Fifteen types. No two the same.
A Zip is a creature you own, not a unit you build. It arrives with its own stat spread, one of twelve natures, and a mood that changes by the day. You meet them out on the map and win them over one at a time.
- 15types in the chart
- 12natures, one per Zip
- 1 in 4,096rolls shiny
Fifteen types, and a chart worth learning
Every Zip carries one type or two. The chart behind them is deliberately lopsided rather than tidy, because matchups worth learning are what make picking a squad a decision instead of a formality.
- NormalNibbly
- FireEmberix
- WaterBublet
- ElectricZappler
- GrassSprucin
- IceFrostnip
- FightingPunchip
- PoisonToxifly
- GroundDiggle
- FlyingWingle
- PsychicMystikit
- BugSkitterby
- RockBouldit
- GhostSpookle
- DragonDraklet
The name under each type is one of the Zips that carries it.
Four the game teaches you early
- WaterFire×2
Water puts a fire out. Everybody starts here, and the rest of the chart is learned one surprise at a time.
- NormalGhost×0
Nothing at all, and it runs both ways. A Ghost cannot touch a Normal either.
- IceDragon×2
Ice and another Dragon are the only two things that land properly on a Dragon.
- WaterRock+Ground×4
Bouldit is Rock and Ground at once. A dual type stacks both halves, so Water arrives four times over.
Send the team the chart says can win. A squad picked on raw power will sooner or later walk into the one matchup that does nothing whatsoever.
Two Nibblys are not the same Nibbly
The species decides where a Zip starts. Everything after that is rolled for the creature standing in front of you, and it stays with that creature for good.
Its own stat spread
HP, attack, defense and speed each roll somewhere between 0 and 31 the moment a Zip exists. Four rolls, never taken again, shown to you as a single percentage of what it could have been.
0 to 31 on each of four stats, decided once
One of twelve natures
A nature lifts one stat by a tenth and takes the same off another. Adamant trades speed for attack, Bold trades attack for defense, Timid trades attack for speed, and Hardy asks for nothing and gives nothing back.
HP is never touched, so no nature can leave a Zip fragile
A mood every day
Every Zip in the world wakes up in one of five moods, and the mood moves the stats it fights with that day. A Zip that likes you wakes up in a good one more often.
Rolled once a day, weighted by how well you have treated it
What a mood is worth
- Excited+15% attack, -10% defense
- Happy+10% to all four stats
- NeutralNothing either way
- Tired-5% speed
- Grumpy-10% attack, -5% speed
Loyalty is the day it had
Every Zip carries a loyalty from 0 to 100 and arrives at 50. It moves once a day, by what that Zip spent the day doing, and it is what tilts tomorrow's mood roll. A roster that never comes home slowly stops liking you.
- Resting in the Den+4
- Standing watch on the wall+2
- Waiting in the Zipbox0
- Out with a squad-3
- Held at a poacher camp-4
A better Den rests them better, up to twice the usual gain. Feeding, grooming and playing with a Zip lift its loyalty too, and grooming lifts it most.
You do not buy a Zip. You talk one round.
Wild Zips turn up out on the world map and they do not wait. Winning one over is a short sequence, and every step of it is a decision with a real number attached.
- 1
One turns up on the map
A wild Zip appears somewhere out in the world, no more than two at a time, and it wanders off after an hour or two whether or not you went to look. Further out is where the good ones stand.
- 2
Send a squad to tire it
Walk up to a fresh one and it is in no mood to go anywhere with you, because almost none of its willingness is available while it still has all its fight. A squad's combined level against its own is what wears it down. Send far too much and it bolts for good rather than tires, so the game tells you which of the two you are about to do.
- 3
Offer it something
Any berry helps a little. One matched to the Zip's own type helps a great deal, and there is a berry for each of the fifteen types. They come out of poacher camps and off travelling merchants. Heartroot is refused by nothing at all.
- 4
Try, knowing the odds
The chance is quoted before you try, from the same figure the roll itself uses, so it is a judgement rather than a surprise. A miss usually leaves the Zip standing there. Sometimes it bolts, which is what stops a rare one being a matter of throwing berries until it works. Any Zip that comes home goes straight into your Zipbox.
The long walk pays in the creature
The one find worth changing plans for
A shiny is the same species in a colouring almost nobody sees. One in 4,096 rolls that way on the doorstep, and closer to one in 1,365 out at the far edge of the map.
It survives every prestige
Prestige resets a village, and only the Zips your Sanctuary shelters come through it. A shiny comes through anyway, without taking one of those places. Nothing else in the game is kept for free.
It is its own row in the Zipdeck
The shiny is stamped separately from the ordinary catch, so a shiny of a species you already recorded is still something you did not have. That stamp stays long after the individual Zip is gone.
You will not miss one
The game does not let a shiny go past quietly. It stands in its own light on the map and again in the encounter, and the rare colouring is the sprite it keeps for the rest of its life.
The compendium fills itself in
Every species a world turns up gets a row, and each row moves through three states as you play. It is kept per player and per world, so a new world is a fresh page.
- Not found yet
A blacked out silhouette and a number. The row exists so you can see how much of the world you have not met.
- Seen, not befriended
Meeting one in the wild opens the entry: its name, its types, its description, and the stats every one of that species is born from.
- Befriended
Winning one over marks the row for good, alongside how many of that species you currently own and whether you have ever had a shiny of it.
Base stats are the one thing your roster cannot tell you, because an owned Zip only ever shows what it fights at today, with its own spread, its nature and this morning's mood already folded in. The Zipdeck shows what the species starts from. Some rows belong to species that never appear in the wild at all.
The Den and the Zipbox
Two homes, and the split between them is the whole reason an unlimited collection stays worth collecting.
The Den
Where your active Zips live. Four places at level 1 and one more for every level after, counted per player, so a fuller world never squeezes anyone's roster. Only a Den Zip can stand watch, train or march.
A Zip moved in settles for a few minutes before it can work
The Zipbox
Where every other Zip waits. Free, unlimited, and it does nothing at all. Keep a hundred if you like. What you can field at once is your Den's level, and what you own is your own business.
Nothing you win over is ever lost for want of room
The wall
Three spots at Wall level 1 and one more per level, again per player. A Zip on the wall is one of the ones that will meet the next wave, and guard duty is work, so it warms to you slower than one that spent the day resting.
Emptying the wall never makes a wave smaller
Three turn up at the village. You keep one.
That is how a world starts, and the choice cannot be undone. Every Zip after it is one you went out and won over yourself.
Free to play. No download, it runs in your browser.