It'd be nice to see people talking about the actual game for a change!

For example:
1. tips on spending money
2. when to do side quests and which?
3. tips for time management

I myself would like to know some tips for newcomers to the game. I just received it as a gift from another fellow GOGer, and I understand that it is supposed to be very, very difficult. Anybody have any wisdom I should know before starting?

I recently digged up this walkthrough and the last pages 50-51 consist of interesting general tips.

Interesting, thanks! I briefly played a few hours of the first day as soon as I got Pathologic, but I quickly realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I really dig the atmosphere and storytelling, but it could have come with a better tutorial...or any tutorial at all. Ah well, seems like a game you have to be fully committed to playing before you can draw anything from it. Guess I'll just have to play a weekend and see how it goes? Anyways, thanks again for the tips. It cleared some things up :)

You're welcome. If you get stuck on something that makes you fail a day, the walkthrough seems to be great in that aspect that it covers days with tips for loot (which is very important later on) and quests.
I admit that I hadn't been able to co-op with sadistic nature of its gameplay mechanism and ended up finding cheats for god mode on developers' Russian forum. Mystic storytelling was too gripping to let it go. I would like to play it properly one day.

Good luck!

Dumpster-dive for bottles and other assorted junk. Fill bottles with water. Exchange 5 bottles of water for one bandage. Trade with kids for bullets and meds. That's all there is to it. Don't buy too much food, you can get it elsewhere for free.

You can freely loot other people's houses. You'll only be attacked if you're seen taking something. If that happens, don't retaliate so that you preserve your reputation, just run towards the exit. Then you can re-enter the house, and the disposition of its inhabitants towards you will reset. It's an exploit of the game's mechanic, but a good one if you're desperate.

You can get more loot in quarantined areas (yellow tint), but each house contains three burglars – they're very fast, silent and deadly, so prepare your shotgun and press your back against the wall.

The gameplay mechanic gets easier once you figure out. Just do your objectives and don't spend too much time exploring, otherwise you won't have time to sleep. If you keep your mind on the job, you'll end up with lots of time to kill. I've finished this game five times, so feel free to ask me anything. :)

A small bump but I'm curious around some mechanics. Since reputation is needed I should avoid combat right? It's a pity because I noticed, playing the doctor, killing some guys running at me in the first village you enter gave me a bunch of organs that are valuable in trading, I suppose it's a balance but killing just one guy seemed to drain away a bunch of reputation.

When is killing allowed (not reducing reputation)? Do I have to be hit first for it to be counted as self-defense or does it depend on the attacker's status? If so, how do I see the attacker's status?

Where do I find water to fill bottles?

Also, how does exhaustion work?

You may kill only bandits and burglars. The former look like...bandits, the latter have a certain burglary look about them and can be found in quarantined houses. :) Civilians will attack you if you steal anything from their homes. Don't retaliate, otherwise your reputation will drop. At hand pumps and water fountains dotted around the town. If I remember correctly, after a certain day the groundwater becomes contaminated so that few water sources will work. Look for bottles and fill them whenever you can – they're your most valuable currency. Again, I haven't played the game in quite a while...do you mean fatigue, which gets worse in time and can be alleviated by sleeping? If you're out of time, you can chew on coffee beans, but they harm your health.

Yes, it was fatigue which alleviates during sleep, but I gain hunger faster during sleep than I lose fatigue. I'm just in the beginning so time isn't crucial and I'm not expecting to complete the game on my first try.

Where's the first place you can find food, preferably free if it's usually expensive?

If you've made it to Day 2, then you know about the prices. Free food? Hmm, healthy houses usually stock plenty of food. But stealing will make the family hostile, and the men in the family will attack you. If you fight back, you lose reputation. However, there's a cheap trick you can use. Just run around the house stealing anything and avoiding blows, even enduring a few. Then make a break for the front door. Once you exit and reenter, the house will be "reset" and the family will again be friendly. Repeat as often as you want, just don't let them beat you to death, and you'll have plenty of food.

Once you figure out the game's strange economy, you'll do alright. I never had any significant problems with hunger, and I almost never resorted to the cheap trick outlined above. There's even free food lying around in certain places – check the Kain family's crypts. In time, prices will normalise too.

I sure am happy to find this forum. I've been playing Pathologic and thought I was doing fine. Then saw some guy using his fists while chasing some gal, so I got out my fists, hit him and now I'm dead. That's when I looked for a walkthrough and found the same one Mivus found. I like the game, but need the help. There was no tute, but they at least, gave us game controls.

I got side-tracked with a few other games. But now I'm back with Pathologic.
Question please: How do I do the trading? I haven't been able to figure out how to work it. How do I work the "x" and "v" on the inventory? I wanted to give the drunk some water, but wasn't able to work the inventory.

If I remember correctly, in shops you click on the items you want to buy in the shop's inventory, and/or the items you want to sell in your inventory. Click x to clear the selections and v to finalise the transaction. Don't forget you can scroll up and down the inventory using the mouse wheel.

As for the drunk, you need to give him five bottles full of water for one bandage or torniquet. First select five bottles (click on the bottle five times if you've got that many), then his stuff will become clickable too. If you can' click on the bandage, you haven't offered him enough water.

Thank you so much. I was quite confused on this trading issue. Poor drunk, a bandage showed up in inventory, but I couldn't give him my water and now I know why. And I didn't know how to do a transaction in the stores.

Yeah, it's a bit confusing. Even more so in stores, because the value of items is expressed in money. If you sell the shop owner more valuable items than you buy from him, you'll get the difference in money. If vice versa, you'll have to pay for the difference in value. Also bear in mind that certain people will accept only certain items. Drunks accept only water, girls like jewellery and needles, tough boys want razors and pocket watches...

It's absolutely imperative that you go dumpster diving as often as you can and pick up as many bottles as you can find, and then fill them with water. Pharmacies are too expensive, so you'll have to rely on bandages from drunks for healing.