Welcome to age 10, and it's your birthday in the vault! Oh joy. You're going to be introduced to a few different elements here and game play will become a bit more open and less linear.

I recommend creating a save point at the start of this section so that you can go back and try out different actions and approaches (and maybe even a little bit of combat).



The first few elements that you're going to learn about here are interacting with people, having conversations and receiving items. Interacting with people can either be involuntary where the camera will swing around and lock on the other person, or voluntary where you have to press the [E] key in order to initiate a conversation. Some conversations are linear where you have to make a choice about your response, others are more free form and you can jump from topic to topic.

Keep in mind that your choice in responses do matter to a small degree. Some choices are considered "good", others are "neutral", and some will tag you as "evil". So consider carefully or you may find yourself hated by all within a few short months.

There are a few fun parts of the Birthday Party event, so make sure to talk to everyone and explore conversation options. Sometimes you'll have to play it again from a save point in order to explore a different conversational path (unlikely in this early part of the game). Eventually, the Overseer will come to you and give you your Pip-Boy 3000A. This device, worn on your left arm, is key to checking your health, interacting with your inventory, keeping track of quests or clues, finding your way with the map feature, or listening to various audio channels. It also serves as a geiger counter and a limited lamp.



This screen shows the user's condition (yours) and allows you to apply Stimpaks to crippled limbs. It also displays your level, hit points, action points and the amount of experience points.



Displays information about radiation ("rads") and how close you are to a lethal dose.



Informational statistics.

Once you get your Pip-Boy, spend a few minutes going through all of the screens. The more comfortable you are with interacting with it, the more useful you will find it out in the outside world.

Make sure that you keep all of the gifts given to you as some of them will be useful later on. You'll want to examine / use Amata's present right away as this teaches you an important game concept.

Eventually, during the party, you're going to have a run-in with a hoodlum and then your father is going to ask you to go elsewhere to see Jonas. At which point, you'll want to wrap up your interactions at the party and head out.

Minor spoiler: If you spend too long in the common room you won't get down the hallway in time to eavesdrop on the Overseer and his guard talking about the party.

Jonas - This is apparently your father's right-hand man. The two of them are going to teach you how to shoot. This is a good time to make use of the following keys:

[R] - This will reload your weapon. If you hold it down, you'll put your weapon away (which makes people more comfortable when talking to you). If your weapon is put away, pressing this key will get it back out. Pro tip: Never holster a weapon with an empty or partial clip, always reload before putting it away.

[V] - Enter VATS mode which allows you to select targets and queue up shots at various portions of their anatomy. [Left-Click] will select a body part and add it to the queue while [Right-Click] will remove that body part from the queue. You can also cancel out by emptying the queue or clicking on "Return" at the right of the screen. Once everything is queued up or you have no more action points, pressing [E] will execute the queued shots.

This is also a good time to practice dropping things on the ground and then picking them back up. Or you may wish to wait until the next section where there will be a lot more things to interact with and more time to experiment. To drop an item, go into your Inventory screen on the Pip-Boy, then [Right-Click] the item. It will fall to the ground at your feet (hopefully not vanishing) at which point you can either move it with the [Z] key or pick it back up with the [E] key.

Ah, another bright light! So much for age 10...