This is a short guide that will help you survive your first day in Mon Bazou, and teach you the basics of vehicle assembly, navigation, and the money-making gameplay loop. This guide is meant to give a surface level explanation to many of the game's core elements, and more advanced explanations for specific gameplay elements can be found on their respective wiki pages.
It is recommended that beginning players start in Normal Mode when creating a new game; Hard Mode and Permadeath Mode offer a much more daunting start with fewer resources, and can be overwhelming for those not intimately familiar with the gameplay loops needed for success.
Gameplay Basics
Mon Bazou is a first person survival game centered around building and maintaining your run-down car, the Konig. There are four Player Needs that need to be balanced while doing so: Maple Syrup (thirst), Poutine (hunger), Energy (sleep), and Anxiety. Your home's refrigerator comes stocked with enough maple syrup and poutine to last you a few initial days, but you should be prepared to buy more when you need it. Energy can be regained by sleeping or by drinking Coffee; choosing the latter will also increase your anxiety. While having high anxiety will not kill you, it can be decreased by sleeping, smoking, or driving your cars without crashing.
Saving is done at your Computer or with your Portable Game Console, and doing so will advance the game by a few hours.
If you Die, you'll respawn at your bed with a temporary movement penalty, you'll lose all Cannabis joints you may have been carrying, and any car you were driving will be left where you died. There is a helpful guide on the Smoll ATV's Page on recovering a stranded vehicle.
Things to do First
When you first load into a game, you'll spawn at your house. Stepping outside, you'll be greeted by your fleet of vehicles, a garden shed, a large concrete foundation, and a road running along your property. A good place to start would be the garden shed; it contains a wall of To-Do Lists that will guide you through your playthrough. The one you'll want to focus on, initially, is labeled TO DO - START.
All items in the game can be picked up with a Left click, and tools can be equipped by pressing the E key. To rebuild the Konig, pick up the part you wish to install, and move it to its respective place on the car; it should snap into place. To gain access to the engine, you must pull the hood release latch located in the driver's footwell; you may raise the hood from the outside, afterwards.
Most car parts in the game require a number of bolts to stay attached. To bolt something on, pick up and equip the Adjustable Spanner from the shed, pick up a bolt in its jaws, and screw it into the car part. You can tighten the bolts by holding Left click, and loosen them by holding Right click. Be sure to check all the bolts on the Konig, especially those on the wheels: Most of the wheels' lug bolts will be loose, and all 20 must be tightened in order to complete the Torque the Wheels task.
Once you've rebuilt the Konig, tightened all the bolts, and taken it off the Jackstands (by moving your cursor over them and holding Right clickwith an empty hand), it should be able to drive! However, its tires are still flat, and it doesn't have a lot of fuel. To fix both of those things, you're going to need to do some shopping in Town.
Your First Paying Job
Before heading out, you'll want to get a little more money than you currently have. There are a few ways to do this, but for now, we're gonna focus on the easiest way: Selling Firewood.
You can open the in-game Map with the M key. Your house is located on the southern coast of the eastern island, circled with the word ROULOTTE written beside it. Your brother, Francis, lives just up the road from you, circled and labeled on the map PAS BEAU MAIS GENTIL. He will buy firewood from you every day, any time of day, until his firewood carrier is full.
To get yourself some firewood, you'll want to grab and equip your Chainsaw from the garden shed, and find some Trees on your land to cut down. There are a few types to choose from, but it is recommended to start with the white Birch trees; they are easy to transport, and have fewer uses than other tree types in the early game. Cut a couple trees down, and cut them into Logs by sawing the felled trunks a second time.
To split the logs into firewood, you'll want to take them to the Wood Splitter behind your home. Turn it on by disengaging the kill switch, and pull the ripcord; it should idle if done correctly. Load a log in front of the cutting head, and it should automatically be split it into two pieces of firewood. You cannot split firewood a second time.
After it's all split, load the firewood into the bed of the OlTruck, grab the Fuel Canister from the shed, and set out towards town. The truck can be started by turning the key on the dash; the parking brake is in the floorboard, on the far left hand side; and you'll shift its 4-speed manual transmission using R and F. Turn left onto the dirt road leading away from your house, and continue along it for a ways. Francis' house will be on the left side of the road, after a large right hand turn. You can drive your truck down his driveway, and load the firewood into the glowing circle to sell it. You can speak to Francis on his front porch if you'd like; doing so will raise your Friendship Level with him.
While you are there, you might want to grab the OlTruck Bed Stakes by the corner of the garage. They extend the sides of the bed upwards to hold more cargo, but you'll need to bolt them in with four 20mm bolts before they'll stay attached.
Your First Trip into Town
With some extra money in your pocket, leave Francis' house and turn left back onto the road. You should soon get to a paved road; take the first left you come to, following the sign for Saint-Clin du Fin-Fond. There are a few unique buildings and NPCs here to see and interact with whenever you want; for now, we will focus on just a couple, in particular.
Continue straight down the road past the Farmers Market Stand, the Church, and the Post Office, until you come to a 4-way intersection with stop signs: turn left, here. Your destination is Kali-Gas, a gas station with a small garage and a Vehicle Recovery Service. It will be on the left side of the road, and you should see its gas pumps from a ways off. It is also circled on your map and labeled 10/10.
Park your truck along side the pumps (the fuel cap is on the driver's side), grab your fuel cannister, and fill both up all the way (The cap and spout unscrew the same way as bolts:Left clickto tighten; Right click to loosen). Afterwards, head into the store to see Jacques and Normand. They sell a variety of car parts and accessories here, but a lot of stuff is outside the budget for the moment.
You want to purchase a few key things from inside...
- The Tire Pump
- The Pruning Loppers (You need them to replant trees, and it's better to start sooner than later.)
- A few cups of Coffee
There's also a few items that aren't necessary to buy, but are nice to have if you have the money...
- The Dent Repair Kit
- The Rust Repair Kits
- Any Paint you may want to use on the Konig or OlTruck
- Any muffler, steering wheel, or performance part you wish to install
- A couple free, hidden steering wheels in the back of the garage, on the toolboxes.
- A bottle of I hate this client mix
After you're finished shopping, you can load your purchases into your truck and start making your way back home. You can stop by the Decorations Store if you'd like -it's just off the same 4-way intersection we passed before- or any of the other stores you see. You'll pass by a sign for the Snack Delivery as you leave town; this is where you'll buy more poutine when you need it. Maple Syrup is in a large cooler at Kali-Gas, but you've probably already seen it.
Finishing the Konig
Retrace your steps to get back home: Follow the road across the bridge out of town, turn right at the intersection, and follow the dirt road past Francis' house. Take your fuel canister and your air pump from your truck, and bring them both to the car. The fuel cap is on the passenger side, behind a small fuel door; you open it from the outside, and unscrew it just like the one on the truck. Add fuel to the tank by equipping the fuel canister, and pouring it down the open fill spout. You can add air to the tires by equipping the tire pump, and hovering over each wheel: Left click to add 1 psi of air, or Right click to remove 1 psi. According to the sticker located in the driver's side door sill, the proper tire inflation is ~32psi; you can inflate a tire above and below this value, but it will adversely affect vehicle handling. Inflating a wheel past 50 psi runs the risk of popping the tire off the rim. The tire will not be damaged, but you'll need to take both parts to a Tire Changer to put them back together.
Upgrading the Konig with aftermarket parts follows the same steps as above: Unbolt the old part, remove it from the car by holding Right click on it, install the new part, and tighten the bolts that hold it in. You can buy new brakes, intakes, turbos, intercoolers, exhaust systems, and much more from Kali-Gas and from a traveling salesman in a Van named Roger.
Painting the Konig is a straight-forward process, but requires some nuance. Each can of spray paint has a limited amount of time it may be sprayed before running dry. Colors add together on the car: If you have a red car, and add yellow paint, you'll have an orange car. A blue car painted with red paint will slowly turn purple before coming completely red, and so on. If you find your car is too vibrant, or if you wish to make a car less of a certain color, it's helpful to remember which spray paint colors cancel eachother out:
- Pink cancels out Green
- Cyan cancels out Red
- Yellow cancels out Blue
- Black cancels out White
All good paint needs a proper top coat, so a can of Clear, Matte, or Metallic Spray can help give you the finish you want! Having a can of Clear Spray laying around is especially helpful after you use a rust repair kit on the car, to bring the paint on that part back to a vibrant finish that matches the rest of the car.
What Now?
Congratulations! You've gotten your street racer put back together! Now you're free to choose where your game goes: You can start working on your Sugar Shack to make your own maple syrup, or build friendships with the folks in town and around the islands, or become a street racing legend at the Night Race! If you're ever lost and don't know what to do, check the To-Do Lists in the garden shed. There's lots to do in the game, already, and so much more is coming with every update!
Check out the Mon Bazou Discord server for the latest sneak peaks at game content, and to interact with the ever-growing fanbase!