StH Affection

The affection system in StH is similar to other early HM titles, but it also has its fair share of intricacies, especially regarding the conversation system. This page will cover the basics of introduction, conversation, and gift boosts, as well as affection boosts from the Harvest Goddess questions and certain cutscenes. As a rule, StH limits each villager to one gift and one conversation per day, but there are exceptions which will be discussed below.

Goddess Questions

Upon starting any fresh file (by selecting “New Game” on the title screen), a cutscene with the Harvest Goddess will play where she tasks the player with saving the town. In this cutscene, she will ask three questions, each with a positive response and a negative response. These questions are:

1. “A puppy has been abandoned in the rain. What would you do?”
   • Take him home (POSITIVE)
   • Ignore (NEGATIVE)
2. “Someone has thrown trash on the ground. What would you do?”
   • Pick up (POSITIVE)
   • Ignore (NEGATIVE)
3. “You’ve found someone else’s money on the ground. What would you do?”
   • Turn it in (POSITIVE)
   • Take it home (NEGATIVE)

The positive response is always the first option, the negative always the second. Depending on the player’s responses to these questions, a +15 affection boost will be given to each of a different group of villagers. This boost only applies to the first year of the file, as the opening Goddess cutscene does not play for any subsequent New Game+ years. The response patterns are all positive, all negative, or mixed (any combination of at least one positive and at least one negative response). The villager groups are as follows:

• POSITIVE: Dia, Bob, Nak, Kurt, Louis
• NEGATIVE: Katie, Gina, Nic, Joe
• MIXED: Lyla, Gwen, Tim, Flak

Wallace, Woody, Ronald, Parsley, and Martha are not affected by any response pattern, so they always start with 0 affection.

Because the Goddess questions are only available on a fresh file, they can only be used in any% speedruns and the first ending completed in an All Endings any% run.

Introductions

An introduction is the first interaction with a given villager in a given year. Because New Game+ “resets the timeline” in StH, all villagers will start again at 0 affection and treat the player as if they had never met. The introduction boost varies for every villager and can also vary depending on whether the player is holding an item during this first interaction, called a gift intro; a few villagers gain no extra boost from the gift intro as compared with the normal intro (Dia, Kurt, Parsley, and Ronald). The introduction counts as the conversation boost for the day (but see the “Doubletalk” section below).

The introduction boosts for all villagers are given below.

Villager	Intro	Gift Intro
Bob	12	14
Dia	8	8
Flak	10	12
Gina	8	10
Gwen	12	14
Joe	8	10
Katie	10	12
Kurt	10	10
Louis	12	14
Lyla	10	12
Martha	10	12
Nak	10	12
Nic	10	12
Parsley	10	10
Ronald	12	12
Tim	12	14
Wallace	10	12
Woody	10	12

For a gift intro, the player may choose to hold any item whatsoever, whether or not it is a liked or disliked gift for the villager in question. If it is a liked gift, the villager will take the item from the player, as they would for a normal gift interaction, and this will count as the daily gift. Interestingly, if it is a disliked gift, the gift intro boost will still be granted, but the villager will not take the item from the player, meaning that it will not count as the daily gift, so the villager can still be gifted that day on top of the gift intro boost. As all villagers dislike weeds, this is commonly called a weed intro, since it is easiest to perform with a weed, but other items will work depending on the villager.

Gifts

Forageables

The standard gift boost in StH is +4. There are very few disliked gifts, so most gifts will give either +2, +4, or +6 (with some exceptions, like Parsley). Forageables are the quickest and best gifts, so they are the go-to strategy in any%, but detailed gift charts can be found here. Some basic data on forageable boosts for every villager can be found below.

Villager	Berry	Herb	M. Herb	Flower	Walnut	Mushroom
Bob	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Dia	+41	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Flak	+4	+4	+4	+0	+3	+6
Gina	+4	+4	+4	+4	+2	+2
Gwen	+42	+4	+4	+4	+2	+2
Joe	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Katie	+4	+4	+4	+4	+2	+2
Kurt	+4	+4	+4	+4	+4	+4
Louis	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Lyla	+4	+4	+2	+43	+2	+2
Martha	+4	+4	+2	+4	+2	+2
Nak	+4	+4	+4	+0	+3	+6
Nic	+4	+4	+4	+0	+3	+6
Parsley	+34	+35	+35	+0	+36	+36
Ronald	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Tim	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Wallace	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2
Woody	+4	+4	+4	+0	+2	+2

Note: Berry = Very Berry, Blueberry, Cranberry; M. Herb = Medicinal Herb; Flower = Moondrop Flower, Pink-Cat-Mint Flower

¹ +6 from Blueberry if AP > 40; ² +6 from Cranberry; ³ +6 from Pink-Cat-Mint Flower; ⁴ +4 from all berries if AP > 20; ⁵ +6 if AP > 20; ⁶ +2 if AP > 20

An important gift mechanic in StH is the affection threshold; for some villagers, the boost from a certain gift will change depending on their current affection value, and this can be crucial for some endings. The most notable case is Dia, who receives a +4 boost from Blueberries at first, but when her affection is greater than 40, they give +6, which greatly reduces the number of trips needed to gift her for the Treasure Hunt II ending. In some cases, the boost can even decrease at higher affection levels, such as Parsley’s boost from Walnuts and Mushrooms, which decreases from +3 to +2 when his affection exceeds 20.

Birthdays

Birthdays can sometimes play a role in StH runs, but the birthday boost is not static across all gifts, or all villagers. For example, Louis will get +6 from berries on his birthday, instead of the usual +4, but minerals do not receive any extra birthday boost (they remain +6 for him whether it is his birthday or not). A gift could even give less affection on a villager’s birthday, like for Gwen, who gets +4 from Hot Milk normally, but only +2 on her birthday. So birthdays should be treated entirely separately from normal days for routing purposes. A complete set of birthday gift charts can be found here (INSERT LINK).

Ending-specific boosts

Gift boosts can sometimes be affected by the player’s progress through a certain ending. This is not well-documented, but a notable example is Cake Contest, where Katie receives +7 instead of her normal +6 from the Golden Egg and Golden Milk after giving her the cake recipe. More testing is needed in this area.

Conversations

Conversation boosts vary depending on the villager’s location. These locations can be loosely divided as follows:

• Work: +4
• Non-work/day off: +5 or +6
• Walking: +2 (+4 for Ronald)

The work boost mainly applies at a villager’s most common daytime location; for shopkeepers this might be either inside their respective shop, or nearby (before the shop opens). The non-work or “day off” boost is often either +5 or +6, but this is far from universal, and it’s best to verify the boosts for each villager individually. A complete chart of all conversation boosts for all villagers can be found here (INSERT LINK).

Both of the standard conversation boosts apply only when the villager is stationary (or idly pacing within a set area). Whenever a villager is in transit from one area to another, the walking boost is applied instead, and this only counts for +2. As such, it is ideal to talk to a villager before they leave a stationary location, or wait until they reach a stationary location before talking to them.

Doubletalks

In general, villagers are limited to one conversation boost per day, but there are some exceptions, though all the details are not fully understood. It seems as though the actual rule is one stationary boost and one walking boost, but some testing has shown that even a third boost can be possible in some fringe cases. This tactic is commonly called a doubletalk.

In practice, it is usually not useful, as a villager typically remains stationary for quite some time before moving to the next location, so waiting there just for an extra +2 walking boost is not worth it. However, if there is natural downtime in a run where a villager could walk past after being talked to earlier in the day, a doubletalk could be free extra affection. In Bluebird, the player must wait until 2pm on two separate days to trigger some required cutscenes, so Louis can get a full stationary convo boost in the morning, then be doubletalked for an extra +2 each day. It’s worth noting that the stationary and walking boosts can be done in either order, so a villager could get a walking boost then a stationary boost, and vice versa. Also, as far as introductions are concerned, the villager’s location, whether stationary or walking, is irrelevant, and the intro mechanics are applied as described above. Doubletalks are still possible after an introduction, but in some cases they seem to apply a unique penalty to the doubletalk in a way that requires more testing.

Gift/Talk Order

Non-work conversation boosts (+5 and +6) are only applied if the villager is talked before gifting. Indeed, if the gift precedes the conversation, the convo boost will revert to +4. A different (typically shorter) textbox plays as well. This is especially important in an ending like Bluebird, where Louis is only gifted on his days off (for +5 convos), so to fully minimize the number of trips, he is always talked before gifting. For any conversation that is normally +4, there is no affection penalty for gifting first.

Because the conversation text is usually shorter if it follows a gift, this can be used as a small optimization in cases where the convo boost is already +4, or cases where the affection loss is negligible. For example, Gwen’s conversation text can be quite long in Endangered Weasel, especially as the ending progresses, so it is best to always gift her before talking, since her go-to location is a standard +4 conversation anyway. Optimizing textboxes is still fairly uncharted territory for StH, but it could hold some potential in the future.

Special Dialogues and Cutscene Effects

Sometimes a villager will show a special dialogue at certain affection levels, and it may be associated with a larger boost. For example, at 147 affection or higher, Dia will ask the player is they are her friend; responding “Of course” gives +7 and counts for the daily conversation. These seem to be uncommon, however.

In the course of certain endings, villagers may have different dialogue associated with the story. These dialogues seem to have their own associated conversation boosts, so in some cases they can “overwrite” the normal boost for a given location. For example, Gina has a dialogue about the Goddess Dress that will play upon the first conversation after the third cutscene is triggered for that ending. This dialogue always gives +4, regardless of location, so if she is talked outside the Villa for this dialogue, normally a +5 location, it would mean a loss of 1 affection point.

Cutscenes

The main purpose of raising affection in StH is to trigger the correct series of cutscenes that lead to the target ending. These cutscenes often give a small affection boost to the target villager(s) as well. It is rarely, if ever, worth it to trigger optional cutscenes just for extra affection, but for routing purposes, cutscene affection can be considered “built in” to the route and should be accounted for. All cutscenes and their associated boosts can be found here (INSERT LINK).

Practical Applications

In routing singular any% endings and All Endings any%, the Goddess questions are the first place to start. The strategy is to give the response pattern that will boost whatever villager is the main target for the ending being attempted, e.g., for any% Horse Race, the positive pattern can be used to boost Bob, for any% Endangered Weasel, the mixed pattern can be used to boost Gwen, etc. In cases where multiple villagers must be gifted, it’s best to get the Goddess boost for the villager that will end up requiring the most gifts. The only cases in any% where both target villagers belong to the same response pattern are Cake Contest and Goddess Dress, where Katie and Gina both get +15 for the negative pattern and are involved in each other’s endings.

Small affection differences of +1 or +2 might seem trivial, but since most StH runs involve just gifting and sleeping, the optimization lies in keeping the number of interactions to an absolute minimum. Weed intros, doubletalks, and non-work +5/+6 conversation boosts are a few ways to squeeze out just a few extra affection points, and could be the difference in saving an entire trip.