Jake Muldive, a college dropout in his late 20’s looking to be better

When you were in college, even at your most down, you never would have thought you’d end up like this. You’ll be thirty in a year and a half, and despite a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and a long history of putting in work for various corporate overlords, where are you now?

Working as a cashier at a crappy department store, single, and depressed. You’re not broke, or even living paycheck to paycheck, but you’re not exactly bringing in the big bucks either. You have a small savings, the kind that would easily be wiped out by even a minor trip to the hospital, thanks to your abysmal health insurance.

It turns out that you needed more than a Bachelor’s to actually do anything as an accountant, but you’re in far too much debt from student loans to really consider jumping back into the education system to scrape out more. It would be high risk, high reward, and you’ve had to face facts that you’re just not someone who is good with risks.

Hell, ask any of your previous girlfriends. All of whom left you because you ‘just seem to give up’.

It is that feeling of dissatisfaction that’s motivated you to look through the app store. You’ve heard that Habit Tracking apps can be used to make positive changes in people’s lives, but you’re skeptical. Still, you’re willing to do anything at this point. You catch one with a five-star rating, called Task Master, and you install it.

It downloads quickly, and soon you’re looking at the starting profile.

Attributes

Charisma: 11

Intelligence: 29

Masculinity: 22

Motivation: 3

Obedience: 38

You aren’t sure what to make of that. Did it just generate those randomly? Weird. Are your scores good or bad? It doesn’t say what any of them are out of. There’s also another section.

Skills

Career: 0

Cleaning: 0

Conversation: 0

Cooking: 0

Culture: 0

Discipline: 0

Fitness: 0

Okay, these ones make more sense to you. They all start out as 0, and you can increase them with Tasks or whatever. You move to a different screen, showing you current tasks.

Tasks

Clean your home 1/day

Cook your own dinner 1/day

Go on a walk 1/day

Look for a better job

Read a magazine

Watch an unseen movie

Some of the Tasks are marked for how often can be done each day, while others seem to just be one-off tasks. Still, they also seem weirdly personal. Like, finding a better job? That’s something you’ve wanted to do for a while. Also, an ‘unseen’ movie? That feels like the app somehow knows you tend to watch movies you’ve already seen, rather than trying to explore the vast ocean of new content.