Well, not much of a "tutorial", Dan thought. He glared at the 10 options on the screen: Explorer, Killer, Builder, Researcher, Experimenter, Tinker, Athlete, Magician, Warrior, Defender, or Custom. At least it was a wide range of options, but he really didn't have a clue how any of them would function. He was surprised at the lack of sneaky options, but that might be simply because he had no experience in actually doing any such things. He also wondered how the "Killer" option came up, as he certainly didn't consider himself the bloodthirsty sort. Still, with what was going on, Dan mostly wanted to know more - he had a feeling knowledge would be key, and several of the pathways seemed to confirm that.
Not seeing any further descriptions or options, Dan chose Researcher - hoping it would give him the best overall learning ability in whatever the future was about to throw at him. He next chose "Anon" as his privacy setting. The screen dissolved into a spinning globe of the Earth, which slowly zoomed in and settled on a position in far NW Africa - and a pointer appeared "Default Home Base". There was then a short menu: Accept, Reroll (1 point), Customize (point cost variable)
Well, the heat-blasted hills of Northwestern Sahara didn't sound attractive at all! And how would he even get there? Or would some form of transport be provided? Better check out the Customize options. Customize turned out to be pretty versatile. There were 3 sets of ranges allowed - Terrain, Latitude, Longitude. Latitude and Longitude cost 1 point per half of the globe selected, rounded up. Terrain allowed things like avoiding lakes and oceans, steep mountains, swamps, ect, and the costs seemed to scale in a similar manner - 1 point for each half of the surface area you wanted to eliminate.
Since there didn't seem to be any timer or urgency, it was time to check in with Mark - and maybe call around with friends and family to see what they were getting, or let them know what was going on, for the less tech-aware people. But just then, the power went out - cell service too, he quickly discovered. Looks like there WAS a time limit, or some paranoid authorities had caught on to what was happening and were acting to put a stop to it. Fortunately, the laptop and phone were nearly fully charged, and the "Dan Foster" app was not interrupted.
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Mark's door was open and he was quietly cursing as he finished reading the tutorial. "Oh, hi Dan. Did you get through this stuff yet? I've only got a few minutes left on the computer until the APC times out." Dan told him the phone or his Kindle tablet would probably work, but he might as well look at his Path options first. He did, coming up with: Athlete, Performer, Explorer, Woodsman, Mage, Collector, Brute, Crafter, Guardian, Tourist, and Custom. Again, a wide range, but few overlaps with mine. He quickly wrote down the options and shut down the desktop as Dan filled him in on his experience so far.
Mark said "Well, if any of this is real, there's just no way I can turn down being a Mage." Dan admitted it sounded better than his option of Magician, and let him know he had selected Researcher. Mark got going on his phone and in a few minutes was able to select Mage and Anon and continue on. His starting "Home Base" was even worse than Dan's - being just off the coast of Newfoundland - about at it's nearest point to Greenland. Since it was this early in the App process, both Dan and Mark were sure that Home Base was important. They could narrow it down to nearly anywhere they wanted IF they were willing to spend nearly all their improvement points.
Some quick experimenting showed that they could get a Google-Earth-like map of the selected region as they did the Custom options. As they currently lived in the suburbs of Eugene, Or, they wanted something not too far away, but outside of any towns and not in any steep mountains. Fortunately, there were "elevation" and "slope" options under Terrain. Mark had 1 less starting IP than Dan, but the options they settled on cost an even 20 points, so they'd have a few left. They locked in their options and hit Confirm.
Dan watched as his map zoomed in: It settled at a point about 100 miles NNE - almost at the edge of their selected area. Mark had a spot only about 30 miles away to the NW. From the images, it looked like Mark's spot was a logging area and shouldn't be too hard to get to. Dan's, on the other hand, was near a high ridge north of the Willemite Hwy and would probably take several hours of hiking after a couple hours drive to the nearest point. They both accepted the Home Base locations, and the App moved on to the Main Menu.