Affection

**Affection** is a pet-bound mechanic that increases cumulatively as a player takes care of their pets.

## Affection Rewards

**Affection** gain is visually represented by ☺ in a pet's activity logs. A pet with the merit Affectionless cannot gain **Affection**. Pets can gain **affection** when the player performs the following actions:

* Pet a pet
* Feed a pet their favorite flavors
* Feed a pet something that they are craving (\* The ☺/♥ shows up in the separate hand-feeding log)
* Harvest crops in the Greenhouse together
* Build things together from blueprints

Pets can also gain affection from completing the Shirikodama adventure.

When a pet builds up enough **affection** from cumulative actions, they will gain an **affection reward**, represented by ♥.

An **affection reward** can also be gained immediately by performing certain actions:

* Guess a pet's favorite flavor
* Take good care of a pregnant pet, resulting in a baby born with an **affection reward**
* Cause a pet to forget specific refundable merits

**Affection rewards** can be spent to gain an unlocked merit. Pets can also gain a level in a skill of choice if they are at least level 10 or possess at least five merits.

### Self-reflection

When a pet gains 5 ♥, they become eligible for a **self-reflection** point. They can unlock their point by conquering the appropriate Heart Dimension level. (Currently, only the first 6 Heart Dimension adventures are implemented, and it is not possible to gain more than one **self-reflection** point from **affection**. The only other way to obtain a self-reflection point is to feed a pet an Anniversary Poppy Seed\* Muffin.)

A **self-reflection** point allows a pet to do one of the following:

* Reconcile a troubled relationship
* Join a new Guild (only possible if the pet is already in a Guild)

## Hand-feeding

Hand-feeding a pet can add **affection** from three potential sources:

* Favorite flavor
* Total hand-fed food hours
* Cravings

**Affection** gained from favorite flavor is combined with any **affection** gained from hand-fed food hours when calculating the total **affection** gained from a single "Feed" action.

The amount gained is represented with a rough visual estimation from +☺ to ++++☺ (or simply ♥ if the action resulted in an **affection reward**).

* +☺ represents between 1-4 points
* ++☺ represents between 5-10 points
* +++☺ represents between 11-20 points
* ++++☺ represents 21 points and above

Depending on the amount fed, some randomness may determine whether the hand-fed food hours will award extra **affection** or not. Therefore, if the meals are large enough, feeding the same combination of foods and spices can sometimes result in slightly different amounts of **affection**.

It is not currently known exactly how much **affection** is gained from satisfying a pet's cravings.

### Hand-feeding Favorite Flavors

Pets will gain **affection** for every hand-fed point of their favorite flavor. Different foods can contain different amounts of flavor, even within the same grade. The current flavor grades include:

* flavorful (1-2 points of flavor per unit)
* very flavorful (3-4 points of flavor per unit)
* extremely flavorful (5 or more points of flavor per unit)

Foods that are more concentrated in a favorite flavor can grant more **affection** per food hour. A larger meal size can quickly dilute the amount of flavor per food hour, which sometimes makes smaller foods more efficient sources of flavor.

For example, Mint contributes 2 points of planty flavor (1 per food hour) while a Really Big Leaf contributes 3 points of planty flavor (3/8 per food hour). This makes Mint a more concentrated source of planty flavor even though a Really Big Leaf is very planty.

### Hand-feeding Food Hours

Depending on the total food value given to a pet during a "Feed" action, there is a random chance that additional Safety and **affection** will be granted from hand-feeding. It is possible to feed enough food value to achieve a 100% chance of triggering the bonus (or, inversely, so little food value that the chance is 0%). Although it fills pets' stomachs, junk does not contribute real food value.

Every 8 food hours given to a pet in a single "Feed" action can contribute up to 1 extra point of **affection** from the hand-fed food hours bonus. The random chance reaches 100% on every 8th food hour, and it is possible to gain multiple **affection** points from the bonus if the total food amount is large enough. Note that only consumed food hours award bonus points; if the pet's stomach does not have the space remaining to accommodate the entire food value, some potential **affection** points may be wasted.

Because pets have limited stomach sizes, it is generally easier for a pet to gain more total **affection** from favorite flavor than they can gain from hand-fed food hours. As such, **affection** from hand-fed food hours should be considered a nice supplement rather than a necessity.