FAQ

General Gameplay Questions

Q: Do I have to have a phony to participate? Can I use someone else's phony or an NPC for activities? You can use other people's phonies to participate in activities. You'll need their permission to do that, though! You cannot use NPCs, because then we'd run into issues with NPCs either being injured all the time, or being invulnerable to injury and becoming more desirable to use in foraging than player phonies.

Q: Can I trade/sell my phony? Yes, and for whatever you want! You can trade phonies for stuff from other ARPGs provided their rules support that kind of thing as well.

Q: How does double dipping work? You can use a piece of art for foraging and one other activity provided that the art meets the requirements for both foraging and that activity. You can't double dip with two activities that aren't foraging, though! Actitivies that count for this include: Breeding, Schooling, Buddy Prompts, Monthly Prompts and Healing Art.

Q: Can I collaborate on art? You can collaborate on art pieces, however the loot for foraging or events will go to whoever posted the comment. You're free to divide the loot as you'd like in agreements with your collaborator, but since only one piece of art was created in the end, the same amount of loot goes to collab pieces as solo pieces.

Q: How long will it take for activities to be rolled? It depends on the activity! The highest priority on updates is the medical center, which we're trying to keep to updates within the same day. The others may go up to a week.

Q: Do I have to be part of the dA group/discord server? You'll need a deviantART account to participate in activities since that's where our approval comments live. The discord is optional, but being in there lets you ask questions and get quick responses, host art elsewhere than dA and see smaller updates that aren't always worthy of big journals dedicated to them.

Q: When do dated activities (i.e. monthly prompts or limited time events) usually end? (This is garden writing this) I try to get to updating activities with end dates around noon of the next day after they're said to end, (i.e. an event ending October 31st will be closed Nov 1st at 12 pm) to allow for all timezones on Earth to cross over to the next day, and then some extra time because midnight in AoE time is 7 am for me and I don't feel like doing game maintenance as soon as I get up. I use EST, so noon in that is 4 pm in UTC, 9 am in PST, 2 am of the following day in AEST, and so on. (This answer would become very long if I continued to list timezone conversions!)

Specific Gameplay Questions

Q: Do NPCs required for prompts have to be fullbody? Nope!

Q: How does breeding with a chimera work? The chimeric parent will "split" into its two genotypes, and each genotype will become parent to one of the two offspring. Having a chimeric parent doesn't increase the chances of the offspring being chimeric.

Q: For schooling and breeding with other players, does each person have to draw one piece? One piece has to be drawn per phony, but that doesn't mean that it has to be drawn by each person who owns those phonies. You can outsource this art, or have one person do both pieces, and so on.

Q: Do clones have to look exactly like their parents? No, and we don't encourage it either! You have a lot of freedom with a single genotype for a phony, so feel free to change your phony's look from their parent's.

Q: Who gets the loot from foraging with schools? Whoever posts the comment gets the loot! The party leader (the phony listed for the first ML entry, not any of the supporting ones) will take the brunt of any injuries sustained during the forage regardless of if their owner or someone else posts the comment.

Design Questions

Q: Do you have to use all the color swatches? Nope! The only color you need to use is the base color, the one included with the rest of the genes. The three extra colors listed at the bottom of a geno are entirely optional!

Q: I have a phony made before the ARPG. How can I get it on the masterlist? Head to the conversions center to have a genotype given to your old phony so it can be imported!

Q: Do phonies have teeth? They can, or they might not! It's up to you. Phonies by default have raspy bits in their mouth like a cat's tongue or whatever freakshow is going on inside a sea turtle's mouth, but as for actual toothy teeth, those can be added if desired. A lore reason to back this up might be that phonies are susceptible to all sorts of small mutations that add protrusions to their skulls, but aren't actual in-game mutations.

Q: Can I add drop shadows or halos to imports? Yep! They just can't be too large. A highlight or little shadow around the lines is fine, though.

Q: Can I make unofficial phonies/dream designs/etc? Sure! But you won't be able to play with them until they become official.

Q: "Is this design okay?" If you want admin approval before you submit your design, or say you have a question about a specific marking, head to our discord's QnA channels!

Lore Questions

Q: Why do phony skeletons Look Like That? Phonies and palindromes are the same species with mutations that change their anatomy. Phonies haven't been around long enough to evolve out of their extra spines, so they look very similar to their cousins underneath their skin. Phony spines are a lot more flexible than ours are, so the extra spines don't get in the way too much. They act like gastralia that dinosaurs have.

Q: What's up with phonies glowing? Do they still glow? In the beginning, phonies were bioluminescent. They used to have genes that controlled what color each marking would glow. However, that made the genotypes look awfully convoluted, so that part was axed. Your phonies can still glow, but now it's up to your interpretation what colors/patterns glow! Maybe they have hidden glowing patterns, or their whole body lights up bright, or maybe they don't glow at all. That's up to you!

Q: What role do humans play in phonies? Humans used to live on Confibula but don't anymore. They left a lot of junk behind, though.

Q: What other creatures live on Confibula? All of the official organisms on the planet are hosted on the species page, but as time goes on this page will be further fleshed out and filled with more critters. What we have right now certainly isn't the full diversity of Confibula!