo, it will increase the number of enemies that attack your base in the Garbage Invasion event, which will be described in more detail later. It also increases the number of enemies in the Grand Theft Trash event, or makes the singular opponent more difficult to fight. Because of this, it is risky to have a hobo that is a much higher level than the other, as it will often result in the lower level hobo being brought into matches they cannot compete in, putting your stronger hobo at risk of being 2 v 1’ed, often ending in a loss.

There are some NPC’s with a blue hammer above their head. These NPC’s are known as trainers. They specialize in various aspects of fighting, and will require 5 dollars or more to recruit for your base. However, you cannot recruit these NPC’s until you have a bench built for them at your base. The types of trainers will be explained below:

Dancers:
Dancers are an NPC that can be used to boost the morale of your hobos when at base. Their dancing comes at a price, however, typically around the 2-4 dollar range. They will buff the base for a limited amount of time, in which your hobos will be able to, based on what you paid for, 1. Exercise more efficiently, 2. Have the opportunity to make more food when using the cooking pot, or 3. reduce warmth loss of your hobos. There might be more options, but as of now I have not been able to test this, so it it likely that at least one of the three mentioned above will be available to you.

Architect:
The architect is a unique NPC that will allow you to upgrade your base substantially, but upgrades come at an increasing cost. Through him, you will be able to buy the blueprint for a fence, which has a chance at stopping garbage invasions from occurring. He will allow you to upgrade your workout equipment, which can help you train more quickly, as well as your begging station, allowing you to obtain more money/food from begging. Through the architect you will be able to build a water collectors, which can be vital for your shower and your hobos’ hygiene. You can also build traps, which will help you procure resources to cook food in the cooking pot. There are other upgrades, but they are more designed for later on in the game

General Trainers:
As you go through the various sections of the city, you will come across NPC’s who are trainers for a specific attribute. As you can guess, the stamina trainer trains stamina abilities, strength trainer trains strength abilities, and the agility trainer trains agility abilities. These attacks are extremely strong compared to your original options, and can allow for super specific customization for your hobo. When you have access to trainers, this is when you should begin specializing your hobos, making them tanks, fighters, and eventually ranged assets, which will be explained later.

As you continue to free the streets, you will begin to accumulate various drugs and consumables which can be of great benefit to your hobo. There is 20 consumables, so I will not get into depth on each one, but here is the general things drugs can do:
– Remove debuffs
– Restore hunger, hygiene, or warmth
– Give you skill points
– Increase training capabilities or resistanceSome quests require drugs in order to complete, while many quests will reward you with drugs for completing them. Drugs can mean the difference between life and death should your hobo(s) be put at risk of death.

As you progress, you will accumulate clothing, whether it be from winning tournaments, defeating bosses, or buying them off of traders. Each clothing piece comes with stats unique to that item (except for identical clothing pieces). Paying attention to the stats is important, as some may increase stats that are more beneficial to your hobo’s fighting style, whether it be punching attacks, kicking attacks, or others. There are rarities of clothing, going from grey to blue to gold. However, a higher rarity does not necessarily mean an item is better to wear. Ignore the color of the item as best as you can and choose it based on stats, as that is what matters most.

It seems like special events occur on a regular basis, so here is the time intervals I have come across so far to cause an event to happen. It is likely that events will occur on the same or similar days as to those below:

So far there has been an event on days 7, 15, 22 or 23, 29, 34, (i think) 36, 45, 53, 59, 66 or 67, 75, maybe 83 or 84 I lost track, and 89

Take this with a grain of salt, as I cannot confirm whether these events will occur on the same days for you, save for the first event, which always seems to be blood moon on the 7th day.

The events I have come across so far are listed below as well as what they do:

Blood Moon:
For one night (8 in game hours), your hobos will become extremely hungry, requiring roughly 4-5 food per hobo in order to keep them satiated throughout the event. Should you not keep your hobos fed, they will starve quickly, and will likely die before you can get them more food, as most food traders are only available during the day. In order to combat this, when possible, grow plants in the plant plots, which can be built on the right side of the base. Also once you obtain an architect, research mouse traps and build at least one along any of the blue tarp locations around the base. I recommend growing tomato plants, as they are extremely quick to grow, and are an infinite source of food should you have four plant pots and one mouse trap.
If you plant a crop, after it is fully grown it will be automatically picked up, and the seed for it will be returned to your inventory. Make sure your plant stays warm during the winter, or they will immediately die out.

Dark Night:
For one night, hobos will not be able to use any buildings, however they will not be removed from a building should they already be using it (such as begging, sleeping, cooking, etc.) This can be dangerous if one of your hobo’s are working out and run out of stamina with a battle around the corner, or if you are low on hygiene/warmth and are at risk of death.

Freezing Testicles:
The temperature will drop to -60 degrees C. It is not advised that you have your hobos do anything other than workout, rest, or sit by the campfire. Having a hobo standing around doing nothing puts them at great risk for losing warmth, and developing a fever. This event happens once every winter, so when it begins to get snowy, keep in mind this event is soon to come.

Sweaty Heat:
The temperature will raise to roughly 50 degrees C. This will cause your hobos to lose hygiene much faster than normal. However, this event is not much of a risk, and only really matters if your hobo is working out or cooking. Keep a steady supply of water, as this event comes around during the warmest part of the weather cycle.

There may be more events I have yet to experience or may have forgot all together. Nonetheless, be ready for anything.

Here’s hoping you will be able to scrounge all the trash on the streets and make a name for yourself! Please, If I forgot anything, leave a comment on the guide and I will try to update it whenever possible, and if you think I did a good/bad job, let me know with some reviews on this guide, and I will change my style accordingly. After I complete the game myself, I will focus on making an endgame guide, which will go into more detail on the sub-classes of the skill forest. Good luck out there hobos!