The Day
Days are for work: search the school, feed the generator, clean up, carry the other toddlers home (patching up any that are hurt), and get through Mrs. Honeywell's list. See Mrs. Honeywell's Jobs for the full mechanics behind the list, Searching for how repeat searches work, and Events & Encounters for everything that can interrupt you (Jerry, Meredith, the Big Boys Club, the Card Kid).
The day loop
At the start of each day: the previous night's messes are cleared and a fresh batch spawns, every toddler still "taken" from the previous night is removed and a new batch is scattered around the school, the day's job list is drawn up, and 2–3 lunchboxes appear (the count is 2 + (night % 2), so it alternates between 2 and 3). Every prop in the school is reset to unsearched, and every container's search count resets to zero (see Searching).
Day length depends on difficulty — see Nights & Difficulty for the table. With 30 seconds left in the day, the game warns you: "IT IS GETTING DARK."
On day 1 specifically, one fuel can and one spare part are pre-placed near the boiler room generator, so the very first day always has a way to get the lights on.
Mrs. Honeywell's list
Mrs. Honeywell herself is at the chalkboard in your classroom every morning, reading the day's list out loud in a recorded line the moment the day begins, and she'll go over it again if you talk to her. See Mrs. Honeywell for what else she does — including telling you off if your own classroom is sitting dark.
Every morning the list is redrawn. Day 1 is always the same fixed three jobs, to teach the loop: get the generator started, eat something, and rescue a toddler. From day 2 onward the list is drawn from a shared pool, weighted so the "big three" (fuel, food, toddlers) come up more often than flavour jobs; the crayon job also only ever appears before Grump has turned.
The list has 3 jobs per day, rising to 4 jobs from night/day 6 onward. Every job finished leaves its reward sitting in the crib, back in your (home) classroom.
Every job template
| Job | What it asks | Goal | Possible rooms | Reward tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Get the lights working | Pull the starter cord on the generator in the boiler room. | 1 (day 1 only) | Boiler room | Good |
| Feed the generator | Pour N cans of fuel into it. | 1 can (night < 4), 2 cans (night ≥ 4) | — | Great |
| Patch it up | Fit N spare parts to the generator. | 1 part (night < 5), 2 parts (night ≥ 5) | — | Good |
| Tidy up | Clean up N messes. | min(5, 2 + floor(night/3)) | — | Good |
| Lunch time | Eat N things. | 1 (night ≤ 1), 2 (night > 1) | — | Basic |
| Patch someone up | Bandage a hurt toddler at the nurse's office. | 1 | Requires a nurse's office and a hurt toddler that day | Good |
| Round them up | Carry N toddlers back to your classroom. | 1 (night ≤ 1), 2 (night > 1, capped at 2) | — | Great |
| Rummage through … | Search 3 things in a specific room. | 3 | Library, art, music, cafeteria, kitchen, nurse, Lost & Found, storage — only rooms with 3+ searchable props are eligible | Basic |
| Brighten … | Switch the lights on in a specific room. | 1 | Library, art, music, gym, cafeteria, kitchen, nurse | Basic |
| Go and look at … | Visit a specific room. | 1 | Playground, gym, library, music, bathroom, kitchen | Basic |
| Hide and seek | Hide in N places. | 3 | — | Basic |
| Read the walls | Find a crayon drawing in a room and read it. | 1 | Library, art, music, cafeteria, gym | Basic |
| Find Mr. Wiggles | Carry the class hamster back to your classroom. | 1 | Gym, library, art, music, cafeteria, nurse, playground | Great |
| Grump's crayon | Give Grump back his green crayon (only offered before he turns). | 1 | Art, library, cafeteria, gym, bathroom | Good |
| The shiny card | Leave a dropped holographic card in Lost & Found. | 1 | Gym, playground, cafeteria, music, library | Good |
| Lunch from Meredith | Get a tray from Meredith at the cafeteria counter. | 1 | Requires a cafeteria or kitchen to exist | Basic |
The pool template for the crayon job is added twice on nights where Grump has not yet turned, making it more likely to appear. A quest whose target room can't be resolved (e.g. no eligible room found) is skipped while the list is being planned, so it never ships a list one job short. Full detail, including how the planner falls back when a template has nowhere to go, on Mrs. Honeywell's Jobs.
Reward pools
When a job completes, its reward is picked from a pool keyed by tier, and the items are placed in the crib in your classroom.
| Tier | Possible rewards (one set chosen at random) |
|---|---|
| Basic | 1 battery · 1 snack + 1 apple · 2 glow sticks · 1 juice box · 1 duct tape |
| Good | 1 sandwich · 1 night light + 1 battery · 1 teddy · 1 spare part · 1 milk + 1 apple |
| Great | 1 fuel can · 1 staff key + 1 sandwich · 1 wrench · 2 spare parts · 1 night light + 1 battery + 1 snack |
Food and hunger
Full detail, including every food item and where it comes from, on Food & Hunger. Short version: your tummy (food stat) drains at 0.25 per second — roughly one full meal's worth over a complete day-and-night cycle, per the game's own comments. Below 25% you get a "your tummy hurts" warning; at 0% you start losing health at 1.6 per second until you eat or go down.
| Food | Restores |
|---|---|
| Snack | +30 food |
| Apple | +22 food |
| Sandwich | +55 food (the best food in the building) |
| Milk Carton | +28 food, +35 stamina |
| Juice Box | +10 food, +100 stamina (fully restores stamina) |
Eating also knocks 6 points off your fear meter. Food lives in the cafeteria, kitchen and staff room (search their furniture), and 2–3 lunchboxes (each holding 2–3 random food/drink items, 40% chance of 3) spawn around the school every morning in the cafeteria, library, gym, classrooms, playground, music or art rooms — press R to open one.
Between jobs
Outside of active jobs you'll want to: search containers for fuel, parts and food; keep the generator running (see The Generator & Power); clean up messes before dusk, since messes left overnight make the generator burn fuel faster; and talk to Grump if he's around — ignoring him for a whole day adds +6 resentment at nightfall on top of the base nightly amount, which is more than most single answers cost him.
Who might interrupt you
Two more characters live entirely in the day phase:
- Jerry the gym teacher occasionally sprints out of the gym and forces a pop-up minigame on you — laps, dumbbells, or jump rope. See Jerry and Minigames.
- Meredith the lunch lady stands at the cafeteria counter all day; talk to her for a tray of food after a short rhythm minigame. See Meredith.
Working the generator can also summon the Card Kid, and once a run (day 2 or 3) the Big Boys Club cutscene plays automatically. Full trigger conditions for everything on Events & Encounters.
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