I have been playing SF0 for almost 18 months now, and have come to a startling realisation: Most people don't know how to play SF0. New players seem to have a hard time grasping the basics of the game, but even the most experienced of players have trouble getting their head around some of the nuances of gameplay. As such, I am going to attempt to insert this information into your skulls.

The goal of SF0 is simple: get from Level 0 to Level 8 before anyone else. Levelling up is achieved by scoring points, and scoring points is achieved by completing tasks, submitting praxis and getting votes. Thus, by extension, the goal of SF0 is to complete tasks as quickly as possible. Obviously, considering that three people are at Level 7 (at the time of writing), starting now is futile. Still, if you feel like wasting some time (or the scores have reset), you'll want to play a bit anyway.

Here are some tips which should help.

Getting Started - The Player Photograph

Obviously, the first thing you (or, indeed, anyone) does upon joining SF0 is the Player Photograph task. A common strategy among players is to upload a picture of themselves, before submitting the praxis. This is a bad idea. Uploading a picture of yourself makes your appearance clear to the community, which will make it much easier for them to tell if the images in your praxis actually contain you. Obviously, uploading a picture of someone else isn't particularly clever either. Instead, upload a picture of some arbitrary object. Other players may become suspicious, but so long as you write a quick throwaway line in your Praxis explaining how it's a picture of your favourite curling iron, no-one will be any the wiser. Even better, just upload the default image again! It'll nab you a few quick points (bumping you straight to Level 1 in the process!), and you won't draw any attention to yourself! With this done, your praxis photos can be of whoever the hell you want, and no-one will be any the wiser!

Gameplay Tips

So now that you're in the game, you need to pick some tasks, and get to making some praxis! Here's some tips to keep in mind when writing your praxis:

We'll take your word for it. If you do a task, but don't take any documentation whatsoever, just leave a line in your praxis explaining that, and we'll give you just as many votes as if you had. We're quite good at filling in the gaps for ourselves.

We love short praxis. Remember, you're proving you did something, not writing a novel. Useless details like specific locations, the time of day, what you were wearing and who fell over just feel like padding. All we want is you saying what you did, how you did it and, if you're just that kind of person, how it made you feel.

We love lone wolves. The simple fact of the matter is: If you work together, everything's easy. We're not impressed by displays of teamwork. If you can do it alone, do it alone, preferably indoors, away from even the passive assistance of non-players.

We love symbolism. Every single task can be turned into a fifteen hundred word essay on the nature of the human soul, and we'll lap it up when we see it, even if it is only tangentially related to the task! Every line of pretentious, irrelevant drivel could be worth another point in the kitty!

We're easily ooh shiny. A good enough praxis can distract us from anything, even a blatant disregard for the rules of the game.

Write whatever way feels most natural. If you're English, write English! If ya strayan, riyt strayan, mayt! if ur a unda 18, rite txt lol! One thing we really don't want to see in a praxis is your pained attempts to spell words right and put them together to make sentences.

Follow the crowd. We don't want to have to navigate to a completely different page to find your praxis for a task no-one else cared enough about to complete first. Stick to the tasks that already have a bunch of completions already. If there's one thing we'll just love to read, it's yet another Everyday Life completion.

Of course, all of these hints and tips are worthless without seeing them put it into practice so let's try a few example praxis!

It was a cold April morning, and I woke up early. My mailman seems to arrive whenever he pleases, because he's rarely here at the same time twice in a row. I needed to catch him.

At 8:30, he arrived, and I sprung my trap on him!

Inside the mailbox was a stick holding the box open. When he put his hand in, he hit the lever, and the lid shut down. The spring is ludicrously strong, thanks to a friend of mine who... made it stronger somehow? So yeah it took him a good ten minutes to get out. I'd say that's a good distraction!
Distract the Mailman

Hmm. Not great. That entire first paragraph is unnecessary, the picture can be cut, and you worked with a friend. There's potential here though. The actions (and, thankfully, name) of your friend have been left out.

Let's try another.

What is work? What is school? Can anyone ever truly find out?

Do you really have a choice whether or not to go? Every morning I wake up. I don't think, "Oh, I must remember to go to work", I just go. The repetition has ingrained the notion of going to school so deep into my subconscious that I'm fairly sure I could sleepwalk there (if I sleepwalked ever).

So, I'm afraid I did go to work. There's no way to stop me. Free will? Feh. My fate is to stand by a photocopier for nine hours every day from now until I die.
Everyday Life

Good, but it's nowhere near long enough. Expand it a bit more, chuck in ten or so more metaphors for the mind, and you might have something vote-worthy, perhaps even something that'll stop people caring that you failed the task!

One more.

2day i didn go 2 skul bcoz it was a weekend lmao
Everyday Life

Perfect! Short, concise, to the point and not too long! Keep this up, and soon you'll be reigning in the Fleurs!

Screwing the Community

Of course, a key part of SF0 is working the other players to get ahead. Here are some tips on how to do that.

Keep your enemies close. Make friends, but bear in mind that although the community may seem like an enjoyable place, everyone is against you. There can only be one winner of SF0, after all, and every other player is united in the fact that they sure as hell don't want it to be you.

Misdirection. Comment on as many praxis as you can, to give the impression that you're an active part of the community, but don't vote. It's hard enough for you to get ahead, there's absolutely no point in dragging others up with you.

Flagging. Flagging is anonymous, so make sure you flag praxis which look like they might rake in a lot of votes. Although having multiple accounts for flagging purposes is frowned upon, it's not against the rules. *cough*

"Collaborate" with others. Work with other players to create a praxis worthy of scores of votes, then boot all your collaborators. As Mr. Burns says in that episode of The Simpsons what where there's a bowling team, "teamwork will only take you so far. Then, the truly evolved person makes that extra grab for personal glory." You wouldn't argue with Mr. Burns would you? Didn't think so.

"Donate" to SF0. I don't know if there's a correlation between the amount you've donated and the number of points that just happen to "appear" in your score, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was.

And that's it! Now that you've read this guide, you should be ready to get out there and make your mark in the big, scary world of SF0, and maybe even become an SF0 superstar like me!

Have fun!