Quick Answer: Every repair is a checklist, not a puzzle. Open the device, read the to-do list, do what it names — clean, solder, swap a part, paint — and each entry fills toward 100%. Buy a professional screwdriver and your first license before anything decorative. Money comes from finishing orders, and the flea market turns broken devices into either parts or profit. The day ends when you decide to end it, so the real skill is choosing what to touch first.
Version note: Written August 7, 2026 against the launch build. Mechanics below come from the Steam store page, official screenshots, the game's own achievement descriptions and unlock rates, and answered questions on the official forums, linked inline. We have not played to completion, and anything that rests on a single player's report is labelled.
Everything happens on the mat: the device comes apart piece by piece, the control legend sits top-left, and the order's to-do list runs down the right. (Screenshot: Mandragora / tinyBuild)
The Loop in One Pass
- Take a job. Customers arrive at the shop window with a device and a story. Email brings a second queue — accepting your first email order is an achievement that 89.3% of players already have, so expect that stream to open early.
- Open the device on the mat. The control legend sits in the top-left corner and names three things: object rotation and zoom, both on the mouse, and a hint bound to a keyboard key. Use the hint when you cannot see what the device wants next.
- Work the to-do list. Each entry tracks its own percentage. Cleaning, soldering, part swaps, painting and reprogramming all appear as list items depending on the device.
- Reassemble and hand it over. Payment lands when the customer takes it back, and reviews accumulate — 5 reviews, then 25, then 50, are achievement milestones as your shop's reputation grows.
Reading the To-Do List
The percentage is the whole interface. A paint task reads Paint 64% with a progress bar and stays incomplete until you have covered enough of the shell, so the list tells you both what is missing and how much of it. Painting orders also carry a Freestyle option, which is the difference between matching a customer's request and doing whatever you like with the colours.
Two consequences worth internalising early:
- Nothing is timed against you inside a repair. You cannot fail a device by being slow with it. Cost is opportunity cost, measured in the rest of the day's queue.
- Percentages are your progress bar, not your quality score. Get every entry to full and the job is done; there is no hidden grade for elegance.
What to Buy First
The global achievement rates are a rough shopping order, because they show what most players actually bought and when:
| Purchase | Players who own it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Professional screwdriver | 67.1% | The first real tool upgrade, and the one nearly everyone buys |
| Any license | 64.1% | Licenses gate which brands and device types you can take on |
| A box of parts | 41.4% | Bulk parts, bought blind — the game's small gamble |
| 5 licenses | 25.8% | The point where your order variety visibly widens |
| Automatic ultrasonic bath | 12.3% | Hands-free cleaning; a time purchase, not a capability one |
| Shredder for broken parts | 11.2% | Turns dead parts into something instead of clutter |
| All licenses ("Platinum Partner") | 0.1% | A long-run goal, not an early one |
Buy tools that remove repetition and licenses that add work you are allowed to accept. Decoration comes later: "buy something to make the workshop more cozy" sits at 19.1%, and cosy furniture does not open new orders.
The Flea Market and the Parts Shop
Your in-game PC runs a browser with separate tabs for the flea market, a home-goods store and the parts shop. Each flea-market listing gives you three things to judge before buying: a stated device condition ("Working", "Not turning on"), a seller rating in stars, and a written description in the seller's own voice.
Condition, seller rating and price on every listing — a broken console is cheap because someone else gave up on it. (Screenshot: Mandragora / tinyBuild)
How to use it:
- Buy broken to learn, buy working to flip. Non-functional units cost less and turn into either a restoration project or a parts donor. Selling devices is its own achievement track, so reselling is a supported income stream.
- Treat unbought parts as a budget lever. There is an achievement for going ten days in a row without buying new parts, held by 17.4% of players — evidence that harvesting from junk instead of ordering fresh is viable, not just thrifty.
- Boxes of parts are a lottery. Buying one is common (41.4%); buying fifty is a 0.1% achievement called Gambler. Read the name as advice.
When the Day's Orders Outrun the Clock
This is the most common complaint about the full release, and it is worth separating the mechanics from the feeling. Players coming from the demo describe ten to fifteen orders a day plus two or three side quests, where the demo gave them room to browse listings and read stories. That is a real change in volume.
What the game actually enforces is looser than it feels:
- The day ends when you end it. A character warns you against staying open at night, and another player's answer on the forums is that the warning is story flavour: you can keep working as long as you have devices to fix or parts to assemble. The achievement for not ending the day seven days running corroborates that the game expects some people to do exactly this.
- Bills are the actual clock. Paying two bills is a 92.5% achievement, so it happens to nearly everyone early. Falling behind has its own achievement — an overdue-bill warning, held by 0.2% of players — which tells you both that the failure state exists and that almost nobody hits it.
- Story devices deserve priority. One player has asked publicly whether leaving a story character's device unrepaired for a long time can break their storyline, and nobody has answered. Until someone does, do the plot-attached repairs first and let the anonymous queue wait.
Beyond Repairs: What Else Pays
Once the basic loop is comfortable, four systems extend it, in rough order of how many players reach them:
- Painting to order (13.9%) — a customer specifies a look and you deliver it, brush size and opacity included.
- Reprogramming devices (2.2% for the first one) — the game's "hacking" track, which stays rare enough that most players never touch it.
- Stickers (3.5% for the first) — cosmetic, cheap, and the entry point to two much rarer volume achievements.
- Assembly competitions (4.4% have won one) — a distinct win condition, with separate achievements for winning three different competitions and for winning one in every device type.
Paint jobs are their own to-do entry, with a Freestyle toggle when the customer has not specified a look. (Screenshot: Mandragora / tinyBuild)
Five Things to Know on Day One
- Use the hint key when you are stuck on a device, not after ten minutes of rotating it. The legend on the mat tells you which key it is.
- Screws are hard to read at a glance. Multiple reviewers report thinking a screw was out when it was not; zoom in before you conclude a panel is stuck.
- The mouse does almost everything. Reviewers report wrist fatigue and ask for keyboard shortcuts; take breaks rather than pushing through a nine-hour first session.
- Cleaning counts. Removing dirt and dust from 100 parts is a 47.5% achievement, so a large share of your clicks will be cleaning rather than repairing.
- Save deliberately. Ending the day triggers a save that some players report taking around a minute — see Bugs & Fixes for the workaround that resolved it for one player.