The four pet choices
Before the first shift, the player adopts one of four companions:
| Choice | Confirmed role at adoption |
|---|---|
| Cat | One of the four selectable pets |
| Husky | One of the four selectable pets |
| Puppy | One of the four selectable pets |
| Goose | One of the four selectable pets |
The developer announcement presents these as companion choices, not as a published stat table. It does not assign different cleaning speeds, abilities, prices, difficulty modifiers, or story routes to them. Until the live build proves otherwise, choose by preference rather than an invented “best pet” ranking.
Why the pet matters during the first three shifts
The pet is part of the opening motivation for working at Midnight Mart. Your companion needs medicine, and the developer says it must be paid for within the first three shifts. That connects ordinary store work to a personal objective: survive while producing enough personal profit for the vet bill.
This distinction matters because a Night can contain more than one pressure:
- the store has work and sales to complete;
- customers still require careful investigation;
- a released doppelganger can trigger an emergency;
- the opening pet objective depends on personal profit.
The announcement does not publish the medicine price or an exact per-shift revenue target. Those values will be recorded only from the released build, with the visible version or Steam build ID attached.
Quota Alert: “Within the first three shifts” is the confirmed deadline. Do not treat an unverified currency amount, perfect route, or minimum sale count as universal guidance.
The bring-your-pet-to-work perk
The developer says that paying for the medicine and keeping profit margins high allows the pet to accompany you on later shifts. Once present, the companion can wander around the store and clean some of the mess left by customers—or by the aftermath of an attack.
That help creates more time for stocking, operating the register, and interrogating customers. Public material does not yet establish how often the pet cleans, whether every companion behaves identically, or whether the perk can be lost. The live game must answer those questions.
A safe opening priority order
Without inventing a speedrun route, the confirmed mechanics support a conservative priority order:
- Read the current objective and any profit information shown by the game.
- Keep customer checks methodical; a bad release can cost more time than a rushed sale saves.
- Complete nearby stocking, cleaning, delivery, or forecourt work between customers.
- Recheck the medicine objective before ending each of the first three shifts.
- Record the displayed medicine cost and profit result for the current build.
This is an operating framework, not a guaranteed Night walkthrough. Randomized shifts can change encounter order, and launch patches may alter values.
Continue with the Beginner Guide for the full store-and-investigation loop, or use 13 Nights Overview to understand why individual Night pages wait for repeatable live-build evidence.