Health and Medicine

Germs and illness, pills and the syringe, stress, trust and calming your human down.

Germs and illness

Germs build up from being dirty or stinky, stepping in poop, having accidents, eating off the floor and living in a messy habitat. How many germs a human can take depends on how hardy they are.

• A regular illness makes them sneeze, cough, turn a little green and tire faster.
• Left alone for a few minutes it turns serious: greener, shivering and losing health. When they get weak they lie down on the floor and moan.

Pills

Tip the amber pill bottle and the flip top opens; one pill drops out at a time. A sick human walks over and takes a pill off the floor, or you can hold one up to their face and they take it from you. A pill cures a regular illness after a few seconds. For a serious illness it only helps a little ("I need something stronger"). Healthy humans refuse pills.

The craft pills from the mutation station are different. See Mutation Station.

The syringe

Grab the syringe, touch the needle to your human and pull the trigger. It cures any illness, but it hurts: they yelp, rub their arm and trust you a little less (more so if they were not even sick). It refills itself after a few seconds.

Stress

Scares, banging on the glass, tosses, knocks, hard pats, the vacuum and needles all add stress. A stressed human trembles and their mood drops. Very stressed, they go and hide in a corner on their own.

Gentle pats calm them down and bring them out of hiding.

Scaring and banging

• Scare them by throwing both hands up fast. Steady humans scoff. Jumpy ones scream, run to the far corner and cower. A very jumpy human with a full bladder may have an accident.
• Bang on the glass with a fast hit. Steady humans tell you to knock it off, middling ones jump and get cross, and jumpy ones panic.

Trust

Trust is how your human feels about you. It goes up with gentle pats, gentle set-downs and a well-kept home, and down when they are thrown, knocked over, scared, injected or left hungry. A trusting human smiles when you hold them and is happy to see you. A human who does not trust you sulks, dangles stiffly and may even glare at the portrait they painted of you.

The memory wiper

Point the purple dish at your human and pull the trigger. It charges, flashes, and they stand there dazed for a moment, then greet you as if for the first time. Trust resets to friendly, stress is gone, and they are a little less jumpy from then on. The ring turns green when it is ready again.