Your first minute: one tool, one dummy, one read
The hotbar holds eight slots and the last one is locked, so at the start you are choosing between a handful of options, not twenty. Pick the first slot and walk up to a dummy.
Every hit in the recorded run printed what happened under the crosshair: the body part, the damage, and the dummy's remaining HP. That readout is the whole game's feedback loop — it is also the only place the game tells you what your weapon actually did.
Read the panel instead of guessing
Sample a target before you commit to a strategy: hit the same part three times and note the numbers. The clip numbers above came from one weapon in one recording; yours can differ, and the panel is the ground truth.
A dummy that drops is not necessarily dead. The Mega Update notes say dummies can be knocked out and get back up, and injured dummies get weaker over time — so the HP bar, not the body, is your signal.
Turn the kill into a weapon
Kills are the unlock currency. The official description says kills unlock new weapons, and the +6000 Kills product says the same total unlocks every kill weapon — so the ceiling is at most 6000.
Your first session is done when three things are true: a dummy reaches 0 HP, your total goes up by one, and you can name the requirement on one locked weapon in the shop.
Hits land, HP does not move
Three checks in order: is the crosshair on the body, is the tool actually equipped, and is the dummy out of range. The panel answers all three — no number means nothing connected.
The dummy fell but the total did not move
A knockdown is not a kill. If there is still HP on the bar, finish it. That distinction is also why limbs are a trap early on: a severed arm bleeds and dangles, but it costs you ~21 swings at −14 to close out one 300-HP dummy.
Where this goes next
Weapon unlocks shows how to read a shop requirement and what the paid shortcuts really cost. If you would rather measure than read, the kills planner turns your own numbers into a decision.