This is a semi-reliable guide for cheesing alpha mode dates up to around 20k points. After this, it’s difficult to meet some of the thresholds, but I’ll see how far I can get and update later.

For ease, I do this with just one pairing (Lillian and Abia) because their baggage, other than Abia’s One-Pump Chump, doesn’t mess with the strat too much.

SETUP

Girl 1 Setup: Pig Plush, Spinel Necklace, Pinwheel, Bracelet/Ring that grants 1% affection for each token of on type on the board

Girl 2 Setup: Lube, Spinel Necklace, Pinwheel, Bracelet/Ring that grants 1% affection for each token of on type on the board (preferably the same one as on Girl 1)

In addition, make sure the lube user has at least 3 stamina and the pig plush user has at least 4 stamina. This makes it so you could potentially give these gifts on the third turn. More sentiment is better, since less turns matching sentiment means more turns matching tokens at max passion, but those are the cutoffs. You can also talk to each for two extra moves if you need that over stamina.

STRATEGY

Give the lube to Girl 2 as soon as possible to lower all other date gifts. Get Girl 1 to 8 sentiment and Girl 2 to 4 sentiment as quickly as possible. Once you have them there, match big combos until you have a total of at least 15 passion and broken heart tokens on the board. MAKE SURE NONE OF THEM WILL CLEAR WHEN YOU CONVERT BROKEN HEARTS TO PASSION. This will ruin your ability to max passion on both girls quickly. Use the pig plush, then give each girl the spinel necklace. This should raise each to at least 75% passion, or potentially higher if you made passion matches earlier. If needed, make passion matches to raise them each to 100%, which should be easy with all of the tokens on the board.

After you have them at 100% passion, play the game normally, scoring as many points as possible. Match anything you want, EXCEPT for the token type corresponding to the ring each girl has. Ideally, you want at least 11 of these on the board by the last turn. If you can get more, that’s even better. Additionally, make sure each girl has at least 5 sentiment for their remaining date gifts. On the final turn, or before if you know you’ll make it to the goal, give them each their last date gifts. You will receive 40% of the goal from the pinwheels, plus (2x)% from the bracelet/ring, where x is the number of tokens of that type on the board. Hopefully this will let you reach the goal.

ADJUSTMENTS

Other pairings may be better than Lillian and Abia, especially if they have opposite (or at least different) token preferences. I haven’t had a chance to experiment with them.

I also haven’t tried giving them bracelets/rings that correspond to different token types. If anyone has an opinion on this or the previous comment about different pairings, feel free to let me know.

You can give the bracelets/rings mid-game, but don’t give the pinwheels. You need that passion to score as many points as possible from matches.

I hope this strat helps some people get through alpha mode dates as they progressively get harder. I’m stuck around date #50 or so, but hopefully as more people get to this point we can develop better strategies.

Good luck, and happy matching!