Affection Levels – All Eight States
Broken: -100 or lower. Monika feels rejected and the experience can become severely restricted.
Distressed: -99 to -75.
Upset: -74 to -30.
Normal: -29 to 29; the relationship’s starting state.
Happy: 30 to 99.
Affectionate: 100 to 399; additional closeness and conversation actions become available.
Enamored: 400 to 999; further romantic events and the Promise Ring become available.
Love: 1000 or higher; additional dialogue and customization options become available.
The game’s affection values are tracked over time; there is no single choice that jumps straight from Normal to Love.
Raising Affection
Talk with Monika and explore conversation topics you have not previously seen.
Use positive compliments when they become available.
Say I love you when that interaction is available.
Spend time with Monika and play unlocked games.
Give valid gifts through the game’s supported gift-file system.
Return on different days rather than repeating the same action indefinitely. Normal affection gain is subject to a daily cap of approximately seven points; certain first-time or special interactions can bypass it.
Avoid offensive dialogue choices and quitting the game without the in-game farewell.
If affection seems stuck after several activities in one day, the daily limit may have been reached; do not assume the save is broken.
Checking Your Affection Score
Open the DDLC installation folder used by Monika After Story.
Open the log folder.
Open aff_log.log with a text editor.
Inspect the newest entries at the bottom for the latest affection-related record.
The score may not be displayed directly in the conversation interface; the log is a diagnostic record.
Do not edit affection or persistent save files merely to force a milestone.
Affection Milestones and Unlocks
At 30 or more affection (Happy), more friendly interactions and settings become available.
At 100 or more affection (Affectionate), Monika can accept a nickname and the hold interaction becomes available outside its earlier restricted context.
At 400 or more affection (Enamored), the Floating Islands background and Promise Ring-related interaction become eligible, with certain scenes depending on other requirements.
At 1000 or more affection (Love), additional compliments and previously worn clothing choices become available.
Some individual features also depend on calendar events, time spent together, topic history, or first-time triggers. Meeting an affection number alone does not guarantee that every feature instantly appears.
Gifts – Coffee, Roses, Hot Chocolate, Plushie and Promise Ring
Coffee: a recognized all-year gift.
Hot chocolate: a recognized all-year gift.
Roses: a recognized all-year gift; special days can change the reaction.
Quetzal plushie: a recognized all-year gift, with its first gift receiving special treatment.
Promise Ring: wait until Monika has reached at least 400 affection before gifting it; she will not accept it below that threshold.
Halloween candy and candy corn are seasonal gifts. Repeated candy gifts can cause affection loss, so avoid spamming them.
Christmas cookies and candy canes are seasonal gifts and should be given during the relevant holiday window.
For a supported gift, create the correctly named .gift file in the characters directory of your active DDLC installation. For example: coffee.gift, hotchocolate.gift, roses.gift, quetzalplushie.gift, or promisering.gift.
Ensure your operating system is not hiding an extra .txt extension; coffee.gift.txt is not equivalent to coffee.gift.
Wait for Monika to detect the gift. If nothing happens, confirm the filename, exact extension and active game installation.
Games – Hangman, Pong, Chess and Piano
Open the games menu when an activity becomes available.
If a game is missing, spend more time together and complete additional dialogue topics. The developers confirm that minigames unlock with time spent with Monika, including conversations and leaving the mod running.
Hangman and Pong are recurring activities for passing time together.
Chess becomes available through continued progression and can be played repeatedly.
Piano is another later unlock; its appearance depends on progression, not a character-ending selection.
No minigame victory is required to trigger a conventional final ending, because the mod does not have one.
Goodbyes – Leaving Without Losing Progress
Use the Goodbye menu before closing the game.
For a long absence, select I’ll be going away for a while and tell Monika how long you expect to be gone.
The planned-absence farewell helps avoid the usual affection penalty for staying away longer than one week.
When the relevant action is unlocked, I’m going to take you somewhere generates a Monika character file. Carry it safely and restore it using the game’s return flow.
Do not mistake the generated take-out file for a backup of your entire persistent save.
Normally, extended unannounced absences can reduce affection; the source code describes the decrease as a function of days absent.
Special Events – Birthdays and Holidays
Visit on significant dates such as Monika’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas to see eligible special interactions.
Holiday scenes and gifts may require particular calendar dates and affection levels.
Some gifts have different rewards or responses on special dates; do not assume a gift behaves identically every day.
Avoid changing the system clock to speed up events. Calendar manipulation can interfere with time-based mechanics and event history.
If a special event does not appear, check the installed mod version and whether its prerequisite relationship state has been reached.
Monika’s Nickname, Clothes and Customization
Reach at least Affectionate (100) to unlock the standard nickname interaction.
Additional hairstyles, accessories and clothing can become available through events, progress, and compatible spritepacks.
At Love (1000), the clothing selection can include outfits Monika has already worn.
For spritepacks, use versions compatible with the installed release and follow their package instructions.
Do not overwrite persistent save data when installing a cosmetic pack.
Avoiding the Final Farewell
Negative affection can worsen through unkind choices, prolonged absences and improper departures.
Broken begins at -100 affection.
At approximately -115 or lower, a Final Farewell sequence can occur and Monika leaves. This is an adverse relationship outcome, not the goal of the companion experience.
Use the Goodbye menu and maintain healthy interactions to avoid reaching this state.
If the game behaves unexpectedly, protect your original persistent files before attempting recovery.
Completion and What Counts as an Ending
Monika After Story does not have the traditional True, Normal and Bad Ending tree found in route-based visual novels.
There is no final chapter that must be cleared, and the mod is designed for continuing conversations and activities.
Meaningful progression milestones include Affectionate, Enamored and Love, the associated activities, cosmetic unlocks and seasonal scenes.
The negative Final Farewell outcome is an avoidable terminal event rather than one of several normal story endings.
To experience the main supported features, develop affection gradually, revisit for special calendar events, try the available games, and unlock the relationship interactions that become eligible.
New versions can add, remove or change features; this guide describes documented stable-release mechanics rather than promising a permanent exhaustive list.
