OOOOH~ I didn't notice there was a tips thread on here due to its age. Well, I posted this on tumblr a few weeks ago, but I'll post it here too:
· Play the game on easy mode unless you’re going after the normal and hard difficulty achievements. Save yourself the pain
· Sterling’s route is by far the hardest, so I recommend not playing his route first.
Relationships and Endings
· You have to have at least 30 relationship points with a guy by Christmas to be able to activate his Dream route
· You don’t start going out with Nigel or Sterling until after Christmas
· Don’t worry if Felix’s dream route doesn’t feel like a dream route, it’s intentional
· The 0-9, 10-19, and 20-29 relationship endings cannot be viewed in-game due to needing 30 relationship points to activate the friendship event during Christmas
· There are actually 121 endings
· The 100 dream endings are drastically different from the others
· Approximately, the 0-50ish endings are similar and the 51-99 endings are similar
Skills You Should Ignore
· Poker is never used. EVER. Just ignore it unless you’re going after achievements
· Riding is only used three times, two of which you can use Animal Handling instead. Just ignore it unless you’re going after achievements
· Animal handling is only used seven times (which sounds like a lot, but it isn’t), and most of those you can use another skill. Just ignore it unless you’re going after achievements
· Since you want your stress to be 0 almost constantly, ignore raising the stress skills and instead use inspiration cards for obstacles where stress skills are the only option
Skills You Should Raise
· Raise perception, deduction, and problem solving early on in the game. The best way to do this is to choose ‘Look out over the City’ in New York as it raises perception and deduction. There isn’t a good way to raise problem solving in New York until after you beat The Serpent Empire Adventure, which unlocks ‘Search for Other Raeks Artifacts’, which raises problem solving and occult lore
Stress
· ALWAYS start your caper with 0 stress. Always continue capers with 0 stress. Stress impacts obstacle skills drastically, especially on higher difficulty modes.
· For example, if the easy obstacle should need 10 to pass it, but you have 2 stress going in, now it will take 11 to pass it. On normal mode, if it took 25 to pass it, but you have 2 stress going in, it will instead take 27. On hard mode, if it took 60 to pass it, but you have 2 stress going in, it will instead take 63.
· Since you want your stress to be 0 almost constantly, ignore raising the stress skills and instead use inspiration cards for obstacles where stress skills are the only option
· If you really want to raise stress skills, I’d raise awareness the most and fisticuffs the least
Capers
· An obstacle being ‘red’ on the caper requirements list in-game doesn’t always mean that you have to pass it. Sometimes if you fail it it just moves on, sometimes it makes you rest and retry, and sometimes the obstacles are perfectly normal and the game is just showing it in red due to an error.
· You have to beat The Main Adventure in Peru for The Albino Alligator Adventure to unlock
· You DO NOT have to do all of a guy’s capers to get their capers to activate. You just have to follow along with their main adventure. For example, you can view Roland’s main adventure events in Egypt, not do his Egypt caper, view his main adventure events in New York, and then do his Australian caper even though you didn’t do his Egyptian one. HOWEVER, Sterling is the exemption to this (Sterling is usually the exemption to rules). You must finish his Egyptian adventure to unlock some of his main adventure events, you must finish his Indian adventure to unlock some of his main adventure events, and you must finish his Peruvian adventure to unlock some of his main adventure events.