Prompts are the meat of the ARPG! Once you have your house tracker set up, you can play.
Quests are regular prompts that do not expire (though they may have other limits on how and when you can complete them). Events are in-universe happenings that make up Cobble Town's plot, and involve limited-time prompts, sometimes with special rewards.
In addition to prompts, there are also three turn-ins that can be submitted to once per week in the "quests" section. You can submit any art of your characters to these, as long as they fit the tier (see below); this is meant to encourage players to apply their creativity and enthusiasm to the game, even outside the plot line.
Content
Any art submitted to the prompts must:
- prominently feature at least one character in the game, your own or someone else's. They must be central to the piece, not just in the background or mentioned in passing.
- depict characters accurately to the information on their tracker. E.g. don't draw your character as a shiny, a future evolution, etc. unless you've unlocked it with your ARPG funds.
- be standalone pieces. E.g. if you write a 1000-word piece, you can't submit it to two separate prompts that require 500 words each. Different chapters / continuations of the same work can be submitted separately, as long as they are well-defined and don't just begin or end mid-scene.
- be unique and your own work - don't submit base fills, reuse sketches, etc. The tier 1 turn-in is the sole exception (see below).
- be SFW. Violence and injuries are ok; just use your judgement and be cool.
Other than that, you have a lot of freedom to do what you want! For example, you can:
- include NPCs, like the shopkeepers or just random other Pokemon, as background characters. (Please don't use this to get around character limits, though. I may reject pieces if you prominently feature the same NPC too many times in a suspicious way.)
- draw/write things that took place in the past, with unevolved versions of your evolved characters.
- depict your characters in battle using any moves / abilities that their species is capable of learning, as long as they don't do anything too ridiculous like use more than 4 moves at once.
- make multiple pieces of your characters participating in an event, and submit extras to the turn-ins.
- make a bunch of tier 2 pieces at once, and gradually submit them to the turn-ins one per week.
Grading
Instead of a big table of art grading requirements, Cobble Town only has 3 loosely-defined tiers of art:
Tier 1
Tier 1 has no requirements whatsoever, as long as it showcases your character. Tier 1 quests award 100p and 1 level.
Some examples of tier 1 submissions are:
- a meme image labeled with your characters' names.
- the McDonalds triangle meme with your characters.
- a 2-minute doodle.
- a screenshot of some headcanon discussion of your characters on discord.
Tier 2
Tier 2 is for anything you would consider a clean, finished work. Most events and quests will be tier 2. Tier 2 quests award 500p and 5 levels.
Some examples of tier 2 submissions are:
- a 500+ word written piece.
- a roleplay with 500+ words of posts by you.
- a chibi pagedoll of your character floating in the void.
- a short lined uncolored comic.
Tier 3
Tier 3 is for polished works. I won't be too strict about this since it's a small friend group, but it should be something you've put effort into and are proud of. Tier 3 quests award 1000p and 10 levels.
Some examples of tier 3 submissions are:
- a 1000+ word written piece.
- a roleplay with 1000+ words of posts by you.
- a colored and shaded piece with a complex background.
- a several-page-long comic.