The studio's system
What it hides matters as much as what it shows.
Every creature here carries two versions of each body part: one on display and one kept away. It is that invisible second half that lets something rare skip generations and turn up when nobody expects it.
Four words that keep coming back
The vocabulary is the same in every collection. What changes between them is which parts exist and what fits inside them.
Body part
A piece that can change appearance: the body, the pattern, the eyes, the legs. Each collection has its own.
The version on display
For each part, the option that is showing. It is what you see when you look at the creature, and what the creature gets judged on.
The version kept away
The other option, carried without being shown. Invisible, but it passes to the babies: this is where the surprise of something rare born from two ordinary parents comes from.
The full genetics
Both versions of every part put together. A creature always carries more than it appears to, and that is what makes breeding worth it.
The breeding
How a baby is born
Three moments, always in this order, and you control none of them. Plus two rules on top: the flip, which now and then converts the whole child to the pattern both parents wear outside their base, and mutation, which can write something into the stored gene that neither parent had.
Each parent gives half
For each body part, each parent passes on one of the two versions it carries, drawn at random. Nobody chooses which one comes out.
The draw happens at conception
The baby's entire genetics is decided the moment the egg appears, and stays sealed until it is time to open.
One shows, the other waits
At birth, the baby draws which of the two versions it received will show. The other one does not vanish: it stays tucked away, ready to turn up in a future generation.
An example of how a rare one comes back
- 1.An ordinary creature breeds with a rare one. The baby receives one ordinary version and one rare version, and draws the ordinary one to show. On the outside, it is ordinary.
- 2.That baby grows up and breeds. Nobody suspects a thing: it looks ordinary, and so does its partner. But the rare one is still in there, tucked away.
- 3.In the draw, the version that comes out of it is precisely the hidden one. The grandchild is born rare, from two ordinary parents, two generations later. That is the moment the whole system exists to produce.
Rarity
Four tiers
Every trait falls on one of these four tiers, and each tier enters the world through a different door.
Common
from the shopEvery creature sold is born Classic head to legs. It is the game's floor: a common is never a surprise, common is bought.
Uncommon
from mutationWhen a stored gene mutates, 85% of the time it turns uncommon. That door never closes, and during launch every pack still brings one uncommon as a gift.
Rare
mutation + flip10% of mutations land here. A 100% rare creature is almost never born ready: it is assembled, gathering the right parts on two parents until the flip happens.
Mythic
mutation, rarely5% of mutations. And above it still sit the special eyes and the markings, so rare they show up once in a thousand-odd boxes.
The secret is taken seriously
The hidden version is genuinely hidden. It does not appear on the creature's page, it does not appear to the owner, and there is no way to peek at it from outside.
It only becomes visible information the day it expresses in a baby. Until then, the only way to find out what a lineage carries is to breed and see what comes out.
Want to see it with real numbers?
The insect collection is the first to run on this system, with over 2 million possible looks. And you can check the math: the lab computes the exact odds of any breeding.
Open the lab