HuniePop 2: Double Date How the Beat the Game on Hard (Incel) Difficulty

This guide isn’t meant for complete novices to connect-3 puzzles. However, if you don’t have a clue then you might not have worked out the most basic of techniques to employ: The Shimmy.
If you’ve got a token adjacent to a pair you want to match it with, rather than dragging and dropping it into alignment, pick the odd-one-out token next to it, and drag it along the length of the column/row and place it in an advantageous position (near to similar tokens). The rest of the tokens in that row / column will “shimmy” along the line to fill the empty space while you’re doing so, moving the original token you were going to match into the correct position for the match to occur.

As you progress the optimum playstyle will change, due to new baggage changing how the game plays and expanding your inventory possibilities; and new character match-ups confounding your builds.

The fundamental strategy is to use one character to farm Sentiment to power your inventory; and the other character to farm Passion to multiply the benefit of the matches you get. You alternate between the two to maintain Stamina.
This basic playstyle gets confounded very quickly by the Baggage system – which is where the fun and the challenge in the game comes from. Building around these limitations is how you make the final boss fight winnable.
Two alternative build strategies to employ when the baggage system (and item-limits) starts narrowing your choices are to focus on rewarding 4+ matches; or to focus on generating extra Moves via Joy tokens.

The other basic tactic you need to employ is strategically “exhausting” (or, circumstantially, upsetting with broken hearts – but I prefer exhausting as you can still gain the full value of the moves you use to deplete the Stamina) one girl to temporarily disable her baggage so that you can take actions on the other gal which would otherwise be impossible.
An example of this would be exhausting Ashley so that you can activate a flower or candle date-gift on the gal she is partnered with – Ashley’s “Allergies” baggage would normally prevent this.

As long as you are keeping track of the other girl’s Stamina (and any baggage that might artificially limit this, for example Lillian’s Asthma, or Jessie’s Emphysema) and are especially careful not to trigger an “upset”, you won’t trigger the insta-lose condition of having both girls disabled.

Here’s a break down of the gals and how they play, the section below these includes the builds I used on them.

Baggage
Miss Independent: Refuses gifts unless passion is at 30%+
Busy Schedule: Consumes 1 extra move after every 10.
Caffeine Junkie: Steals Stamina-token matches off her partner.

On a regular date, using food to get her to 30% passion is very beneficial in speeding up her item progression.
Busy Schedule can largely be disregarded, as you’re only going to typically see one proc of it on a hard date unless you’re dating a +Move build gal, and even then 2 moves wasted is pretty inconsequential compared to how much you’re gaining.
Caffeine Junkie is useful for keeping Lola fuelled for big high-value multi-match combos, although it’s not how I ended up building her (see Builds section below).

I usually rush to get 30% Passion on her and then work through her item build as normal.

Baggage
Emphysema: 1/5 chance she won’t recover stamina on her date’s move.
Depression: -1 Sentiment every 5 moves.
Busted Vadge: No benefit to Sexuality matches unless 4+

Jessie’s baggage is pretty easy to play around as long as you don’t forget about it: Make sure you don’t run down her partner’s stamina while Jessie is exhausted or upset, and that you’ve got some Stamina tokens ready for you to match if you want to take some stamina-intensive moves.
Depression can be dodged by only grabbing sentiment when you’re about to use it (and if you have to bank it, check the Depression tooltip to see how many turns you have to activate a date-gift before you lose sentiment and thus potentially the ability to activate the item).
Busted Vadge can be a real pain, but only if you forget about it, as you’ll end up wasting moves for no benefit.

Baggage
Teen Angst: Joy token matches cost you moves instead of adding to them
Asthma: 4+ matches cost 1 extra Stamina
The Darkness: The effects of Passion and Broken Heart tokens is reversed.

Lillian’s baggage represents a net gain. The Darkness effectively doubles the number of passion tokens available to both gals and lets you clear dangerous Upset risks off the board. Super useful.
Teen Angst is only a problem if you forget about it or get very unlucky with a blind-drop, just use her partner to clear up Joy tokens.
Asthma is awkward, but can be played around by just keeping track of Stamina matches and switching out to another gal.

Baggage
Tinnitus: Prevents Joy tokens from spawning whilst Zoey is active
Kinda Crazy: Shatters a random row of Tokens after every move Zoey makes
Aquaphobic: The effects of Sentiment and Broken Heart tokens is reversed

Another gal whose baggage is a net gain. Aquaphobic effectively doubles your access to Sentiment, which is super-useful.
Kinda Crazy is a great way of “refreshing” the board and keeping it well-populated with a variety of tokens, you can avoid its effects just by switching off to the other gal. Just remember to complete any high-value matches (4+ / Power Token, etc) before completing Zoey’s move or you run the risk of losing access to them.
Joy tokens aren’t super useful unless you’re building specifically to maximise your benefit from them or are matching them as part of a multi-match.

Baggage
Attention ♥♥♥♥♥: 15% chance to steal focus right before a move procs
Annoying as ♥♥♥♥: 15% chance for her matches to leave behind a broken heart token
Smelly ♥♥♥♥♥: 20% fewer passion tokens drop.

Sarah’s baggage is annoying but not game-changing. Her stealing the occasional proc isn’t usually the end of the world (although partnered with Lillian or Zoey can add extra risk of upset if she steals Broken Heart matches). Extra Broken Heart tokens on the field can be a pain, but can be used to fuel Lillian or Zoey or Amethyst Necklaces, etc.
Smelly ♥♥♥♥♥ is a smell penalty that can be sidestepped on Sarah by using Lipstick.

Baggage
Low Self-Esteem: Power tokens in a match negate the benefits of that match unless it’s an Affection token match.
Old Fashioned: If Lailani matches Sexuality tokens, she’ll become upset unless 15 moves have passed.
Sheepish: Blocks her and her partner from using Sex Toy or Hygeine Gifts

Lailani’s baggage is some of the most disruptive in the game:
Sex Toys are the most powerful item-type in the game (Butt Plug, Egg Vibrator, Magic Wand); Hygeine items are circumstantially useful for blocking especially annoying baggage.
Completely disabling one of the core token-types for 2/3rds of a date with the penalty of Upset is very limiting.
Losing access to nearly all Power token matches makes it very hard to pull out high-value combos in the late game.

It’s not really easy to play around these; exhausting Lailani early so her partner can trigger any sex-toys / Hygeine items they have is usually crucial. Aside from that, using Lailani as a support to set up later combos and give her partner time to replenish stamina is the best bet.

Baggage
Forgetful: 1/20 chance of removing a beneficial item from her or her date
Intellectually Challenged: Big moves cost extra Moves instead of extra Stamina
Hypersensitive: Drains 30% passion from herself and her date if Upset.

The severity of her baggage is really RNG dependent. On average you’d expect to lose one item per game, which isn’t that debilitating (particularly if you’d gotten all the use out of it you wanted to by that point: There’s generally no point in keeping Eyelash Curlers once you’ve bought all the date-gifts). However, as you can lose a vital item nearly immediately, or lose several items in quick succession, you can be very unlucky.
Early on Intellectually Challenged can be a real pain – causing you to lose Moves for little benefit. Later on it can circumstantially be beneficial (if Candy’s full of Passion and you want to knock out as many high-value matches in quick succession to maximise incoming Affection).
Hypersensitive’s a bit of a non-issue as you can usually avoid inflicting upset on a gal unless you’re particularly unlucky or careless.

Baggage
Abandonment Issues: Drains 5% of accumulated Affection every time you switch off of her
Vindictive: Removes a date gift from her and her partner if she becomes Upset
Emotionally Guarded: Immune to Broken Heart matches, doubles the amount of Broken Heart tokens that drop.

Abandonment Issues is a real pain when you’ve only progressed a little into the game, draining more affection than your can generally hope to recover with low-value matches. This forces you to either negate it with a hygiene item as a priority, or else exhaust Nora in order to access her partner. When you’ve maxed out your stats and you’re looking at 5k date goals, this baggage is far less of a problem, because 5% of your accumulated affection is chicken-feed compared to 100% passion 4+ Power token matches that will generate 10% of the total Affection you need in one go.
Vindictive is completely neutralised by Emotionally Guarded.
Emotionally Guarded is the most beneficial baggage in the game – used with Joy token farming build it can generate an insane number of extra Moves.

Baggage
Unsentimental: Reduces Sentiment token drop rate by 20%
Expensive Tastes: Disables Plushie or Souvenir date-gifts.
Gold Digger: Consumes 1 Move if you give a date-gift to her partner.

Brooke’s baggage is tricky, and can really amplify problems with other gals’ baggage (especially Polly’s). Exhausting Brooke so that you can give date-gifts is prudent (if you don’t end up squandering more moves on weak matches than you’d lose just giving the gifts outright); and is crucial if those date-gifts happen to be Souvenirs or Plushies.
Finding a way for Brooke to generate Sentiment without relying on Sentiment tokens being on the field is recommended.

Baggage
Easily Bored: Matching the same tokens twice in succession costs an extra move, unless it’s part of a multi-match (which resets this).
Commitment Issues: The 4th move in succession on Ashley makes her “uncomfortable”. When “uncomfortable” all matches will have a negative effect.
Allergies: Disables Flower and Candle date-gifts.

Ashley’s baggage is daunting at first, but straight-forward to play around if you keep track of it. The tooltip for Easily Bored will tell you the last match-type (if applicable), so you can just match a different token-type. The tooltip for Commitment Issues will tell you how many turns are left before Ashley becomes uncomfortable, so you can just switch out to the other girl as soon as Ashley becomes uncomfortable, take a move, and thus reset it.
Allergies isn’t too problematic, as Candles aren’t the most useful of gifts, and Flowers are very circumstantial. You can just exhaust Ashley to enable these on her partner, although exhausting Ashley before her Commitment Issues triggers can be challenging if there aren’t a lot of multi-matches / 4+ matches available. Upsetting her might circumstantially be preferable.

Baggage
One Pump Chump: Drains half her sentiment on *her* 4+ matches.
Self-Effacing: Won’t accept gifts until her date has received one.
Sex Addict: All sexuality matches go through her, and she’ll randomly absorb one sexuality token from the board when she moves.

Baggage is arguably a net-gain or neutral. One Pump Chump can be somewhat sidestepped by Lube and not doing any 4+ matches on her until she’s spent her Sentiment.
Self-Effacing is a bit of a pain and reduces the benefit of Lube to the tune on one item, but just having the other gal grab early sentiment and an item negates this (and if its a 0-sentiment item like the Ceramic Fish you’re not even losing any benefit from Lube).
Sex Addict can be downright useful if Abia’s at high passion and thus using the other gal’s Stamina to effectively feed her her favourite tokens – especially if you use the appropriate candle to improve the drop-rate.

Baggage
Jealousy: Polly will drain 5% of *total affection goal* of the date whenever her partner receives a date-gift.
Brand Loyalist: Disables Jewellery or Cosmetic gifts
Drama Queen: Drains 4 Sentiment from both her and her date when she becomes Upset.

Jealousy has a really painful cost attached to it, so timing it right / exhausting Polly when you give date gifts is vitally important if you don’t want to undo a big heap of progress, this is also true of timing Brand Loyalist gifts to coincide with Polly being exhausted.
Drama Queen is a bit of a non-issue, as you can generally avoid Upset unless you are very unlucky or careless, and in this case you’re even less likely to trigger upset whilst you’re banking substantial amounts of Sentiment.

The builds below are those I used to win the Nymphojinn boss-battle, but they should also work fine for regular dates too. That said, they are complete builds, so if you have limited inventory slots then they might be useless (no point in a slot #1 sentiment farming item if you have no slot #2 item to spend that sentiment on, for example.)

I’ll’ explain my rationale behind each build, and offer some thoughts on alternatives for non-Nymphojinn dates or fine-tuning to other playstyles.

Butt Plug, Glass Dolphin, Tropical Lei, Exfoliating Scrub

Lola I found particularly hard to build. Her requirement for +30% passion to activate items was really awkward on the Nymphojinn battle where you can’t use food to pre-buff her passion up to that amount.
I wanted to give her a +passion build as you’ve already got to have a 30% passion head-start before you can activate any build; but the fact that she’s consuming half-a-dozen passion tokens *before* she can activate any items actually makes date-gifts like the Egg Vibrator less efficient than on the alternative options. I settled on this just because all the non-standard passion-farming items were better used elsewhere.

Lube, Egg Vibrator, Beachball, Red Rose

Lube’s a must on Jessie, because her Depression baggage will drain away any sentiment you’re trying to bank for later. Red Rose isn’t essential and could be swapped out – it’s only there to make use of Passion tokens you might otherwise be dodging due to her Bust Vadge baggage, but Pinwheel’s a fine choice too.
I didn’t find Breast-Pump or the +Stamina 4+ match make-up to be essential on her, but they’re options if you’re struggling with her Emphysema.

Violet Pansey, Spinel Necklace, Topaz Earrings, Pinwheel

Quirky passion-farming build – efficient because you’re not taking passion tokens you could be using from the other gal. Spinel Necklace is to make use of all those passion tokens you’re not collecting with Lillian, Topaz Earrings are to make use of all those Joy tokens you’re not consuming thanks to Lillian’s baggage. Pinwheel is self-explanatory for a passion build. Topaz Earrings is probably the most circumstantial (chances are you’ll have Nora clear the board of Joy tokens before Lillian match comes up, for example), but can also be super-useful if the timing is right.
Breast Pump or the +stamina 4+ match make-up are both options to counteract her Asthma if you’re having trouble playing around it.

Violet Pansey, Aquamarine Earrings, Glass Dolphin, Exfoliating Scrub

Quirky sentiment-farming build, again self-explanatory.

Butt Plug, Lipstick, Magic Wand, Beach Towel

This build is a bit of a mishmash. The Lipstick’s essential for farming passion despite her fishy baggage. The rest is about getting enough sentiment to get Magic Wand out and power Beach Towel to fill up passion in lieu of tokens.

In regular dating I went with Anal Beads instead of Magic Wand so that if she steals focus for her least-favourite tokens you’re not losing as many point – the Magic Wand is a bit overkill, but it’s so powerful an item that it’s really useful to brute-force your way through her Nymphojinn pairing if she comes up. I also like Amethyst Necklace to get value out of the extra broken-heart tokens Sarah’s baggage leaves behind, but found Zoey and Lillian matches stripped the board of too many broken hearts for me to reliably make use of it.

Turqoise Tulip, Diamond Tiara, Hemp Bracelet, Tiki Head Charm

Lailani’s aversion to sex-toys really limits her ability to farm passion or sentiment. Tulip + Diamond Tiara lets you sidestep this, and on Nymphojinn the extra moves from Hemp Bracelet and Tiki Head Charm are both super useful. On regular dating I’d generally prefer to swap out both of these for a +Romance token candle and maybe the Romance Token jewellery item.

Turquoise Tulip, Diamond Tiara, Pig Plush, Pink Cosmos

With Candy I wanted to avoid any items that conveyed a persistent buff, as her baggage would just end up removing that buff anyway. Because she loses Moves when making big matches, I wanted to sidestep this with items that consume tokens. The Pig Plush is probably sub-optimal, given that Nora, Zoey, and Lillian all want Broken Hearts on the field to fuel their builds.

Spring Rain, Amethyst Necklace, Chicken Plush, Topaz Earrings

Nora’s build is all about turning the absolute ton of broken-heart tokens she generates into Joy and thus moves. She is *the* Nymphojinn destroyer if you can get a full item combo out effectively, because she buys you SOOOOO many turns to win the game with. The downside is that she struggles with Sentiment generation. The Spring Rain candle is an attempt to mitigate this; but circumstantially it can be a non-issue (other gal has Glass Dolphin, for example).

Eyelash Kit, Hair Brush, Blow Dryer, Makeup Palette

Brooke’s baggage starves the board of Sentiment tokens, Eyelash kit lets you sidestep this. The rest is a 4+ combo build – the Makeup Palette’s ability to save you moves is crucial, I’d consider dropping out Hair Brush if you can come up with something better – the +stamina on 4+ matches makeup would be viable if you’re finding you have more 4-matches available than you have stamina to do them with.

Eyelash Kit, Lipstick, Hair Brush, Makeup Palette

Because Ashley punishes you for having 4 consecutive turns on her, using up her excess Stamina with big 4+ matches is a great way of getting value out of her. Hair Brush can easily be swapped out for Blow Dryer or anything else as it is relatively low-value compared to the other items.

Lube, Magic Wand, Cinnamon Cider, Ladybug Plush

Pretty self-explanatory build: Abia squirts out sentiment, so Lube saves you from having to bank as much; she eats Romance tokens like there’s no tomorrow, so the rest of the items capitalise on that. Ladybug Plush – like all broken-heart eating items – is less useful on Nymphojinn battles where you’ll routinely find Nora, Zoey, and Lillian all fighting to make use of them.

Ceramic Fish, Egg Vibrator, Beach Ball, Pinwheel

Standard passion-farming build. I don’t really like Ceramic Fish, so that’s a strong candidate to swap out. Because Polly hates the other gal getting date-gifts, it was a convenient way of getting Polly a head-start on Egg Vibrator and thus Passion farming, at which point you can exhaust her and start working through the other gal’s inventory.

Really, this is a tough fight and will probably require a lot of first-round forfeits if you’re getting griefed by particularly bad boards of first-round pairings.

One thing to bear in mind is that, between each round, the bottom few rows are trashed. It can be a prudent strategy to consider leaving the top half of the board stocked with power / passion / sentiment tokens ready for the next round.

Getting Nora or Lailani’s +move combos out efficiently is really important in generating the extra moves you need to power up the gals’ inventories and close out the final rounds with high-value high-passion matches.