Persona

The persona is a capped points system and is your attitude towards characters. Either a ‘Mr Nice Guy’, ‘Bad Boy’ or ‘Neutral’ approach.

It’s capped to ensure a change of attitude towards a character has an actual result, or consequence. This avoids a situation where you could totally change your approach to a character but see no obvious reaction from the character.

The cap is -5 to 5 points and generally starts at 0 for the majority of characters. The difficulty setting controls the threshold between the levels. On Easy, a score of 0 is neutral. For Normal, a score of -1 to 1 is neutral. On Hard a score of -2 to 2 is neutral.

The persona is a per character system, not an overall system. Therefore you can be a nice guy with one character and a bad boy with another. Each character has a preference for their preferred persona, with some characters liking either but in different ways.

At the start of the game you see Catherine getting boxes out of a car. Offering to help is considered ‘Mr Nice Guy’ whilst avoiding it will be ‘Bad Boy’.

As the game progresses you will need to be either a ‘Mr Nice Guy’ or ‘Bad Boy’ to access a characters intimate scenes.

Characters should reveal their preference through their actions and dialogue. Whilst some characters will have an obvious reaction to the wrong persona (for them), others may be more subtle. These reactions could be anything from a character not wanting to talk with you, to being stuck in the friends zone with another.

It’s worth paying attention to a characters mood. As sometimes you may need to pick the opposite persona approach to increase your Affinity score. You need to decide which is more important in that instance. Just because the character preferred the opposite action in a specific choice doesn’t stop your persona moving out of their preferred zone as a result.

Helping Catherine carry the boxes inside will lead to a scene with her mother. You have an option to call her Victoria, or Mrs Wilson. Using her surname is the ‘Mr Nice Guy’ approach and calling her by her first name is the ‘Bad Boy’ approach. 

Catherine would generally prefer the Nice Guy approach. However, because she's been moving a lot of boxes and is tired and a little irritable; in this specific instance the Bad Boy approach makes her smile, thus raising her mood and your Affinity score.

This is also an example where you have to choose between the women as neither option will please both of them.

Your available actions/dialogue will be set based on your persona with the main character in the scene (which in most cases is the first character you interact with for that event). This can result in interesting interactions if you cross paths with two characters at the same time who view your persona differently.