I Know a Guy: Shady Life Simulator
by Bunch'o'Nerds · 1 Apr, 2026
145 downloads
About the Game
You owe a dangerous, mysterious mafia a serious amount of money. They don’t call. They don’t warn you. They kidnap you and make it clear: work it off, or else. Run your pizza shop, take on shady favors, and get to know the people of Hobarey Town while doing the mafia’s dirty work. Learn who to trust, who to use, and who to avoid.
Maybe you’ll pay off your debt. Maybe you’ll build the right connections to take the mafia down.
EXPERIENCE DUAL-LIFE
Manage a pizza shop up front while running illegal jobs out back. Keep both sides operating without drawing police attention or blowing your cover.
TAKE SHADY JOBS
Complete illegal favors for NPCs, including cleaning bloody clothes, ordering restricted items from the dark web, disposing of evidence, and even burning bodies in your own oven. Every job increases payout, risk, and police attention.
BUILD YOUR REPUTATION
Build a strong cover by becoming the best pizza shop in town while separately earning trust in the shady underworld. Each side progresses on its own, unlocking different jobs, tools, and risks.
UPGRADE YOUR OPERATION
Upgrade your kitchen, hidden workstations, and equipment. Larger setups allow faster production, riskier jobs, and higher payouts.
DEAL WITH WEIRD NPCs
Interact with dozens of hand-crafted NPCs, each with their own stories, personalities, and ongoing problems that unfold over time.
PLAY TOGETHER
Play alone or team up with up to four players online. Split tasks, run both sides of the business together, and deal with the chaos as a group.
Screenshots
7 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
Major Update: Solo Overhaul & Kitchen Automation!
The wait is over! We are incredibly excited to bring you one of our most highly requested updates yet. This major patch shifts the focus toward full Kitchen Automation and heavily upgrades the solo experience to active YOLO mode!
If you've been wanting to run your pizzeria like a true boss (or just need some extra hands), this one's for you. Here is the full breakdown of what’s cooking:
New Automation & Features
Staff Recruitment (Cashier NPCs): You can now hire up to 2 Cashier NPCs! They will automatically navigate the shop, take customer orders, open doors, head to bed at the end of their shifts, and collect daily wages. You can approach them to pause or resume their duties, and check their accumulated tips directly on the Order Screen.
Automatic Pizza Oven (Passive Income): A brand-new upgrade. This automated oven acts as a passive income stream by attracting its own unique NPCs.
Vending Machines (Passive Income): Four permanently active vending machines have been placed across the map. Unlock them via the delivery chain skill tree nodes to open a new "Vending" tab on your Order Screen. They generate daily passive income and change visually based on their current stock levels. Cold hard cash will help to boost your eco.
Rideable Skateboard: A handheld, rideable skateboard is now available! Jump to enjoy a dedicated drifting movement mode, deliver quests fast af.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45881717/0322a4dd746b7fdb15881f2e4efd21e2ff2d162a.png"]
Solo & Systems Upgrades
Solo Game Pausing: True single-player pausing is finally here! Opening the ESC menu or pressing the rebindable \ key will completely freeze the game and stop the entire simulation.
ESC Menu "Invite Friends" Panel: You can now view your Steam friends list directly from the in-game ESC menu and send individual lobby invites on the fly.
Dark Web Overhaul: We've added a highly visible roulette wheel when paying for contraband delivery probabilities on the Dark Web. We hope you'll find the new look and feeling way clear and fun.
Backroom Customization (ShadowDecor): A standalone tab on the Dark Web dedicated exclusively to your backroom. Customize your walls, floors, and rugs. Unlocks with BTC and scales with your Shady Level.
Mixed Pizza Orders: Customers are stepping up their demands. Incoming patrons can now order a mix of different pizza types within a single ticket.
Dual-Mode "Continue" Support: The "Continue" button on the main menu now perfectly remembers and launches the exact mode (Solo or Multiplayer) you were last playing.
Improvements
Machine Logistics: You can now order a new machine even if one of the same type is already en route the "one pending order per machine type" restriction has been removed. Machine cards on the screen are now sorted chronologically by unlock order.
Dynamic Open-World Quests: Open-world NPC delivery quests will now exclusively request pizza recipes you have actually unlocked, completely eliminating impossible quests. Dialogue lines have been generalized to fit these dynamic orders.
Multiplayer Invite Clarity: When a client tries to join a host who is currently running a single-player session, they will now be greeted with a clear "Host is in Single-Player Mode" status message.
Shady Reputation Buff: Increased the Shady Experience/Reputation reward point yield from 8 to 12.
Visuals & Audio: Refreshed environmental foliage and vegetation. Added missing Incinerator sound effects and overall sound design polish.
Shady Level Alerts: Added clear pop-up notifications to let you know exactly when new backroom customizations or open-world quests unlock after leveling up.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45881717/08e4b01500ee9c07f61cb3bd459f80b153101036.png"]
Bug Fixes
Multiplayer Desync: Fixed a permanent synchronization bug for late-joining players caused by the Steam reliable send buffer overflowing.
Performance Optimization: World items that clipped and fell beneath the floor geometry are now automatically wiped on load, successfully fixing sudden client-side FPS drops.
Photo Mode Save: Fixed an issue where taken photos appeared blank or completely white after saving the game we call it hardened JPEG persistence (Because it's cooler).
Cam-Stuck Ingredients: Fixed an issue where pizza cheese would permanently glue itself to the player's camera view after loading a save.
Boxed Pizza Inventory: Fixed a bug where ingredients would vanish from a pizza box if the player cycled away from the inventory slot and back.
Margherita Balance: Capped the maximum amount of basil allowed by the recipe; cooked Margheritas can no longer be overstuffed.
Tutorial Freezer Lock: Fixed a progression bug where players who sold their freezer during the tutorial phase were completely blocked from buying it back later.
Map Tracking: Purged old, residual quest markers from the map layout that fell out of sync with active quest logs.
Dark Web Interactivity: Fixed search bar focus locking. Additionally, the SkillForge tree will now instantly update your UI immediately following a node purchase.
ESC Menu Timestamp: Fixed a bug where the "Last Save" time indicator always displayed incorrectly due to local timezone calculation errors.
Basketball Physics: Baseballs and basketballs that spawn dynamically during runtime are now correctly registered and saved into the Unity Cloth physics component.
With this patch, we're bringing you a ton of major technical and gameplay upgrades that we think you're gonna love.Up next, we've got a busy summer lined up for you! We’re already working on brand-new missions, fresh mechanics to spice up the shady side of things, plenty of open-world surprises, intense timed challenges, and a few top-secret ideas we’re keeping under wraps for now so we don't spoil the hype. All of these updates will pave the way toward our 1.0 release, pushing the story to its absolute peak and taking us one step closer to the grand finale.
Now, go ahead and knock out those new quests and please, stop punching the poor beggar. We count the all punches in logs. Seriously.
Peace,
Bunch'o'Nerds Team
Major QoL & Systems Overhaul Update is NOW LIVE!
Hello pizza nerds or wheeler dealers! We’ve been working behind the scenes on a massive overhaul to streamline your kitchen logistics, expand your business tools, and squash some of the most stubborn bugs in the system.
Here is everything new in this major Quality of Life update:
🍕 Interaction & Quality of Life
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45881717/640f1c46da82e167af99bd2e80b66096f1f35394.jpg"]
Pizza Rack Targeting: You can now place pizzas into the specific slot you are aiming at. Holding a pizza near a rack will show a ghost preview of the targeted slot. Racks also display a content label: "Empty", the specific Recipe Name (if all pizzas match), or "Mixed" (for Lv.2/Lv.3 racks).
Beggar NPC Interaction: Pressing \ now opens a quick "Give $1 / No" prompt. Donating money causes the beggar to walk away and shifts your reputation toward the legitimate (Front) side. (Punching them remains a viable option, of course).
Cash Register: You can now press \ to confirm payments alongside the traditional \ key.
Shakedown Tweaks: The Hitman and shakedown police will now only knock you down and remove you from the area, they will no longer take your cash.
Quest XP: Open-world NPC deliveries now grant shady XP on top of BTC rewards, matching the counter-side shady quest progression.
Back-Area Lighting: Boosted the ambient brightness in the back areas of the shop so dim corners are properly visible. Light switches now glow faintly in the dark so you can always spot them.
🛠️ New Machines & Items
Cargo Box Shelf (3 Tiers): Store your cargo boxes neatly in dedicated slots instead of dropping them randomly all over the floor. Aim at the specific slot you want to fill, no more priority for the first clicker.
Lv.1: 12 slots | Lv.2: 16 slots | Lv.3: 24 slots.
Conveyor Oven (Lv. 3): A two-tier auto-cooking masterpiece. Just drop the pizza on a plate and walk away, it rides the conveyor to a perfect bake. No handles to grab, no burn risks.
Combo Press & Sauce Machine: Efficiency at its finest. This machine turns raw dough into perfectly sauced dough in a single step, skipping the tedious press-carry-sauce shuffle entirely.
Large Ingredient Container (Lv. 2): Features a massive 250-unit capacity. Refill far less often once your kitchen scales up.
Wall Switch (Switch Arm): A physical lever on your wall to disable the online courier or the Redline (shady) phone whenever things get too overwhelming. Pull the lever to literally "cut the power" to that feature.
⚙️ New & Reworked Systems
The Upgrade Tree
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45881717/b50fde1c6fe0a86f2a03d84ab559758d5f346c7e.jpg"]
Pizza recipes, machines, and shop expansions no longer auto-unlock upon leveling up. They are now purchased from a real, progression-based upgrade tree.
Front-side upgrades live under the Upgrades tab on the Kitchen Order Screen.
Shady upgrades live in the SkillForge on the Dark Web. Prerequisites must be owned before unlocking the next node.
Save Migration: Existing saves are automatically migrated! Every pizza recipe or machine you earned under the old rules will be unlocked for free upon loading.
Recipe Book (R Key)
Press \ anywhere in the world to open a full recipe book overlay. No more walking back to the kitchen computer mid-cook. Locked recipes are greyed out so you can plan ahead.
Added a subtle \ Recipes reminder hint to the bottom-right HUD.
Map & Quest Hub (TAB Overhaul)
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45881717/18195e9e3c13d048a4c4d079517427e6575fa9e6.jpg"]
Pressing \ now opens a completely redesigned map featuring a side panel that lists every quest NPC, cleanly filtered by Active / Available / Locked.
Toggle View: The map is now a toggle (press to open, press again to close) instead of hold-to-open.
NPC pins now dynamically dodge place labels and connect to their true location with a dashed line when they shift positions.
The map is automatically suppressed in the lobby, main menu, and during scene transitions to keep things clean.
Dark Web Reworked
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45881717/93ea7f87a9116018ef7a2037ada2da8ea929884e.jpg"]
New ShadowKitchen Tab: Shady ingredients unlocked through SkillForge are now purchased directly here. The ShadowMarket has returned to being exclusively for contraband.
New MinerHub Tab: All BTC miner purchases and capacity expansions have been moved to their own dedicated tab. Paying off your full debt now unlocks unlimited miner capacity.
The placeholder ShadowMail tab has been removed.
Smart Search: The search bar now matches the exact brand names NPCs use on the phone (e.g., "Wire Recorder 3000", "Rocket Fuel Coffee") rather than just the canonical item names.
Fixed Closets for Appliances
The Washing Machine and Incinerator no longer need to be fetched from Hobarey Depot as heavy cargo. They now live in built-in back-room closets. As you purchase their SkillForge upgrades, the closet contents will automatically swap from Lv.1 ➔ Lv.2 ➔ Lv.3.
HUD Scale Settings
Added a new HUD Scale dropdown menu in the Settings (ranging from 90% to 150%) so you can pick the perfect fit for your screen resolution.
⚖️ Balance & Core Changes
The Perfect Bake: The oven's "perfect" timing window is now fixed at exactly 6 seconds. The visual indicator and actual pizza quality now match perfectly if a pizza looks burnt, it really is burnt.
Bitcoin Miner Exploit: Bitcoin Miners can no longer be sold, successfully closing the buy-at-cap-then-refund exploit loop.
Removed by Design
We pulled these elements deliberately as their gameplay upside was minimal and they were causing unnecessary friction:
Forgery Station: Temporarily disabled.
Pizza Rack Lv.1 & Dough Press Machine Lv.2: Removed from the store catalogue (any already-placed ones in your shop will keep working normally).
Crouch Bind: Removed from the bindable keys list as it had no active gameplay function.
🌍 Polish Localization
Fixed over 110 entries! Restored missing Polish diacritics (ą, ę, ł, ż, ź, ć, ś, ó, ń) and added full Polish translations for the Map/Quest hub, tier-II upgrades, quest objective templates, Redline phone dialogues, beggar interactions, and recipe book flavor text.
🔒 Notable Bug Fixes
Save Pipeline Hardened: Fixed crashes when starting a new game on an empty slot, partial "looks-empty-but-actually-broken" saves, OneDrive/antivirus disk locks, and concurrent save collisions. Failures will now trigger on-screen warnings and log to a dedicated save folder. Broken partial saves are automatically cleaned up at launch.
Save Snapshot Timeout: Raised from 2 seconds to 5 seconds, ensuring slow remote clients no longer lose their inventory states during a save event.
Late-Joiner Sync: Fixed host/client synchronization issues for the oven, press, and sauce machine handles (they will no longer render in the wrong positions for joining players).
AI & Exploits: * Customers forced to leave at closing time will no longer drift away into the abyss with cash or credit cards floating in front of them.
Empty cargo boxes on a relocated Cargo Shelf will no longer visually reappear as full.
Cargo Shelves will now properly reject empty cargo boxes (no outlines, prompts, or ghost previews).
Visual Tweaks: The active map pin is now a clean, centered green dot instead of the old off-center arrow icon.
Colliders: Enlarged the Level 2 Oven handle collider, making it significantly easier to grab mid-rush.
Input System: Moved the Red line Phone ESC key handling over to the modern Input System to prevent interface lockups.
UI Clean-up: The Kitchen Order Screen's Machines and Upgrades tabs now share identical naming structures, ordering, and subtabs. Open-world quests will no longer double-display in both Active and Available lists.
Menu Stacking: The Recipe Book and Map can no longer be opened simultaneously; opening one will automatically close the other. The Recipe Book background now matches the order screen's cream aesthetic.
Deep Linking: MinerHub's "Unlock in SkillForge" buttons now link directly to the correct node on the upgrade tree.
While pushing out these fixes, we’ve already kicked off development on our next major patch. We are cooking up some yummy features that will get single-player enthusiasts hyped and completely charm fans of classic simulation games too!As we build out this upcoming major content step by step, we’re continuing to closely track community feedback, read through every support ticket, and work full throttle on updates and hotfixes. Remember to join our Discord for more information, chat with us or share your weird moments. Just make sure your pizzas don't burn we’ve got the rest covered! :)
Peace, Bunch'o'Nerds Team
Patch Notes v0.154
We spent the last few days hunting down some of the wilder ways your save files, inventories, and physics objects have been misbehaving. Here's what we tracked down:
New Features & Improvements
- Sliding Delivery Window: Added a new sliding window for the online order counter, with proper open/closed state that survives save/load.
- Last-Saved Indicator: The Quick Save section in the escape menu now shows when your game was last saved (just now / 30s ago / 5m ago / etc.), so you stop wondering if that save actually went through.
- Honest Save Button: The save button now actually waits for the save to finish before telling you "Saved." Previously it lied to you the moment you clicked. It now shows "Saving…" → "Saved" or "Save failed" with the real result.
Co-op & Networking
- The "Vanishing Inventory" Glitch: Fixed a major bug where, when the host saved the game, every other player's inventory would get wiped because their items only existed on their own client. Saves now collect a fresh snapshot from every connected player before writing to disk.
- Quit + Reconnect Mid-Session: Fixed an issue where leaving and rejoining the same session in one sitting would fail to restore your stuff properly.
- Dark Web Lockup: Fixed a bug where using the Dark Web Computer would leave you unable to interact with anything afterward.
- Door Desync: Fixed several client-side door sync issues in multiplayer.
- Disappearing Clothing: Fixed a bug where if a player wearing world clothing left the lobby, that clothing item would permanently vanish from the world. The only fix used to be buying a replacement. The world now releases the clothing properly when its wearer disconnects.
- Empty Photos for Clients: Fixed an issue where photos taken by the host would show up as blank placeholders for clients after a save/load. Each photo also now generates its own icon instead of stealing the first photo's thumbnail.
- Phantom Inventory Icons: Fixed icons disappearing from the host's hotbar whenever any other player dropped from the lobby.
Gameplay & Physics
- The "Red Line Backwards" Bug: Fixed a major reputation issue where successfully completing a Red Line phone order pushed your reputation toward the Front (legitimate) side, and failing pushed you Shady. The exact opposite of intent. Now properly rewards Shady reputation for shady deeds.
- Cargo Box Possession: Fixed supplier delivery boxes getting launched out of the truck like they were possessed — flying through walls, hovering in midair, sliding in from the left. Boxes now arrive at their slots like normal physics objects.
- Lobby-Full Cargo Scatter: Related to the above — when many deliveries arrived and a non-host client picked up a box, the truck slot never got freed, so subsequent deliveries piled up at the overflow point and exploded everywhere. Fixed.
- Locked-Out Held Items: Fixed a save/load bug where items dropped after loading the game would collide with the player because their physics layer wasn't restored correctly.
- Cargo Box Sprite Leak: Fixed an issue where, after loading a save, closed CargoBoxes would still show their content sprites floating over the closed lid like ghost ingredients.
- Drop Key Frozen After Load: Fixed a bug where the G drop key stopped working after loading a save — the basketball's trajectory system was blocking every other item until you shot the basketball.
- Ingredient Container Swap: You can now bring a different-type CargoBox up to a full ingredient container to swap it out. Previously you had to manually drain the container first.
- Basketball Trash Husk: Fixed a bug where throwing the basketball into the trash bin left an unspawnable visual husk in the scene that nobody could pick up. The trash bin now refuses the basketball outright.
- Held Item Lag: Items you carry while sprinting no longer drift behind you like they're on a loose leash.
Performance & UI
- Build Size: Reduced game install size from 6.3 GB to 4.1 GB. We did a deep pass on texture compression without affecting any visual quality you'd actually notice.
- Topping Crash Spam: Fixed a bug where placing toppings on a pizza generated huge amounts of warning spam per session. The allocation pressure was what some players were experiencing as a crash. Pizza building is now silent like it should be.
Save System Hardening
- Zero-Byte Save Files: Fixed the catastrophic bug where save files would end up filled with null bytes if the game crashed or quit at the wrong moment. We now write saves atomically and keep a .bak backup that auto-recovers your last good state if the live file ever gets corrupted again.
- Quit-While-Saving Race: The game will no longer let itself quit while a save is still flushing to disk. It waits for the write to finish, then exits cleanly.
Peace,
Bunch'o'Nerds Team
Patch Notes v0.144
We’ve been deep in the trenches fixing some of the more... creative ways you’ve been breaking the game. From gravity-defying pizzas to inter-dimensional item theft, here’s what’s changed:
New Features & Improvements
Quick Delivery: Added a new Delivery Window for fast access to the courier.
Movement Polish: Removed collisions from handheld items. You should no longer get stuck on the environment while carrying objects.
Lobby Security: Strengthened lobby protection to prevent unauthorized players from joining your sessions.
Co-op & Networking
The "Accidental Thief" Glitch: Fixed a major bug where pressing 'B' (Build Mode) as a host would "steal" whatever item your friend was currently holding, even if they were in a completely different room.
Miner Duplication & Phantoms: Resolved a complex issue involving Bitcoin Miners on the roof where players could end up with "phantom" miners or duplicated items in their hotbar.
Inventory Desync: Fixed instances where two players building/replacing items simultaneously would lock the non-host's inventory.
Photo Mode Sync: Taking a photo as a client will no longer cause the host's screen to get stuck in photo mode.
Achievements: Fixed a bug where non-host players weren't receiving the achievement for beating the game.
Gameplay & Physics
Camera: Patched a glitch where spamming the camera allowed players to clip through walls, enter locked buildings, or climb out of the map. No more noclip photography!
Photography: Fixed an issue where players could still enter "Photo Mode" and take pictures even after dropping their camera.
Hitboxes: Adjusted the Enforcer NPC's hitboxes. They can no longer punch you from superhuman distances.
Pizzas: Fixed several issues where pizzas and boxes would float into the air, lose gravity, or allow players to "double-sell" empty boxes.
Mechanics: Updated the robbery logic; keeping the "Shady Window" open while you sleep can now trigger a robbery regardless of whether the front shop is open.
Performance & UI
Optimization: Fixed significant FPS drops caused by high numbers of Pizza Racks. We’ve adjusted shadow rendering for pizza ingredients to keep your GPU from sweating.
Input Lag: Addressed reports of input lag during low FPS situations, especially when moving the camera rapidly.
Infinite Scrolling: Fixed a frustrating bug where menus would scroll infinitely (even with controllers unplugged).
Debt UI Correction: Fixed the text in the Debt Collector menu. It will now correctly state "Final Installment" instead of "First Installment" when you are about to clear your debt.
Debt Progression: Resolved a bug where players were getting stuck on the 6th installment with the 7th failing to trigger.
Miscellaneous
Police Chase: Fixed an animation bug where the policewoman would stand still while her "running" animation played if you entered the pizzeria.
Double Trouble: Fixed a rare bug where starting a new game could result in two "Source Machines" being spawned.
Peace,
Bunch'o'Nerds Team
Patch Notes v0.142
Hey folks! Usually these community posts come from the rest of the team, but this one's me. The "works on my machine" developer (the guy who actually writes the code) hopping into the announcements channel. So expect things to get a little more technical than usual. Bear with me, I'll try not to go full changelog-brain on you.
We did a pretty massive refactor of how every pickup-able item in the game works. All holdables (pizzas, ingredients, cargo boxes, cameras, weapons, contraband, instruments; basically anything you can grab) now run through a single, shared system. Sounds boring, but it means fewer weird bugs, less duplicated code, and way easier patches from here on out. A lot of small gremlins got quietly squashed in the process. Because this was such a big change under the hood, please keep those bug reports coming. If something slipped past us or a new issue popped up, let us know and we'll jump on it. Sorry in advance for anything we missed!
Bug Fixes
Your co-op partners' outfit and position now save properly. Reconnecting players show up right where they left off instead of respawning across the map.
Contraband items should stop falling through the floor or going invisible for anyone who isn't the host, and clients can actually pick them up with E now, instead of the prompt just not responding.
Late-joiners now see the correct state on machine handles instead of random positions.
Redline Phone: fixed the bug where you'd answer the call, get offered a quest, and then not be able to click Accept or Decline at all. Buttons actually work now.
Oven Level 2 can be exited with ESC like every other machine (sorry about that).
Dark Web browser doesn't yeet you out of the computer anymore when you type a word containing the letter "E".
Wall-mounted and floor decorations no longer get yanked around when you pick up a nearby counter.
Fixed the camera going absolutely feral (flying off into the void, weird snaps, general chaos) when pressing E on a machine that had another machine placed right behind it.
Fixed broken characters (the weird uXXXX gibberish) showing up in German and Polish text — special characters now render correctly.
Known Issues
Client inventories aren't saving properly right now. We know it's a pretty big deal and we're actively working on a fix, sorry about that, thanks for bearing with us.
Thanks for your patience!
Current Release
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Uploaded Jun 19, 2026
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System Requirements
How to Install
I Know a Guy.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
1.6 GB
23745820
EB94DC97
224d3bc4b3985c28a2221690f7a23cc96bfb9f46f351d2944c722ef55c4195bc
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Download I Know a Guy: Shady Life Simulator for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of I Know a Guy: Shady Life Simulator for free. I Know a Guy: Shady Life Simulator is a Simulation released by Bunch'o'Nerds.