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Examples of incident report screens and forms
"Keeping Humanity Sanitary" -Punchomatic default screen

The Punchomatic is a machine appearing in every level of Viscera Cleanup Detail. It is manufactured by Aerospace Sanitation Inc., although occasionally displays a different company depending on the level.

Appearance

PunchOMatic

The Punchomatic device

The Punchomatic is dominated by a large, teal-colored screen with the divide's logo at the top. There is a chunky white device beneath the screen, housing a card swipe slot and several yellow and red buttons. Attached to the left of the card-swiper is a metal lever with a red handle. This lever is automatically pulled down by the player each time a major option on the screen is selected. When the player is near the device, a quiet, electronic humming can be heard emanating from the Punchomatic screen.

The Punchomatic screen also displays a small slogan on the bottom. Most often, it reads; "Keeping Humanity Sanitary," however this slogan can vary depending on the level.

Usage

Punchomatic New

The Punchomatic's current punch out screen.

The sole purpose of the Punchomatic is to allow the player to officially complete a level. Players may punch out at any time to officially end the current level. There is no set time limit or minimum cleaning amount, but there are penalties for not fully cleaning and completing the level.

PunchOMatic selection screen

The Punchomatic's punch out screen prior to a later update.

Following punch-out in singleplayer mode, the player is returned to the Office and may view their score results from that level on the Report Screen. The player is notified of any tasks or messes they missed via paper documents (known as Ending Messages) scattered around the Office's main room. In speedrun mode, there is only a directly-displayed score.

Simply exiting the level through the menu ("Leave" or "Exit" options) will not display level results or register the level as complete. If the player exits a level this way, when they return they may only continue their progress in that level via a previously-saved file.

Like many other machines in the game featuring interactive screens, the Punchomatic is activated by selecting the hand tool and moving the cursor over the screen. Buttons or options on the screen are selected using the primary trigger. Depending on the selection, the player will either be shown another screen with options, or moved to the Office to receive that level's results.

The first selection screen the player is shown displays four options:

  • "I wish I could do more for my company. Give me some paperwork to fill out for extra marks..."
    This selection brings the player to the Incident Report form page.
  • "I am proud of my performance and certain it will meet with approval..."
  • "I don't care. I'm done here and the union's got my back..."
    These selections exit the player to the Office to receive their score for the level.
  • "No, I'm not done yet. I was just checking the machine..."
    This selection exits to the first screen, allowing the player to continue cleaning, if they desire to do so.

Incident Reports

As of version 0.42, the "Give me some paperwork..." option opens an "incident report" in the form of a fairly short questionnaire. While the incident report is entirely optional, it serves as a fairly easy way to obtain a higher score if one is not able to fully clean the level for any reason.

The player is asked to enter information in a variety of ways, including text-entry boxes where the player can type a free-form response to the topic, check-box style questions, and fields to enter numbers. Players can scroll through questions using the mouse wheel or the scroll bar displayed on the Punchomatic screen.

The report itself consists of several sections:

  • Incident Severity
  • Work Method
  • Efficiency
  • Cause of Incident (listed as "Incident Particulars")
  • Personal Account
  • Confirmed Articles
  • Peer Report
  • Deceased Employees (listed as a "WTF-12")
  • Worker's Union

The Confirmed Articles section encourages players to estimate the number of alien entities, spent shell casings, bullet holes, and items incinerated on site. For the most accurate counts, it is recommended that the player carefully make note of their surroundings as they clean by jotting down details on paper, or using the in-game PDA.

The Deceased Employees (WTF-12) section is accessed by first retrieving a Personal Identification Device and touching it to the base of the Punchomatic until it disappears with a series of beeps. The name visible on that P.I.D. will then be transferred to the Incident Report screen and create a new, separate report sheet. This sheet includes questions regarding how that employee may have died, how their remains were dealt with, etc. In order to provide the most accurate answers in these employee-specific forms, players should ideally note their surroundings and collect P.I.D.s from each dead body before removing them or cleaning the area.

Previously-completed Incident Report sheets can be reexamined via the Report Screen in the Office's main room. They are listed in chronological order, with the last completed level at the top of the list.

It is worth noting that pressing the escape key (ESC) while mousing over the Incident Report screen will fully exit to the Punchomatic's main screen. This type of behavior does not occur on any other in-game devices except for the Personal Data Assistant.

Cause of Death: Definitions

In response to the community's request for clarification on which cause of death is applicable in certain situations, VCD's developers posted the following guide defining all causes of death and stating how frequently they are used:

  • Shot: Any evidence that the body has been shot with some form of ballistic or projectile weaponry (not melee). There will be casings or bullet holes nearby, decapitated or otherwise.
  • Bitten: Not used much, hard to determine if someone was bitten/chomped. The best and perhaps only example would be Athena's Wrath, where the story says the plants have teeth, and it's logical to assume some of those people were bitten. We have mostly ignored this type in the official levels so you're better off never using it in them.
  • Eaten: Used when it's clear that the employee's body has been consumed by a living creature and no longer remains. This is best demonstrated by the P.I.Ds around the Sand-Traps in Unearthly Excavation.
  • Burned: Used when it's clear that the victim has be killed by fire prior to your arrival. We are yet to use this in any official levels.
  • BlownUp: Used when it's clear the victim has been killed by explosives. There are usually scorch marks nearby and an indication that the victim was propelled a bit of distance, usually in pieces too and very messy.
  • Dragged: Not technically always a cause of death, but if there is evidence that the victim was dragged along the ground by their killer, then this is what you want. It should be noted that when drag marks lead from the top of stairs or high areas and then smoothly down to the bottom where the corpse rests that that is not a "Dragging", they simply slid down.
  • Murdered: Not to be confused with Slain. Murdered is MUCH less common and is only used when the victims have been killed by another human being. The only times this really applies is with the corpses in Unearthly Excavation (as you know they killed each other, and the hero killed the possessed ones) and in the House of Horror level, as most of the killers there were serial killers or each other.
  • Eviscerated: Clear evidence that the body has lost some organs. Though not only the digestive organs, but really anything internal would apply. This is only used when you can clearly see intestines or organ chunks nearby.
  • Crushed: Not used in official levels yet. It indicates that the victim has either been crushed by some heavy object or some sort of force that would compress their body in a crushing manner.
  • Thrown: Not quite a "Fallen" type. This is used only when there is clear blood evidence that the victim was thrown/shoved/propelled by some force prior to death. This is usually marked by an initial light blood splatter and then a long stream before an impact decal where the corpse can usually be found. Quite often, Thrown bodies are coupled with the Impact type, as if you get thrown into the air, you're going to come back down again.
  • Decapitated: Used whenever the body either has no head, or their head is no longer attached. This is true even if upon initial discovery the head seems to be attached.
  • Liquefied: Used when there is only blood and possibly organs remaining with no sign of a body. This is really only used in sometimes in the old legacy levels.
  • Frozen: Used when the body seems to have been frozen or otherwise turned to ice and then shattered, etc. Not used in any official levels.
  • Dismembered: Used whenever the victim is missing any part of themselves along the legs or arms. This does NOT include heads or if the body is split in half at the pelvis.
  • Halved: Used only when the upper body has clearly become detached from the lower body. You will find that a great many corpses have this (it's dangerous out there...).
  • Stricken: This is a tricky one. It is only used when the victims were clearly ill in some way, either infected with a virus or some sort of illness of the mind or body. This is used on every "possessed" worker in Unearthly Excavation; the green faced ones.
  • Sliced: Clear evidence that they have been cut by a sharp tool or alien limb, etc. This is usually marked by "slicey" blood patterns. Often the victim will be dismembered or decapitated.
  • Impaled: Used when the victim has quite clearly been impaled against some sort of surface by some object. Usually used when people are hanging from walls with knives in them, for example.
  • Contorted: A strange one that is not used in any official levels. It is meant for corpses that have been twisted, folded over themselves, or otherwise contorted into an unnatural shape.
  • Stabbed: Used when the victim has clearly suffered stab wounds. Sometimes coupled with Sliced if the body has what look like stab wounds in them, or they are impaled against a surface with a human tool such as a knife when it's clear they were intentionally put there.
  • Slain: By far the most commonly used cause of death. Slain refers to any victim who has been killed by a non-human entity. When someone has been killed and it doesn't look like humans did it but some sentient living thing did, then Slain will always be used.
  • Ritualized: A rarely used one, but important. If someone has been killed and then intentionally messed with after death it's likely to be a ritualized thing. For example: Body intentionally hung up or impaled, skinned bodies, bodies arranged in a specific shape, bodies presented in a ritualized manner, bodies collected together as some sort of decoration, etc.
  • Impact: Used when it's clear the victim hit a surface hard, usually when thrown. Also used when a victim has fallen and then landed. Used when a victim is thrown against a wall, etc.
    Usually accompanied by an impact blood decal.
  • Other: Almost never used in official levels. Only used when none of the above can be adequately used to describe an important cause of the person's death. The two bodies in the attic of the House of Horror level use this because they intentionally took their own lives, although there is no real way of knowing this. That is the only time I have ever used it.

It should be noted that more than one Cause of Death can be entered for any given employee, as many times employees do not have only one cause of death.

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