So, you’re onboard the frenpet bandwagon.

You’ve swapped some ETH to $FP and minted yourself a digital pet. A pet you can neither touch nor show your love to. Just how you envisioned the digital future to be.

Welcome.

But you don’t know how to play the game, collect points, Bonk people, scale through the ranks, and earn ETH rewards.

I was on the same side of the table. I minted my first pet when $FP was around $1.5. Couldn’t understand what to do, so I logged out and didn’t look back until after two weeks or so, when $FP was already over $6. Then I faded the game until $FP reached $10.

Then I bought my first 10 $FP tokens and started playing. And the game’s addictive, to say the least.

Today, I assume I know most of the game mechanics. So, let me help you understand.

You can mint a digital pet for free. But keeping it alive costs you your precious $FP.

You must feed your pet mushrooms that cost 0.2 $FP each. Each mushroom keeps your pet awake for 3 days.

And don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t feed it more than one mushroom at a time. You’ll just waste your FP. Because it doesn’t add to the time your pet already has.

Every mushroom just refreshes the timer to 3 days.

If you forget to feed it on time, your pet goes into hibernation. And the first mushroom to wake it up costs 4 $FP.

Be vigilant and don’t miss to feed your pet.

To paint a better picture, for 4 $FPs, you can keep your pet alive for 60 days if you feed it on time.

You can also upgrade your pet by staking 10 $FP or more and win some extra points + boost your ETH reward.

The FP you spend on upgrades is staked and then dispensed to you over the next 30 days or less. You can claim the dispensed $FP within the app at any time.

When you mint a pet, by default, it has an attack and defense score of 10.

Currently, the only way to increase your attack or defense score is through the gatcha machine.

You get one chance to play the gatcha every time you go up one level in the game. Based on how lucky you are, you will win or lose attack or defense points.

You can check how far you’re from your next gathca by clicking on “Upgrade Pet“ on the frenpet home page.

So far, I lost one defense point and gained back 5 from the 3 times I played. (Hoping next time I gain some attack points).

There’s no sure shot way of winning. It’s a game of chance and you can maximize it if you know the formula.

Here’s how it works:

When you Bonk a player, only your attack score and the defender’s defense score matter. Your defense score is of no use.

Your probability of winning a Bonk is based on this formula:

Your attack score/ (Your attack score + Opponent’s defense score)

So, say, my attack score is 10. And I bonked a player with a defense score of 8.

By the above formula, my chances of winning are

10/18 = 0.55.

Or 55%.

If you win, you get 0.5% of your opponent’s total points. If you lose, the opponent gets 0.5% of your points.

To complete a Bonk, you have to sign 2 onchain transactions that cost anywhere between $0.01 to $0.1 in gas each.

You can only Bonk once every 30 minutes. And a player can be Bonked by someone only once every 60 minutes.

But before you Bonk, read this.

It’s a huge mistake if you’re simply choosing one of the three recommended players on the Explore page.

Instead, click on the trophy icon on the Explore page and explore the leaderboard.

You can click on each of the players and look at their stats. What are you exactly looking for?

1. A player with a decent total score

2. A defense score lower than yours.

The first criteria increases how many points you can potentially win.

The second increases your chances of winning against them.

In my case, I try to find a player with anything over 10,000 points that also has a defense score of 9 or less (because my attack score is 10).

This way, my chances of winning are higher and if I win, I win at least 50 points (or 0.5% of 10,000 or more).

Note: You can’t Bonk pets that have a shield on.

Points are what you’re playing for.

The more points you accumulate, the more ETH rewards you earn. And you can always redeem your points for ETH, which gets credited to your wallet.

However, the joy of collecting points and going up the leaderboard is also something. Choose whatever suits you.

And there are multiple ways to earn points.

1. Upgrade pet: Whenever you upgrade your pet, you earn between 75 to 12,000 points based on how many $FPs you spend.

2. Bonk, Bonk, Bonk: You win a Bonk Battle, you earn 0.5% of your opponent’s point.

3. Spin the wheel: On the explore page, you can spin a lottery wheel and win a shield or some points or nothing. This is an onchain activity, so you’ll have to sign two transactions. I recently won 2,000 points. So, it’s absolutely worth it.

Let’s start with these 3 icons:

1. Battles won/Total battles

2. Total days your pet has been alive

3. 1 star per pet hibernated.

Just realized, I didn’t explain hibernation.

So, once your pet’s 3 days time ends and you don’t feed it a mushroon, it becomes inactive. Your name displays in red color on the leaderboard starting a few hours before your pet becomes inactive.

And other players can hibernate your pet and win one star.

You can do the same to other players and win stars.

When replying to a tweet recently, the FP team teased that the stars would have some value in the game.

Now, let’s talk about fighting the monsters and collecting them as NFTs.

On the explore page, you can click the highlighted icon to check out the monsters/bosses you can fight.

You can only fight the first boss once you’ve won at least 40 battles and have collected 1000 points.

If you win against a boss, you collect them as an NFT and win pGold (another type of point/currency in the game).

If you lose, you can fight again after you’ve won two more battles.

And I think that’s it.

This will get you started in the game and take you a long way.

I might write a follow up version to explain things that I’ve left out (purposefully or by mistake) and things that get added in new versions of the game.

Signing off.

Cover image credit: Frenpet