• Part 1: The New User
• Part 2: Manage Farms
• Part 3: The Interface
• Part 4: Community and Tips

• Introduction
• Breeding and Care
• Interface
• Technical

From the main menu, follow the "New User" link to create a new account.

Choose a good password! Typically a good password is something that you wouldn't find in a dictionary. Also, it helps if there is a number or symbol in it.

Congratulations! You have your first farm. New users start with their own egg. This egg won't hatch for about a day. To keep yourself busy, you may consider spending your 100 FarmBucks. Don't worry, you'll be able to earn more.

Spend wisely! When visiting the store, you should buy a Food Crate and a Bonsai Tree from the Essentials section before anything else. See Image 1 and Image 2 on the right.

The money tree grows farmbucks when your creatures are healthy and happy. Click on the leaves to "shake" it and harvest your bucks.

The food crate is to feed your newborn creatures. Simply drag the food from the top of the crate and release it into the farm. Fear not, this crate of food doesn't run out.

Lastly, you may wish to buy another egg from the 'creatures' section of the store to start your farm out right. Each egg costs 50 FBs.

Whenever you buy something from the store, it will take you to a page called Manage Farms, which you can also access from the menu at the top of the site.

If you just bought a Food Crate and a Bonsai Tree, you will be able to find them in the Unused Accessories panel. See Image 3.

Simply drag the accessory of choice from the unused section, and drop it in the middle of your new farm panel above.

Your first farm should be named something like "farm1". This isn't a very exciting name, so feel free to rename it with the link directly above the panel. See Image 4.

You can also click on edit-welcome, which allows you to type a message for people to see when they visit your new farm. Everyone but you will see this text when they visit.

For more detailed information regarding the Manage Farms section, click here.

If you're still in the Manage Farms section, you can click on the name of your farm to view it again, or you may simply use the main menu item called View My Farms.

Once you are viewing your farm, you may notice a drop-down below the main menu called the "viewing" menu. This tells you what farm you are currently viewing. If you decide to create more farms later, you will be able to easily switch between them using this drop-down.

Let's not forget the Food Crate and the Bonsai Tree that we just bought. You may wish to move them around inside your farm; to move any accessory click on the base of it and drag it to a new location.

Notice the other panels around your farm: Creature Inspector, System Messages, Favorite Farms, Comments and Proposals.

If you click on your egg, information will pop up in the Creature Inspector. See Image 5. This shows some important information about your pet. We'll get to the look closer button in just a moment.

The System Messages panel shows you information about each action that you take. If you recently bought your first Food Crate and Bonsai Tree, you will notice that the System Messages reflects this.

The Favorite Farms panel shows each farm that you have bookmarked, so you can visit them again later. See Image 6. If you haven't bookmarked any farms yet, there will only be a find a farm link inside this panel.

If you want to explore some other farms in the community you may follow the find a farm link--search for "choochoo" or "aemon" (they are the developers). See Image 7. You can leave them a comment or question at any time.

To bookmark one of these farms, look to the top right corner of the page for the big blue button that says "Bookmark this Farm" and click it.

The Comment panel allows other people to write you a comment or question about your farm. You can reply to someone by visiting their farm and using their comment panel to leave a comment. Remember, all comments are visible to the public!

Finally, the Proposal panel shows you what offers are coming in from other users. In here you will find offers from farmers to buy or breed with your creatures.

If you still have some FarmBucks left, you can visit other farms and offer to buy any creatures that strike your fancy. Sometimes a user will have a special farm for selling creatures in their drop-down viewing menu. Click on a creature you like and see if it has a price from the Creature Inspector panel. Remember, if there is no price already listed, there is a chance this user doesn't want to sell. If there is a listed price, use the look closer button to propose purchase for this creature. If a creature has a suggested price, you should offer that same amount, unless you feel like haggling ;).

When you're done searching the community, you can go back to your farm by clicking View My Farms from the Main Menu.

When your creatures grow up to be adults you may start breeding them with creatures inside your farm, or with other users ... this is where the fun begins!

For more information about breeding, click here.

Remember to click your Money Tree every once in awhile to continue earning FarmBucks.

For more information about breeding and taking care of your pets, continue reading the rest of the FAQ section of this page!

Click on 'New User'. See you inside!

If you want to see what some established farms look like check out the "Find a Farm" section from the menu and look up "aemon" or "choochoo," once you have created your farm.

Have time to create an account? That's probably the quickest way to see what it is. Otherwise, think animal husbandry. It's a system of personalized farms on which little creatures are fed, bred, traded, bought, sold, and poked. The idea is to set up a population of creatures with a naturalistic ability to pass genetic code on to their offspring. Each creature's appearance is derived from its unique genetic code, so it's possible to control the way a creature looks and acts through selective breeding, whether it's with other creatures on your own farm, or with the creatures living on other user's farms.

Oh also, you can buy little flowers and rocks and things to decorate your farm.

Nothing :)

Well, that depends. Do you like taking care of cute little creatures? Do you want a little farm/garden that you can customize and show off to your friends? Or maybe you are interested in genetics, or just animal breeding? There's no winning or losing in CreatureBreeder. You might strive to create a farm that is the envy of all other farmers, or you might breed strange-looking animals and sell them to your friends..., but the game never stops, it just continues to grow :)

There are a number of possible reasons. Are they the same species? Have both creatures reached adulthood? Are they the right genders? ;)

When first starting your farm you may wish to buy a new egg from the store and hope for a breeding pair. To breed within your farm, simply click on a creature and follow the "Look Closer" button from the creature inspector. Now use the "Breed" button to find the available options that are within your farm.

We encourage users to breed outside their own farms in order to strengthen the community. To breed with another user's creatures, visit their farm and the creature you wish to breed with. Click on the creature, make sure he or she is of age and in good health, and click on the "Look Closer" button. Once in this section you will be able to make a breeding proposal by selecting the "Propose Breeding" option. If the user in question accepts your proposal, you will both have a new baby creature on the way with traits from each parent.

About 30 hours, but it varies with the species. Cracks will appear a couple hours before the egg hatches.

Something like 5 days. This varies with the health and species of the creature.

Again, this depends a lot on how you've treated your creature, but it should be in the ballpark of 20 days.

Have you been feeding them? You can buy a food barrel from the store, and then drag the food from the barrel into your farm. Perhaps your creature has recently bred with another? After breeding, a creature will undergo a period of weakness, which will usually last about 24 hours. These effects, as with all health effects, will be factored into the creature's overall health.

Nope, 'fraid not. No TurtleCubs or FuzTots.

Buy a food barrel or crate to be placed in your farm. Once it is there click and drag the food from the top of the barrel or crate to the farm. Your creatures will happily run to the food. If you buy a berry tree, your pets will feed themselves regularly for the life of the tree.

You bet! (I happen to know that there's one in the works right now!)

Click on the 'Manage Farms' link at the top of the page. From the manage farms page you can drag accessories into the 'sell' panel. But remember, you will only get half price back!

One option is to release your creature into the wild. You may view a creature in the 'Creature Inspector', follow the "Look Closer" button and release your creature. If you're afraid you might miss your little pet, don't worry. You can 'Visit the Wild' any time you want :)

Visit the 'Store' section of the website by following the link in the top menu. You may place your new accessories in your farm by clicking and dragging them to a desired location.

First off, we're sorry! There are a lot of browsers out there, and a lot of different versions of those browsers, and some of the less popular ones might not work perfectly :( Our recommendation? Download Mozilla Firefox (it's free and easy!)

If you're running in 800 x 600 resolution, then CreatureBreeder won't display properly. You need to click on the little link at the bottom of the screen (scroll down, it's below the copyright notice). This will switch you to our 800 x 600 stylesheet.

A Brief History
CreatureBreeder.com originally allowed users to have only one farm per account. This meant that users had to create extra accounts in order to facilitate breeding with the continued addition of new breeds. Some users had nearly 10 accounts open! This presented a few problems. A user had to log-in and log-out of every account to make sure their creatures were fed; it was difficult to associate all of a user's accounts with that particular user; it became difficult to keep track of what farm a user was managing as they added more accounts--something had to be done. The solution began as a suggestion from one of our most active members, Moondreams. The idea was to consolidate multiple farms into a single account in order to make managing 10 farms a simple task.

How it Works
With the old system there was essentially no difference between an account and a farm. With "Manage Farms", it is important to realize that one account may have up to 10 farms in it. For the average user there is no reason to have more than one account now (unless your needs surpass 10 farms). One of the first new things you will notice is the "Viewing" text above your farm with the added drop-down menu. If you have created multiple farms in this account you will be able to easily switch between them using this drop-down menu.

Naming Your Farms
Before creating new farms you may wish to decide how you will name them. There is a difference between your account name and your farm name; they do not need to be the same. When someone lists you in their "favorites" it will look like this: "[Account Name]'s [FarmName]"--for example, "Choochoo's Fuzzies." Your name must be between 4-10 characters! The only other restriction on naming is that you cannot have two farms with the same name in a single account, but other than this farm names do not need to be unique.

Creating Farms
So how does one create new farms? First visit the "Manage Farms" page from the menu. Scroll to the bottom of this page and find the button that says "New Farm." There is currently a limit of 10 farms per account. Once your farm is created you will notice a new panel within the "Manage Farms" section that reflects your new creation. From here you will be able to "rename", "edit-welcome" text for, or "delete" your farm altogether. The key to using "Manage Farms" is the drag-and-drop interface. Try creating two farms that have a couple accessories or creatures in them. Once you're done, you will be able to drag any creature or accessory from one panel to the next. You may now visit the farms by clicking on their name to see how they have changed. *Here is a little tip for new users: if you have multiple copies of an accessory, you may click and drag the number in parentheses next to the name to drag all of them at once--just drag the name if you only want one*

Unused Accessories
Whenever you buy accessories from the store, it will take you back to the "Manage Farms" page. Your new accessory will be in the "Unused Accessories" panel. From here, you may drag it to any of your farms, or, if you wish to sell or give it to another user, you may drag it to the respective panel. Furthermore, if someone decides to give you accessories, they will also go to the "unused" panel.

Deleting Farms
If you ever need to delete a farm all of your accessories will be transferred to the unused accessory list upon deletion. However, it is not possible to delete a farm that still has creatures living on it, you will need to move them to another farm, give them away, or release them into the wild before you delete their home.