This HuniePop 2 guide will take you through all the major and important gameplay mechanics that you may find either confusing or hard to master. Not only this, but it also answers some troubling questions about how to do certain things like giving gifts to your dates, using items, and how to master the Match-3 minigame so you can win more often.
Table of content:
Double Date System
HuniePop 2 uses the same familiar Match-3 puzzle minigame layout from the first game, with a handful of additional new features introduced. Instead of one girl, you now have two girls to date at the same time, thus mixing the old formula of how the Match-3 minigame is played.
Instead of matching tokens for only one girl, you now need to share your focus on two girls. While the overall score point system is shared between the two girls, there are various other systems in place that the girls do not share with each other like Passion, Sentiment, Stamina, and Affection tokens.
What seems like a good move for one girl, might be a disastrous or low-benefit move to another girl. By switching your focus between the girls, you can find new ways to score more points and avoid failure.
How to Prepare for the Match-3 Minigame
Before each date, you are given the opportunity to talk to the girls, spoil them with gifts, food, and smoothies. This is the section where you prepare for the coming date, also known as the Match-3 minigame.
By talking to the girls you gain one extra move for the minigame but also drain their stamina as a trade-off. Once you decide to jump into the minigame, the girls automatically recover 2 stamina points to get you started, but the lower their stamina at the start of the minigame, the more challenging your start will be.
If you find your start of each minigame to be hard, try not to drain the girls close to exhaustion before the minigame. If you find that you run out of moves towards the end when close to a win, you might want to talk to the girls before the minigame to earn those extra moves that may make a difference between a victory and defeat.
To get more extra moves out of the girls before the minigame, buy food from the store to recover their stamina and exhaust the stamina yet again by talking to the girls.
Some store items also provide passion and sentiment boost, allowing the girls to start the minigame ahead of their normal starting stats. Keep a lookout for good items to give to the girls before each date to secure your victory.
How to Equip the Girls with Date Gifts
By using the in-game store, you can purchase gifts and items by using the game’s seed currency which is earned through talking to the girls and playing the Match-3 minigame.
Open up your Gifts-inventory where you can see all the items you have purchased from the store. Hover over an item with your cursor to see what type of item it is.
When you see an item that says ‘Date Gift’ in its description, that is the one that can be equipped in one of the slots shown below the girls’ icon. Any other gift is consumable that you can give to the girl directly by dragging them on top of the girl outside this window.
How to give Gifts to Your Dates
You may have tried forcing different kinds of gifts and smoothies into one of the slots next to the girls’ icon in the Gift-window, but these are only reserved for specific types of gifts known as Dating Gifts.
What you must do is, drag the desired gift on top of the girl outside the Gift-window for them to consume it. Do not make a quick drag but instead hold the item on top of the girl until the game registers what you are trying to do.
Once you have given the gift of your choice, you may then open the Stats window to observe your date’s increased stats.
By leveling up Affection stats by giving the girls smoothies, you increase the number of points you score for the corresponding Affection tokens, thus making the match-3 minigame easier to win.
Giving unique gifts targeted towards a specific girl also helps make the minigame easier. Passion level will increase the girl’s affection multiplier while the Style level will help generate more power tokens when affection tokens are matched. If this makes no sense to you, do not worry, all you need to know is that you want to spoil the girls with gifts to level up their stats in order to make the match-3 minigame easier to beat.
Baggage System
When you talk to the girls, you may learn negative sides about them that manifest in form of a ‘baggage’ curse.
Each girl comes with their own unique passive curses that increase the difficulty in a unique way when playing the Match-3 minigame. If you have been having a hard time succeeding in dates, it might be because you have not paid attention to the passive curses the girls may carry.
Passive curses are always displayed at the corner of the screen above the girls during a Match-3 minigame. Learn what the curse does by hovering your cursor on top of it.
Some curses may be mild and not very game-changing, but others can dramatically change specific things about your girls that you should absolutely be aware of. For example, a girl might be into a specific type of affection token indicated in their information tab, but a baggage curse can cancel or even penalize this.
Leaving Baggage-curses ignored is a grave mistake that can throw your entire game off and make you confused why you are not scoring points when you normally should.
Affection System
Affection tokens are the colorful icons you try to match three pairs in a row. The amount of scores you point when matching tokens is based on the girls’ personal stats.
Each girl is equipped with their most favorite and least favorite Affection token that is displayed under their icon during the minigame. You should almost always try to aim for matching their most favorite Affection token as long as there are no other elements active to mess up with this formula like Baggage curses.
Just because the girls have their least favorite Affection tokens displayed next to their favorite one does not mean you should completely avoid them. They simply give the least amount of points for you but points nonetheless. If there is nothing better for you to score at a given turn, matching the least favorite Affection tokens is a fine strategy and a way to make room for better ones to fall down.
Passion System
By matching the pink Heart tokens, your girl’s passion rises. The more passion she has the more points you score when matching any type of Affection tokens.
At the start of each minigame do not waste your time trying to match Affection tokens, instead, go for the hearts to max out the girls’ passion and then start scoring points for real.
You should almost always focus all your attention trying to max out at least one girl’s Passion to 100% or close to it in order to maximize the number of points you score with each Affection token.
Once the girls’ passion has been maxed out, ignore the heart tokens, they serve no further purpose to you.
Sentiment System / How to Use Items
The blue Teardrop-like tokens give Sentiment to an active girl on the screen, thus drawing you closer to activating the girl’s gift-ability item. As soon as you have collected enough teardrops, the passive gift-ability item becomes available for use.
Drag the gift-ability item on top of the girl to activate it similar to when giving gifts to girls outside the Match-3 minigame.
Both girls have their own Sentiment counter. Do not just collect teardrops for one girl or you will never get to activate the gift-ability for the other girl as well.
If your girls are not equipped with gift-ability items, or if they are already used for the remainder of the match, you should ignore matching the teardrop tokens, they have no further use to you and is just a waste of a turn.
Stamina System
Both girls have their own stamina that drains with each move you make. You only drain stamina for the active girl on screen.
When you exhaust a girl’s stamina, that girl goes on a break and you are unable to use the girl for a while until they recover. Each move you make recovers one stamina point for a girl you are not focused on no matter if they are exhausted or not.
If both girls get exhausted, you lose the game. Avoid exhaustion by matching Stamina tokens and swapping between the two girls regularly. Only match Stamina tokens when it is absolutely necessary since one girl can always recover her stamina for free with each turn when not focused on.
Sometimes exhausting a girl on purpose can be beneficial. Some Baggage curses bring negative effects that cancel themselves out when the girl is exhausted. It is When you fail to keep both girls away from exhaustion, it is all about managing to keep at least one girl in the game while the other one rests until you can find and match three stamina tokens to get ahead of the exhaustion.
If you have an exhausted girl only one stamina point away from recovering, you will not lose the game if your next move puts another girl in an exhausted state since the already exhausted girl will then jump back to continue. Do not be afraid to make important moves that put one of your girls in an exhausted state, part of the gameplay requires taking bold risks.
How to Win at HuniePop 2
HuniePop 2 is a puzzle game that punishes for ignoring many of its gameplay mechanics. The game is very challenging, and even though it is partly based on luck, there is a lot you can do to secure victory.
With a limited amount of moves, each move you make should be a move towards scoring points or preparing for maximizing scoring points in the end game. There is no single right way to win the match-3 minigame but perhaps these tips will help you understand the game better and what you should focus on.
What Tokens to Go After First
When the minigame begins, you first should focus to max out the girl’s passion by matching heart tokens, and collect sentiment by matching teardrop tokens. Only once these two tasks have been fulfilled you may begin to score points by matching affection tokens of different types based on the girls’ interest.
You want to first max out the passion to make each matched affection token score more points, and you want to collect sentiment so you can start using your items.
Match hearts and Sentiments in early to mid-game and Affection at the end game. Harvest stamina and bells whenever necessary.
Hoarder Tactic
The best way to reap the most amount of points is by lining up more than three Affection tokens of the same type. More often than not, the best strategy to get to line up more than three Affection tokens is by focusing your attention elsewhere for some turns while allowing more of the same type of Affection tokens to pile up on the board for later harvest. Just because you see a perfect three-match right in front of you does not always mean you should go for it.
Normally a good player knows not to score points early into the match, but rather prepare for the end game by focusing on heart tokens to max out Passion and teardrop tokens to unlock gift-ability items.
You can try to score points from the very start of the match but without high passion or useful items at your side, the tokens you match provide very low points not enough to win the minigame. That is why you want to hoard the best Affection tokens on the board to be matched later when they have aligned perfectly for a combo and when they provide the most amount of points thanks to maxed-out passion.
Tower Fall Tactic
Instead of lining up Affection tokens in a horizontal way, you should try to line them up vertically whenever possible. By lining up vertically, you allow more tokens to fall further towards the bottom of the board, thus making way for easier token matching.
The more you can push tokens towards the bottom, the easier time you will have to match them and create combos. Do note that this tactic is based more on luck, and using it does not guarantee victory. Sometimes the tokens that fall simply do not provide great opportunities for matching, but more often than not, this tactic has proven to work better compared to when matching tokens horizontally.
Saving Bells Tactic
Bells grant extra moves when matched. They are quite enticing to go after the first opportunity given but just like with the hoarding tactic, you want to avoid matching bells too early. Let them pile up as much as possible and once you truly begin to need them when running out of moves, that is when you harvest them.
HuniePop 2 provides Gift-ability items that grant extra moves for every two bells or broken hearts on the board when consumed. These are the kind of items you want to equip your girls with because they are the ones that are a true game-changer. Not only will you get the benefit of the item gaining extra moves the more bells you have on the screen, but after the item is used, you also get to match the bells to get even more moves!
I hope this guide has been helpful to you, and if it was, drop a comment letting me know. Now, if the guide did not provide an answer to your problem, let me know so I may update the guide.
For more lewd Match-3 puzzle games, check out Isekai Quest and Wish. You can also go and check out the first HuniePop from Steam in case you have not had the chance to experience it yet.
