The Last Days of Friendship Valley features a card-based tactical Friendship Encounter system that puts you deep into the nitty-gritty of negoatiation and interpersonal interaction. It's the mechanical core of the game: your character build affects both the results of encounters and your choices outside of them.
To give an example of how it works: Let's say you're trying to mediate an argument between two other goats. Things are getting heated, and it's up to you to keep the peace. Depending on how you've built your character, you might...
- Approach with caution, starting with small talk with one goat to build rapport and take their attention away from the argument, and tamping down their anger until they give up the argument. At that point, you can focus on the other goat, suggesting that they apologize; with luck, they'll do so, resolving the encounter.
- Wade into the argument by starting a completely new fight. Once you're the center of attention, you can start to resolve that argument by apologizing for the mess you caused. Of course, if you're not careful, you might end up losing your head...
- Get at the real issue as quickly as possible by poking at touchy subjects. Sure, there's an argument happening, but is anger really the problem? Or is there an underlying grief that needs to be resolved? Of course, this might up triggering a whole new problem: now one of the goats is crying and the other one feels awful.
- Completely ignore the argument, shouting "NICE WEATHER WE'RE HAVING, HUH" at louder and louder volumes until everyone else gives up trying to have a conversation. This generally doesn't go well, but, like, maybe if you're loud enough it'll work?
All the while, you need to handle your own emotions; if you're not careful, you'll become the problem.
As you can see, there's a great deal of personal freedom in how you approach Friendship Encounters! All these examples are literal descriptions of various approaches to resolving an encounter. The resultant system allows for extremely deep roleplaying, not just in how you interact with other goats, but in how your character reacts to stressful situations.
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