@Beans_on_Ghost Yep! Charms apply from top to bottom each rollover! (I think I remember Epi saying two charms is efficient to quickly fill the starting meter, so three sun is a bit overkill)

@Beans_on_Ghost Also, if the pet has had the sun charms equipped for a long time, there will probably be so much sun affinity that the amount one chili removes is too small to see on the meter. You can keep feeding chili and/or using Cleansing Shampoo and you will probably see the meter drop eventually.

I've been giving my a lot of parfaits every day but it never gets past the total 8 power, I'm worried I won't get the metal cat after all the resources I spent (and this is already my second time trying)

It had starry orbs for days, I used the puzzle box to get more metal affinity, I have a ton of metal charms and a lot of interaction hearts for it :(

@foxfire I think the form can only grow from the fuzzy baby form, and not the one with smooth fur.

The bar of 8 doesn't visibly extend when you increase total power, but the internal maximum power does get larger.
(The more it increases, the more total metal affinity you can have, and that does make it easier to make the ratio of metal to other elements closer to 1:0)

@Foxfire Just to clarify and expand on what Hypercube said: the meter will always say that there are 8 parts, no matter how much power the pet has (or 16 parts if you have a clarity charm equipped). This is because the meter only shows the relative fractions of the different aspects; it does not show the total power of the pet. This confuses a lot of people and I think I should probably rethink the graphical presentation of that meter to clarify things; originally it was going to be a pie chart, but the current bar-based system ended up being significantly easier to code.

Does this mean I wasted a bunch of resources on something I won't get? Great :/

I really wish there was a guide* for what pets grow from what, like I get it people like experimenting but I feel like I've been doing all this blindly and wasting a ton of resources

*easily accessible

@Foxfire It's still possible to get the metal-aligned form by mutating the pet! But yes, I agree that I need to continue improving the documentation on things like that. In this case, at least, I think the most convenient way to clarify would be in the stamp description?

(Given how the metal-aligned blue pet ended up being a lot more frustrating to get than I expected or planned, I'm thinking that for future species, eggs will only have one form they can hatch into, and multi-stage branching paths like that will only happen for species that have three or more growth stages.)

Hi hi hello, I have a probably silly question:
How does one release an adult creature? Does its affinities bar need to be filled completely first, or am I missing something?

@LittleWolfie

Once it's "fully grown" (rather than "final stage", which comes before fully grown), the first option on a creecher's sidebar will be to release it. Affinities and whether they're full or not are irrelevant.

I don't understand... I have given my pets those charms and fed them foods for the affinities (and some of the bars are a mess of different affinities now) but I just don't understand the affinity system at all :( It's making me frustrated. One affinity bar is full but nothing happens? Is something supposed to happen? The pet looks the same. Am I _supposed_ to release the pets? I released one but I regret it. Sorry, I really love this but there's plenty of things that are just so confusing. And yes I read some of the posts above but I don't... I just don't understand.

@Nina I'd recommend looking over the guide to pet lifecycle if you haven't already! And if you still have questions after you've read that guide, I'd love to hear them so that the guide pages can be made clearer.

Releasing pets is the main way to obtain large amounts of essence, but it's not intended that you'd release every pet—most people have some "keeper" pets that never get released and then other rooms that rotate through essence pets.

@EpiglottalAxolotl Thanks, I did take a read but all I can pick up from it is that it's a bit random in the end? lol I don't know, my Affinity is definitely not Wits sometimes. But I'll just keep playing, it'll click at some point for me too xD

Edit: Okay but wait so the pet's look can't change after it's reached fully grown?

@Nina There's ultimately some level of randomization, yes. And yes, once a pet becomes fully grown, you can change the affinity stats, but that won't change what the pet looks like; the only way to do that is by feeding the pet a mutation food, which will reroll the appearance (using the pet's current affinity levels and finding a form that is not the one the pet already had if possible).

@EpiglottalAxolotl "You will receive essence based on the pet's powers..." (when releasing) So that's what the Affinity is for? (Yes, I'm suspecting I'm being annoying but I really am this simple q_q)

@Nina The main purpose of the affinity is to determine what essences and how much you receive when the pet is released, yes, but also the pet's current affinity levels at the time that it grows will influence what forms it is most likely to become. As the site continues developing, affinities will affect more mechanics.

(I'm subscribed to this thread, so you don't have to ping me; but you're not being annoying at all!)