How it works

Pip

Every player starts with Pip the Pupling for free. Pip’s colours are fixed, and he can’t be traded.

Scanning

Scan a barcode from Home, Mix, or Offers, or type one on the Scan page. Play saves the barcode and the time you scanned it. You get tokens to start, and a counted scan adds tokens too. Those tokens stay in your balance. They do not reset at the end of the day.

Mix

An ingredient counts only if you scanned it today. The day starts over at midnight Eastern time. Yesterday’s scans do not fill today’s Mix. Each recipe shows how many tokens it gives. Tap Bake to get that reward. The baked food goes to the Pantry.

Pet meters

The five bars on the pet card show how your Elmling feels. Tap any bar in the yard to jump here. Bars go down slowly on their own, so a little care each day keeps them up.

Food groups

Every dish fills some of five food groups: Grains, Protein, Fruit, Veg and Dairy. Treats are counted too. Feed each Elmling by hand, one at a time, and its plate fills up. A green tick means that group is in its sweet spot for today. The plate starts fresh at your midnight. Water is always free.

There’s no free kibble. An Elmling that goes a whole day without food hibernates: it curls up in a cosy nest and sleeps safely, and nothing gets worse. Any food wakes it up. New players get a starter basket, and when the pantry is empty the seed box has fresh food once a day. Elmlings grow up by counting fed days (3 or more food-group pips).

Grooming

Tap Groom to wash, brush teeth and brush hair. Each one fills a little meter, and the meters start fresh at your midnight. Scan toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap, shampoo or a hairbrush at home and that kind of grooming is twice as quick for the rest of the day.

In the Bathroom, a shower is four steps: turn the water on, rub soap all over the body (head, tummy, arms, legs and feet all count), rinse the bubbles off, then dry. Drag the towel over your Elmling until the drips and the wet shine are gone. Once your solar panels are built, the hairdryer can dry instead: it’s quicker, goes whoosh and fluffs up the fur. After that, use the hairbrush all over to fill the hair meter.

A full wash keeps an Elmling fresh until the end of the next day. Skip a whole day and it gets a bit whiffy: little wavy lines float up, friends give it some space, and it gets the ball less. One full wash and it’s fresh again.

Fitness and sports skill

Fitness comes from two things. Healthy food over the last week fills most of it, and daily practice fills the rest. Too many treats make an Elmling sluggish, which takes fitness down until it eats well again.

Skill grows with every practice game on the Sports page: soccer (dribble, shoot, keepy-ups), running, swimming and basketball. A better score gives more skill. You can practise 3 times a day. In team matches, fitness, skill and a little luck decide the score, and a smelly Elmling gets the ball less.

Tool health and battery

Scan a real tool and it shows up in your toolbox. Every build action wears it a tiny bit, and battery tools wear a little faster. A tool at 0% health is broken, so scan another one or buy a spare with Coins.

Battery tools also use 2% charge per action. When one runs flat, charge it from your battery bank in Energy, or use a hand tool instead.

Building

Builds like the polytunnel, house, shed, fence and solar panels go one step a day. Each step takes 50 actions, or 100 if your Elmling is sluggish from bad food. Some steps need the right tool. Every action makes your Elmling a bit hungrier.

Finished builds slowly wear out, a little each day. When the health bar turns orange (under 40%), it needs a repair, so grab a tool and fix it.

Battery bank

Finished solar panels fill your battery bank with 150% of a tool charge a day, and it holds 200%. Tap Charge on a battery tool to move power from the bank into the tool.

The wind turbine (tier 2) lets the bank hold 300%. The stream water wheel (tier 3) makes it fill 250% a day. To unlock each one, finish the tier before it, then scan a new product from a hardware store.

Pantry servings

Each pantry food shows how many servings are left. Feeding or cooking uses them up. When something runs low it goes on your shopping list. Fresh food slowly gets less fresh, so use it up first.

Farm growth

Plants only grow while they are watered, so water them every day. The bar turns bright green when they’re ready to pick. Fruit trees take longer to grow up, and once they’re grown the bar shows the next crop of fruit getting ripe.

Tokens

Scan tokens buy things in the shop:

• Yellow ball, 4
• Red ball, 4
• Maze, 12
• Bouncy pad, 10
• Jungle gym, 12
• Pet drinks, 3

Play coins are the gold gems in the yard. Walk your Elmling over a gem and the play-coin counter goes up. Quests add play coins, balls, clothes, and yard decorations too. Clothes in the shop spend play coins. Party hat, Beanie, and Bow can also come from quests.

Toy codes

Each toy has its own code printed on its card. A made-up code does not work. One toy has one keeper. Codes are unique. A friend who scans your toy can say hi, and the toy stays yours. An old card with no code shows a preview only. It does not add an Elmling.

To give an Elmling to someone else, open Elmlings and tap Trade. Play makes a code that starts with EL. The other keeper types that code in the Trade box. The Elmling moves to them and the code stops working. You cannot claim your own code.

Quests

Pip starts with two jobs: feed him and fill the water bowl, then play ball three times. Scanning a food barcode can open a Mix quest for that kind of food. Scanning the Elmlings sign in a partner shop opens shop quests. If that sign will not scan, the phone can check you in when it can see that you are at the shop. Claiming a Batling, Catling, or Dinoling opens a short story for that Elmling. Three small quests change each day at the same Eastern midnight as Mix. Missing a day does not take anything away.

Finishing a quest gives play coins and sometimes a ball, a piece of clothing, or a yard decoration. Care and quests also give experience. Levels unlock tricks from the action list, like roll, kick, and sprint. Badges stay in the quest log.

Offers

The Offers page shows this week’s featured cards, the scan bonuses that are on right now, and a list or map of stores. The bonus cards say how a counted scan adds tokens, that the same barcode counts once each Eastern day, that the reward shrinks after more scans in a day, and that a live store bonus can multiply a scan. The numbers on that page are the ones that count. You can still look at stores when location is off. Distances stay hidden until location is on.

Fair play

Don’t scan the same thing over and over to cheat. Don’t share a toy code you don’t own. Be kind when you say hi to someone else’s Elmling.

For parents

Play does not ask for a login or an account. It does not collect names, emails, or passwords. Progress is tied to a random game ID stored on this device. Clearing browser data starts fresh. A grown-up can move this phone’s play to a new phone from Parents. The code works once and then the old phone stops.

The server stores the game ID, scanned barcodes and the times they were scanned, the token balance, Elmlings (including the toy code and colours), yard items, Mix pantry food, quest progress when the backup is turned on, and a claim note with the species, colour, and claim link. This browser also keeps play coins, quests, badges, and a note of today’s scan bonuses.

hello@elmlings.com

A grown-up can open Parents to see this phone’s saved data and delete it. Parents · Privacy policy