🏡 Homebodies

👆 Telling people what to do

One person has a 💚 heart over their head: they are the one you are telling. Tap a thing and pick what they do with it. Tap the floor and they walk there. Tap another person and pick what to say or do. The faces at the bottom choose who you are telling, and the small pictures beside them are what that person will do next: tap one to cancel it.

😀 What people need

🍔 Hunger, 🛋️ Comfort, 🧼 Hygiene, 🚽 Bladder, 💤 Energy, 🎈 Fun, 💬 Social and 🖼️ Room. Each bar falls by itself. The heart goes from green to red as the bars fall. An unhappy person will not study, and may not go to work. Left with ▶ on and nothing to do, people look after themselves, but not as well as you can. The ▶ button at the top is the speed: tap it to stop time, or to hurry it.

🛒 Buying

🛒 Buy stops time and opens the shop. Pick a thing, tap where it goes, 🔃 turn it, and ✅ put it down. Tap a thing you own to move it or sell it: a thing sells for all it cost on the day you bought it, and less after. Better things do more: a better bed means less sleep, a better fridge a better meal.

🔨 Building

🔨 Build stops time. Drag along the ground to put up a wall; 🏠 Room drags a whole room. Doors and windows go in walls. Paint floors a tile at a time or drag across them, and tap a wall to cover one side, or use Whole room. A room is whatever the walls close off, and it needs a door. ↩️ takes the last thing back.

🏡 More land

Out of room? In 🔨 Build, 🏡 Land buys the lot next door: 11 more tiles on the east side for $4,000, up to four times (66 wide). Everything you have built stays where it is.

🧱 Seeing inside

🔃 turns the view. 🧱 changes the walls: cut away so you can see in, all up, all down, or up with the roof on. Drag to move about; pinch or 🔍 🔭 to zoom.

💼 Work and school

A 📰 newspaper, a ☎️ telephone or a 💻 computer finds a job: Find a job, on a grown-up's own page, goes to whichever you have. A car comes an hour before work, Monday to Friday; a person in a good mood does better there. Each step up wants skills and friends: 🎓 Skills shows what is missing. Children go to school by bus.

🎓 Skills

🍳 Cooking and 🔧 mending come from a bookcase, 🎤 charisma from a mirror, 💪 body from exercise or swimming, ♟️ logic from chess or a telescope, 🎨 creativity from an easel or an instrument. A good cook makes better meals and does not set the stove alight.

💞 Friends, love and family

Neighbours walk past: tap one and say hello and they stay a while. ☎️ A telephone invites people you have met. People who like each other enough can flirt, kiss, marry and move in, and two in love can have a baby. Feed and cuddle a baby at the crib. With growing up switched on, a baby becomes a child in 3 days and a child a grown-up in 8.

✨ Wishes

Everyone has three wishes. Making one come true cheers them up for a long time.

🔥 When things go wrong

A poor cook can start a 🔥 fire: tap the flames to put them out, or telephone the fire brigade; a 🚨 smoke alarm rings them for you. A 🔔 burglar alarm calls the police. Things break: mend them (it takes 🔧 skill) or telephone a mender. 📬 Bills come every three days; pay them at the letter box or the bailiff takes something. A pool needs a 🪜 ladder to get out of.

🐾 Pets

☎️ The telephone can send for a 🐕 dog or a 🐈 cat. Nobody tells a pet what to do: it looks after itself with what the house gives it. From 🛒 Pets, a 🥣 bowl (tap it to fill it), a bed, a 🎾 ball; a cat wants a litter tray (tap to clean it) and a scratching post, or it claws the sofa. A dog goes out to the garden. Tap a pet to stroke it, play, give a treat, praise it or tell it off just after it has been naughty; a dog can learn five tricks. A dog that is awake sees burglars off. A pet nobody feeds for a day leaves.

🌦️ Weather

Four seasons of a week each: spring, summer, autumn, winter. The little picture by the clock is the weather; tap it for more. In rain and snow people outside get uncomfortable and come in, and rain waters the garden and puts out fires outdoors. ⛈️ Lightning can set a tree alight. When ⛄ snow lies, tap the chosen person to build a snowman.

🔎 What the signs mean