Reality Stability Office

Overview

Reality Stability Office is a dystopian anomaly-detection simulator from solo developer Nyrel Design, released June 20, 2026 on Steam at $7.29. You are a newly appointed inspector at the Reality Stability Office (RSO), the last checkpoint before the last stable city. Arrivals line up at your window. Some are human. Some are anomalies wearing human shapes. Some are something worse. Your job: decide who gets in, using tools and documents that are themselves corrupting in real time.

The core loop borrows from Papers, Please and That's Not My Neighbor — inspect documents, cross-reference, interrogate, stamp — then gaslights every part of it. The database contradicts itself. Photos change when you look away. Your own Reality Meter drains as you work, and the lower it falls, the less you can trust anything on screen. Update 2.0 is announced and coming soon with new characters, dialogues, challenges, events, and DLC packs; the developer has warned that the transition may involve save data loss, so finish your current run before it lands.

Accuracy matters more than speed. The only hard time pressure is the day length, and update 1.3.3 lengthened days on purpose. The game wants you to doubt yourself more than it wants to kill you.

Who this guide is for: anyone past their first shift. It covers the mechanic math, every anomaly tell with detection methods, the arrival systems (including wanted and emergency entities), day-by-day progression, all 28 achievements with real unlock rates, and the update history that changed how the game plays.

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Getting Started — First 30 Minutes

1. Read the daily briefing. Every shift starts with one. It names the day's threat level, known anomaly types, special instructions, and format changes. Skipping it costs the day's "gotcha" — a changed document format, a known mimic. Thirty seconds, no downside.

2. Set difficulty to Normal and stay there. Easy makes anomalies so obvious you never build detection skill. There is no hard mode toggle; difficulty comes from your choices and your Reality state.

3. Save manually every 3-4 arrivals. The game autosaves at day start (the "Game saved" toast arrived in 1.3.1), but within a day you are on your own. A sanity crash mid-day without a manual save costs the whole day.

4. Use day 1 as a free tour. Since 1.4.0, the Reality Meter does not decrease until you click the door button on the first day. Explore the office, open every tablet tab, click every tool, read the documents. The clock starts when you choose to open the door.

5. Learn the rules note. Update 1.5.0 added an explicit rules note for controlling characters. Read it; several interrogation actions only work in a specific order.

6. Answer your phone. Incoming calls are a real system (1.6.0 made the phone buttons clickable). Some carry story, some carry warnings, and one achievement only exists because most players let it ring.

The daily loop: complete arrival → collect documents → cross-reference terminal → visual scan → interrogation → decision → next arrival. Each arrival takes 60-120 seconds when done right. Speed is never rewarded; thoroughness is.

Beginner mistakes ranked by cost

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Core Mechanics (Deep Dive)

The Reality Meter

Sanity starts at 100% each day and measures how much you can trust your senses. It is the true health bar.

Two update-driven facts change strategy. Since 1.3.3 the meter drops visibly in real time and more slowly than at launch, and the clock glitches instead of running backward when it drops — the clock is a secondary sanity gauge. Since 1.4.0, day one is free until you open the door, and the end-of-day screen gained a Quarantine section: cleared arrivals under review, some of whom will turn out to have been anomalies. Read it nightly; it is a free accuracy report.

The 3-correct streak bonus: three right calls in a row grant +5% recovery. It is the strongest economy in the game. Chain easy decisions early to bank buffer before the ambiguous cases arrive.

The five document types

Every arrival presents a stack. Cross-reference every field:

• Identity Card — photo match (face shape, eyes, scars, hair), ID number against terminal, seal micro-text at the border, expiration.
• Travel Permit — origin city exists? quarantined? validity dates, route stamps forming a logical path, endorsement codes against the briefing.
• Health Declaration — vaccination status against outbreak zones, anomaly exposure history, signature against the ID.
• Employment Letter — employer in database? position plausible for age? salary proportional?
• Family Registry — names consistent across docs, address matches permit origin, recent changes flagged.

Since 1.3.0, some characters hand you weapons or sticks instead of documents. An item where papers should be is its own statement: process the person, not just the paperwork.

Documents vs terminal — who wins

• Green highlight means terminal and document agree. It does NOT mean the document is true. Databases corrupt.
• A database mismatch (this ID belongs to someone else) is definitive. Deny.
• Document corruption (text changes between reads) is strong evidence but not absolute — some docs are just damaged. Corruption means extra scrutiny, not an auto-deny.

Tools and the tool tier list

Tier list: X-Ray is S-tier because it produces a definitive outcome — a face that changes after a scan is a confirmed anomaly regardless of your sanity. Phone verification is A-tier for clean-doc cases where behavior feels off; anomalies often fail at the story check. Behavioral Analysis is B-tier and sanity-gated; below 60% accuracy it misleads more than it helps. Combine any tool result with at least one other check before stamping.

Since 1.6.0 the phone buttons are fully clickable and incoming calls exist as a system — answering costs nothing by itself, and "Call the Authorities" requests assistance as a separate action when a case exceeds your authority.

The arrival systems most players miss

Three subsystems arrived across 1.4-1.6 and changed the game:

Impatience and arrivals (fixed in 1.5.0). Characters have patience. An arrival kept waiting too long changes behavior, and the pacing of who shows up when is itself information — a person arriving at end of day, frustrated, is a different risk profile than a fresh morning arrival. Before 1.5.0 these systems were silently broken; if you played before then, arrivals behaved differently than they do now.

Wanted individuals. Some arrivals are actively wanted. Capture is a separate verdict from deny, and the achievement line (capture your first, then three) confirms it is a repeated flow. When the briefing flags a wanted individual, the capture option is the correct stamp, not denial.

Emergency entities. The rarest and most dangerous arrival type. Encountering one triggers Emergency Protocol; approving one is the Big Mistake that 80.6% of players have made. The lesson inside that statistic: emergency entities are designed to look sympathetic, and the game tests whether your procedure holds under pressure. Resolve, do not admit. When a hostile threat resolves in your booth, Threat Neutralized is the outcome.

Room anomalies. Anomalies are not only in the queue. Your office glitches, and reporting a room anomaly is a distinct action. If the booth flickers or the terminal garbles, check the room itself before blaming the arrival.

Power outages. Lights Out exists as an event, not a bug. During an outage your tools are down; paper checks are the only ones that work. Keep the document order memorized so an outage does not stall you.

Day grading — the S Rank system

Days end with a grade, and Perfect Day requires an S Rank. The grading weights accuracy over throughput: wrong verdicts kill the rank, tool waste drags it, and idle time counts against you since the 1.3.3 penalty. To fish for S Ranks, run a short, clean day: fewer arrivals processed perfectly beats many processed with two errors. The Game Over screen (fixed in 1.3.0) shows cumulative per-day statistics, which is where you diagnose what cost you the rank.

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Anomaly Detection — Complete Field Guide

1. Photo distortion (most common)

The photo changes when you look away and back. Variants: eye color shift (subtle), hair change (medium), full face replacement (rare), static photo with no breathing animation.

Method: look, look away, look back. Changed? Anomaly.

False-positive warning: below 40% sanity, normal photos can appear to shift. Use the Second Opinion button (appears at low sanity; hover 2 seconds; ~70% accurate). The Mirror Test anchors you: your own reflection stays stable, so if the photo shifts but the mirror holds, trust the mirror.

2. Document corruption

Text flickers, fonts swap, readings change. Open, read, close, reopen. Changed text equals corrupted. Tells: dates that change, names in different fonts, ID digits swapping, seals flickering.

3. Behavioral irregularity

Watch for 5 seconds before touching documents. Real people blink, shift weight, look around. Anomalies hold static or loop identical cycles. Audio tells: same phrase verbatim across different questions, voice out of sync with mouth, laughing or crying at wrong moments, answering before you finish.

4. Database mismatch — the definitive tell

Terminal contradicts the document: a person in two places, an ID under another name. Always an anomaly, no exceptions. Your strongest evidence type.

5. Memory inconsistency

Ask all questions, then repeat one. Differing answers equal anomaly. Ask "What is your destination?" last — it is the most often contradicted.

6. Environmental glitch

Booth flickers, terminal garbles, shadows move independently. These accompany anomalies but also fire at low sanity with nobody wrong. Treat as a "get extra careful" signal plus a prompt to check the room itself for a reportable room anomaly.

7. X-ray reactive anomaly (1.4.0)

The scan itself produces the response: a face change, a body-shape shift, a second silhouette. Reaction on screen equals deny, regardless of your sanity state. Cleanest confirm in the game.

The decision matrix

Golden rule: two or more anomalous indicators means deny. One ambiguous indicator means interrogate more. Zero means approve.

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Progression Strategy

Day-by-day plan

Day 1 (free): the meter does not drain until you open the door. Learn the tablet (overhauled 1.3.2, named apps), complete your first stamp for First Day, and meet the systems slowly. Answer the phone when it rings.

Days 2-3 (build the buffer): load easy cases first, chain correct calls for the +5% streaks. By day 3 you want the 2-minute protocol as habit and the briefing's current anomaly tell memorized.

Days 4-5 (the gauntlet): anomalies get subtler, corruption spreads, the meter sits lower. Tool discipline is the whole game now: X-ray for physical suspicion, phone for story doubts, nothing below 40%. Save before any arrival the briefing flags as special. The Day 10 error that older builds hit is fixed as of 1.5.2, but keep manual saves anyway.

Days 6-7+ (endgame): the final shift's last arrivals are designed to be impossible to judge perfectly. The game forces a moral choice. Recognize it, make the call, and do not reload to "fix" it — the narrative outcome is the point. Note that day-based achievements track far past the story (day 20, 30, 50, 100), which matters for endless-mode play.

Resource priority order

1. Sanity > accuracy > speed. Sanity is the only resource that can end a run mid-day.
2. Physical documents > terminal > tools when sources disagree.
3. Streaks > individual verdicts. Three correct calls pay +5%; one wrong call costs −10% to −15%. Slow and steady literally pays.

Playstyle philosophies

The Humanist (accuracy-first): approve unless evidence stacks. Feeds the +2% admit bonus and the good ending. One slipped anomaly costs −15%.

The Auditor (evidence-first): deny unless everything matches. Safer against anomalies; each denied human costs −10%, and paranoia runs crash fast.

The Investigator (tool-first): spend sanity on information. Best for lore and hidden threads; below 40% the tools turn on you.

New players: Humanist early, Auditor mid-run, Investigator on a dedicated second run.

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Step-by-Step Strategy

Sequence 1 — The 2-minute inspection protocol

1. 0:00-0:10 Observe. Watch before touching anything: looping animations, static posture, shadow behavior.
2. 0:10-0:25 Briefing check. Does this arrival match a flagged anomaly type or format change?
3. 0:25-0:45 Scan documents. Open each of the 3-5 docs; reopen to catch corruption. Note any item handed over instead of papers.
4. 0:45-1:15 Terminal cross-reference. Field by field: ID, permit, health, employment, family.
5. 1:15-1:35 Photo verification. Look, away, back. Eyes, hair, breathing.
6. 1:35-1:50 Interrogation. All questions, then repeat the destination question. Listen to the first line — it carries the most behavioral data.
7. 1:50-2:00 Tool check if needed. X-ray for physical doubt, phone for story doubt. Then decide.
8. 2:00 Stamp. Apply the decision matrix.

Sequence 2 — Recovering from a sanity crash spiral

1. Name the trigger: wrong verdict, corrupted-doc stare, or tool spam.
2. Stop using tools immediately. Every use is 2% you cannot afford.
3. Process the next 2-3 arrivals with maximum caution and zero tools. You need correct calls, not more data.
4. Bank two streak bonuses if possible: +10% lifts you out of the hallucination band.
5. Below 15%: save now, then rush the remaining arrivals. A completed day at 9% beats a reloaded day.

Sequence 3 — Beating the ambiguous case

1. Run the full protocol once. Everything matches.
2. Repeat the destination question; memory slips surface there.
3. Watch idle animations during the repeat. Real people react to repetition; mimics loop.
4. One tool: phone verification. It checks the story, not the body.
5. Story confirmed and behavior natural means approve. Anything reacts means deny.
6. Truly stuck: the low-sanity Second Opinion (~70%) is the tiebreaker, never the primary.

Sequence 4 — Handling wanted individuals and emergency entities

1. Read the briefing's wanted list before the queue opens. Memorize the names and one identifier each.
2. On a wanted match, verify with a database check (definitive evidence), then choose capture, not deny. They are different verdicts with different outcomes.
3. On an emergency entity arrival, expect sympathy bait: injuries, children, desperation. The procedure is the point. Resolve per protocol.
4. If a hostile threat unfolds in the booth, request authorities rather than improvising. Threat Neutralized requires the resolution, not heroics.
5. After any emergency case, save before the next arrival. The post-incident state is where a sanity crash compounds.

Sequence 5 — The room anomaly sweep

1. On any environmental glitch (flicker, garble, shadow movement), pause the queue mentally.
2. Scan the office: mirror, terminal, door, TV. Note what changed since the last sweep.
3. Report the room anomaly as its own action. Do not fold it into the arrival's verdict.
4. Re-check the current arrival with the assumption the room, not the person, is the anomaly source.
5. Log the time. Room anomalies cluster, and the clustering is information about the day's threat type.

Sequence 6 — Chasing the S Rank

1. Enter the day with sanity above 80%.
2. Process arrivals strictly by the protocol; no skips even on obvious cases.
3. Zero tool waste: use a tool only when the decision matrix is genuinely stuck.
4. Take no idle time; the 1.3.3 penalty applies to the rank too.
5. End the day with zero wrong verdicts. Grade follows accuracy, and Perfect Day takes an S.

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Advanced Tips

1. The morning database is more accurate. Entries entered before 9:00 in-game weigh more than afternoon entries. When they disagree, trust the morning.
2. Headphones are equipment. Anomalies carry a metallic or hollow vocal resonance. The first line of dialogue holds the most data; spacebar-spam skips tell you nothing else will.
3. The clock is a second sanity bar. It glitches when the meter drops. If time looks wrong, your eyes are compromised — switch to objective checks.
4. Tool reliability is sanity-gated. X-ray at 80% is near-perfect; at 35% it lies. Match the tool to your state, not the case.
5. Fixed document order builds muscle memory: ID → Travel Permit → Health → Employment → Family Registry. Missed checks drop to zero within a week of game time.
6. The final shift is rigged. One or two arrivals cannot be judged correctly by design. The stamp is a moral choice, not a test answer.
7. Phone calls only cost sanity on good-bad choices (fixed 1.3.3). Ordinary verification calls are free information. The phone buttons are clickable since 1.6.0 — use them.
8. Quarantine is your nightly coach. The end-of-day section lists cleared arrivals who turned out anomalous. Calibrate tomorrow's tells from tonight's mistakes.
9. Idle is the one always-wrong move. Stuck on a hard case? Keep processing the queue and return to it. Standing still now penalizes sanity and rank.
10. Items are statements. Since 1.3.0 characters can hand weapons or sticks instead of documents. What someone gives you is part of the interrogation.
11. Impatience is information. A frustrated end-of-day arrival behaves differently from a fresh morning one (the system was fixed in 1.5.0 — before that, everyone waited forever). Factor arrival time into behavioral reads.
12. The Witch's cards are not documents. Clicking them opens notes by mistake (a 1.5.2 fix addresses the interaction). She is a character interaction, not paperwork.

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Endings and Story Threads

Two structural notes. First, no single blind playthrough sees everything; the story runs 7-10 days and the clue content assumes replay. Second, the phone is a story channel: incoming calls (answer them — Pick Up the Phone exists because players let it ring) and the ability to call the authorities both route narrative.

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Achievement Guide — All 28 With Real Unlock Rates

The numbers below are global Steam unlock percentages. They tell you where the player base actually stops.

The 0.1% wall is uniform: almost nobody plays past the first week. Every achievement past day 10 is effectively a clean field because so few players are competing for it. A completionist route is: story run for days 1-10 and the anomaly set, then endless mode with a reporting habit for everything else.

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Hidden Secrets and Lore

The base64 message: the Steam store description hides a decoded line asking whether you saw the mysterious man who showed up on the 100th day. The story runs 7-10 days; day 100 lives in endless mode. Whether it is a secret ending, a hidden character, or a fourth-wall event remains open — v1.1.1 added two more hidden messages said to relate to the main story.

Named characters: Grace Dawson and Lucien Brooks arrive with unique document sets and dialogue tied to the deeper narrative. The Witch interacts through cards rather than papers.

The Nyrel universe: document names cross-reference the developer's connected-universe site, which maps regions, characters, syndicates, and companies. Some arrivals are hooks into that wider setting. Cross-referencing is optional and rewarding.

Notes interface: the persistent notes system (patched across 1.5.x-1.6) is where clue-chains belong. Log recurring names, dates that changed, and calls received; the story rewards pattern-keepers.

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Update History That Changed the Game

2.0 (announced, no date)

New characters, dialogues, challenges, events, DLC packs, "many more features." The developer warns of possible save data loss during the transition. Finish your run before it lands; bug fixes continue until release.

1.6.0

+2 characters, clickable phone buttons, avatar skin colors, infrastructure for future game modes. Fixes: Guide Notification, Notes interface, question-while-reporting error, background clicks during dialogs.

1.5.2

Fixed day-selection overflow, notes-with-documents, stuck Add Entry message, Witch's cards opening notes, and the Day 10 error. Added Discord RPC.

1.5.0

The mechanics patch: the impatience and arrival systems actually work now (they were silently broken before), a rules note clarifies character control, the main-menu tablet mirrors the in-game one, +12 avatar cosmetics, mode selection menu updated. Also fixed TV-after-pause and settings-pause bugs.

1.4.0

Free day one, +3 X-ray anomaly types, Quarantine section, mirror system overhaul, reload warnings, First Day achievement fix.

1.3.x

Real-time Reality Meter (slower drain), abnormal clock instead of backward time, idle penalty, longer days, phone calls only cost sanity on good-bad choices, tablet UI overhaul with named apps, "Game saved" toast, +4 outfits and a Randomizer, +2 items (weapons and sticks instead of documents), Game Over statistics.

What the history means for you

If you played before 1.5.0, arrivals behaved differently (nobody got impatient), day 10 could break, and the Witch mis-clicked. If you played before 1.3.3, the meter lied about its rate. The current build is the balanced one, and 2.0 will move it again.

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Accessibility and Comfort

Steam lists: mouse-only control, no timed input, save anytime, custom volume sliders. Take breaks between cases; nothing punishes pausing. Headphones are functionally required — voice tells are part of detection. Low sanity produces screen distortion; keep ambient light on if you are sensitive. Saves are manual within a day: every 3-4 arrivals, no exceptions.

FAQ

Why did my game end around day 8 with sanity left? The story runs 7-10 days. You did not die; the story concluded. New game for a different outcome — and endless mode is where the day-count achievements live.

Is denying everyone safe? No. Each denied human costs −10% sanity. Paranoid play crashes faster than permissive play.

What does the green highlight mean? Terminal-document agreement. Not truth. Databases corrupt too.

Why did the face change after my X-ray? X-ray reactive anomaly, added 1.4.0. Automatic deny.

What is the Quarantine section? Your nightly accuracy report: cleared arrivals who turned out anomalous. Read it every day.

Can I replay a specific day? No. Manual saves before key arrivals are the only redo. 1.4.0 added warnings before reloading past days.

How do I capture a wanted individual instead of denying them? Capture is its own verdict. Confirm identity with a database check, then choose capture when the briefing lists the person as wanted.

How do I get an S Rank? High sanity entering the day, protocol on every arrival, near-zero tool waste, no idle time, zero wrong verdicts. Accuracy is the grade.

Is there a hard mode? Not officially. Difficulty comes from route, choices, and sanity management. The mode selection menu added in 1.5.0 and the 2.0 roadmap (challenges, DLC) point at more formal modes soon.

Should I wait for 2.0? The announced save-loss warning makes one answer clear: finish your current run first. There is no announced date, and bug-fix patches continue regardless.

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Guide reflects game version 1.6.0 with 2.0 announced, as of October 2026. Content updates arrive roughly every two weeks — new characters, events, and mechanics land regularly, so re-check the news feed between patches.