Moonstone Island Romance Guide

Like all good life sims, Moonstone Island offers players the chance to romance its NPCs. All the game’s supporting cast is romanceable, and you can start courting any of them as soon as you load up the game. However, there are many things to take into account when it comes to starting a relationship.

How Do You Raise the Friendship Level in Moonstone Island?

Each of the potential romantic candidates in Moonstone Island has a friendship level, marked by hearts on the social menu. This bar also shows up below each character’s portrait when you speak to them.

There are many ways to increase this bar. The simplest way is to use the Talk option when speaking to them. You’ll be presented with three options: Chat, Joke and Flirt. Each of these options has a chance to either raise or lower the friendship level with that person. Chat starts at 70%, Joke starts at 50% and Flirt starts at 10%. However, the lower percentage options can potentially provide a greater friendship increase if they’re successful.

There are multiple ways to increase these percentages. The first is to simply talk to everyone often. Each heart that fills up adds 10% to each interaction with that NPC. By talking to enough people regularly, you can eventually unlock skills on your Skill Tree that add an additional percentage point to each for everyone.

For a quicker boost, a Fluffox Spirit can help you. This fox-like spirit can be found on Earth islands at low levels. If you have one following you, it adds an additional 10% boost to social interactions.

You can also continue engaging in conversations until new Skill Tree options show up. Under the Social header, there are multiple skills you can acquire. You can start the tree with the Great Listener perk, which helps you gain points 5% faster. After getting that, you can go on to get Caring Person for a 10% boost, then Nice Person for a 15% boost. This branch also eventually leads to the Moonstone Bracelet crafting recipe, which you need to make things more official.

There are also some additional skills you can pick up. I recommend Chatty. That increases your chance of chatting succeeding by 10%. You should also pick up Flirty. That increases the chances of flirting succeeding by 10%. Finally, either Funny or Generous is another good option, but you can only get one of those two. Funny increases joking chances of succeeding by 10%. Meanwhile, Generous lets you give people two gifts each week instead of only one.

What Gifts Do Different Residents Like in Moonstone Island?

Another way to increase your friendship with an NPC is to give them gifts. For the most part, the villagers are accepting of any gift you’ll give them, but there are some notable loves and hates. Here are some that I found:

• Cleo is a historian and loves old things. This can even include something as simple as Coal.
• Ferra is the town blacksmith and loves it when you hand her something you’ve forged yourself, such as ingots. Even though she pays extra for gems, gifting them to her isn’t much more of a boost than any other item in the game. She doesn’t hate them though.
• Gaiana loves rare plants, so any plant not found on Moonstone Island itself gives a big boost.
• Ofelia seems to like most things, but she responds extremely negatively to eggs.
• Ossono loves flowers, even ones as common as the Flax Flower.
• Paolo loves seeing the craftsmanship of anything made of wood, so handing them something from the Decoration Station is a good bet.
• Quill likes it hot, so give him Fireballs, Heat Plants or other hot items. Conversely, he hates anything cold.
• Rowan seemed to enjoy any gift that was a bit spooky. They responded well to plants from more dangerous islands such as the Fire islands.
• Tobin was tough to figure out favorite items for. Interestingly though, he hates being gifted fish, despite buying them for a greater price than other merchants.
• Zed is overworked and tired all the time, so he loves it if you bring him coffee. Much like Tobin, he hates the items you normally want to sell him, so don’t give him any Spirit Resources.

How Do Dates Work in Moonstone Island?

You can invite the townsfolk on dates at any time from the start of the game. Naturally, characters with higher friendship levels will be more receptive to your request than those of lower levels, so asking right out of the gate isn’t the best idea.

When you ask a character on a date, you are offered three locations: the Beach, the Tavern and the Hot Spring. Each of these is progressively easier to be rejected for without a high enough friendship level.

On a date, there will be a short story sequence which contains three possible responses. One will be a hugely positive reaction, another one will get a pleasant reception while the other will reduce your friendship level. Pick whichever sounds the most positive to you.

There is a fourth date option, however. This option is grayed out by default, as there is only one way to access this. As you unlock more options on the Skill Tree, you can unlock the ability to craft a Moonstone Bracelet. This can be done from a Moonstone Enchanter and requires 3 Moonstones and an Iron Ingot. If you gift this to your chosen NPC, you will officially start a relationship with them. Once you’re in a relationship, you can then take dates at your partner’s house.

Moonstone Island is available now for PC and Nintendo Switch.