Why do you make 3 dollars every day? Are you a Chinese factory laborer?

I'm trying to make it somewhat of a challenge to be able to afford things. Again, I'll probably re-balance a lot of things after I've figured out what needs re-balancing.

Hawk and coat

If it wasn't random it'd be kind of a math game, more or less. Assuming each item fully covers a part when bought regardless of change level:

Choose the baggy pants. Then you change the legs 5X and the tail 5X. That's 10 days at work so $30. Buy the Hoodie and use the 10 remaining dollars on food for the 10 days worked.

So now you have the Hoodie to change the torso and arms. Another 30 bucks. 10 aside for upkeep (food); spend 10 on boots and 7 on gloves. 3 bucks banked. Now change the hands and feet, 23 dollars after upkeep.

Get the hat and sunglasses leaving you with 11 bucks. Then you could change, say, the eyes and hair, and get 30 more dollars. More than enough to cover the food expenses for the last, what, 15 days? With the 5 starting food you only have to cover 10 more dollars leaving you with 31 bucks and undiscovered (46 if you say the ears are covered by the hat). Just don't go to work for the skin and mouth.

You could even push that further and go for 9 of the 10 remaining days (with a 10x suspicion leeway) and walk out with a total of 73 bucks after food and all that or something? Really tired from night shift but that seems right.

But seeing as it's random, it's just a roll of the dice if you win or not. Good luck!

Well, the only thing that is random is the order in which you transform. You decide whether to risk going to work or not, and, depending on how much exposed transformed body parts you have, that will determine the percent chance of getting noticed and gaining a suspicion point. I would say it's more of a time and money management game than a game of luck.

How about things you can't hide? You know, like loosing legs. Or having a stork-like beak? It's not exactly Maths game... but it's not luck-based game either. Honestly, at current state all you need to do is just work for first 10 days straight and buy double food ration at the stage where you still can easily pass as human without rising suspicion. That's 17% of change, so very easy to hide without even trying and enough food to last for 60 days (40 from rations, 5 starting, 15 health). Risk working for any day longer and you don't even need to starve for it to work out...

... but really, where is fun in that? BOOORING and concentrates on "winning" instead of "having fun". Besides, this is barely pre-alfa version of the game, with bare bones of mechanics behind it.

I noted the assumption that the clothing could hide whatever it was. Not that it'd make sense in any given level, only that it could hide it in terms of the game mechanics.

Choose an ape and you would be human enough even after the TF. Choose bird or insect and you may break any masquerade in first 10 days.

The gameplay problem is it just collecting resources until you have enough to live until the end. You can win long before end.

What about full feral hange? You win if you avoid catching. But in the middle you will be in a trouble: could not live as human nor a wild animal.

As the game stands right now, it is just a simple matter of being able to manage your time and money without taking too great a risk. As the game gets updated, there will be new variables and content that could make it potentially easier or harder. I'll probably include a hard mode in which you turn into a feral animal.

If you are unlucky, the masquerade can be broken within first 4-5 days, regardless of species picked, as certain body part will reach almost full transformation if picked for 3 or 4 times in a row. Nose/Mouth is probably the most obvious thing, just like Skin. In general, 2nd tier of transformation is getting visible and by 3rd stage it's hard to conceal most changes, unless they affect such minor things like Ears or Eyes (or Mouth in case of the new set of teeth... but that works only for certain species)

But yeah, in current state (well, no longer, as the game was already updated) it's pretty much over the moment you have food for 41 days. So you are done by day 11. Out of 60. The rest is just "wait at home". Thanks to update, the food management COULD be more problematic and forcing you to go out... but there is still the "20 units of food" option, which doesn't describe what kind of food it is. So you can still stock ahead and don't care even if you turn herbivore or carnivore.

I'm doing an outline for expansion of this idea into something much, much more complex, kind of a Christmas present for Permanence. Since I'm a keen player of builder-type games, it's pretty much the same kind of deal, but you must manage extra challenge in this game (being turned into anthro/feral). But then again, I've managed to work out builder game out of Endless Legend, with the winter mechanics that makes it harder and harder the longer the game takes lasts, so it should be easy to do. Especially since I will have extra free time from work thanks to Christmas.

So far it's a great and fun idea that simply needs more meat on the bare bones

Oh, and by the way - Merry Christmas.