Just joined- what to start with?

[jackknifeJaws]

I've decided to join Chicken Smoothie after a while of seeing people posting about it on other sites, and if I'm gonna be honest I don't really know what to start with or where,,, ( ; ^_^ ) I kinda came into this with not really any knowledge other than I can adopt virtual animals (I've gotten two cats already!), so I'm kinda lost here

[bark]

Hello! I recommend doing this:

- Adopting the max amount of monthly pets, all species. That way if you have doubles, you can swap/trade them for other things.
- Browse the CS store, there's some free items running around there :)
- Try to adopt from the pound & lost and found frequently. You can easily get old/rare pets and items!

As always, don't accept trades containing rares+ and random items on your side if you don't know values, there are people who trade in bad faith; in hopes of getting a super rare pet for cheap. It's called 'ninja trading' and here's a crash course about it, and the trading guide/help forum

It's also a good idea to get advice on trades you don't know of here: Forum/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=5053124

[Celozon]

Welcome!

For starters I would suggest adopting the maximum number of pets available for each species on the adoption page, pets usually look the same as newborns, but as time goes by and they grow, they can grow into different outcomes, and if you only adopt one or two of each you'll end up missing a lot of them. No need to worry about having too many or having extras, you don't need to take care of or feed them in any way. Its normal to still miss a few outcomes even if you adopted as many as you could, but the idea is you can use any duplicates you got to try and trade for outcomes you missed. CS is more of a collection and trading game than a 'raising pets' type of game, but there are also plenty of users who ignore the trading aspect and just adopt pets every month so you are free to play in whatever way works best for you!

As for other things to do beyond adopting pets, you can also dress up pets in items. There are several free item sets available at the store, just go through the pages and look for items that say 'free' where the price would normally be. There are also items available during events (most if not all being free, a few may cost a couple event currency to get), and occasionally there will be free items available during the month for mini events/holidays (you can watch for those on the news on the home page). Once you have some items you can dress up pets by clicking on them in your groups, and there will be a link in the area under your pet which says 'add items to your pet', click that to dress them up. You can also do dressups with multiple pets in dressup scenes.

Being new, you won't have much in the way of pets or items right away, so if you are looking for more you can go over to the Free Adoptions board, there are always users there giving away pets or items for free and its an easy way to get a jump start on things like trading. Some users there will also offer extras to new accounts that don't have many pets or items yet.

If you want to get into trading I'd suggest checking out the Trading Guide board, trading can be a bit overwhelming and confusing, and this board exists to help users easily find info on trading or ask for help. Most of the info there is focused on older and highly valuable pets or items, but there is also general info for users just trying to get started on trading and wanting to know the basics. I'd suggest the Staff Trading Guide as a starter since its intended for users brand new to trading. The Trade Advice Thread will likely be very useful to you as well, if you send or receive a trade and you aren't sure how to evaluate it, you can post it on that thread to ask what other users think of it. You'll also probably want to look through the site archives eventually. Since the site has been running since 2008 there are a lot of pets, so don't worry about going through all of it at once as it is very overwhelming, I'd suggest starting from the most recent months first since those will be the most accessible to you when trading at first. If you see a pet you'd like to have, add it to your wishlist and that will allow other users to know what you are interested in receiving in trades.

There is also, of course, the rest of our forums. Depending on your interests there are places like the roleplay boards, forum games, and general discussion. If you like to draw you might want to check out the oekaki, our on-site art program (no download necessary, you can use it to draw right in your web browser), there are also art shop boards if you want to offer to draw for other people in exchange for CS pets or items. Even if you don't draw yourself, the oekaki and art shops also offer things for people who like to collect characters or designs, or participate in closed species (which can be found here and here)

Thats just an overview of some things you can do on site, really just whatever interests you though! CS is pretty laid back in that you really only need to log in once a month to adopt pets, and there will be a few free adoptions and events throughout the year. There are no dailies or things like that. We have 4 major events every year (Easter, Summer Vacation, Halloween, and Advent/Christmas) which require daily or near-daily participation if you want to collect everything from them, but are still intended to be fairly laid back and accessible even if you don't have a lot of free time. Our last event (Summer Vacation) ended a few weeks ago, but if you want an idea what they are like you can check out the event discussion board, the summer event is the most in-depth of our events, Halloween and Easter have similar setups but are simpler and don't have the in depth storyline that the summer event does. Advent/Christmas is just a simple daily login present for December (with the 18th + 24th having special adoptions). The next event will be Halloween and usually starts mid-late October, so that it will end around or after Halloween day.

Thats all I have for now but if you have any further questions I or someone else around here will be happy to help out, and you can also use help tickets to ask general site questions or for specifics on how to do something (just choose the 'some other question' option for that sort of thing) ^^

[jackknifeJaws]

Thank you, that all helps me very much !! Also quick question, what's the ageing system regarding animals? How quickly do they age, and do they age every day?

[BlueEyedKite]

Thank you, that all helps me very much !! Also quick question, what's the ageing system regarding animals? How quickly do they age, and do they age every day?

Pets grow throughout the month. The time frame is set by each outcome. Example, one outcome in a litter grows on day 3 another on day 5 etc. If you look in our archive you can get a feel for how long it takes pets to grow on average. Pets also have stages of growth. Like a dog is: newborn > puppy > adult. When you adopt a monthly pet it is in its newborn stage.

Ps: when you are in the archive go ahead and wishlist pets that you like the designs of. Players will be checking your wishlist to see what pets you are interested in when they send a trade to you.

[moonfalling]

WELCOME TO CHICKEN SMOOTHIEEEEEEE!!!! My recommendation is to go through the archive and start adding things to your wishlist asap. Don't get too hung up on rarities or demand, start by focusing on what you think looks cool! A mistake I made when I was starting out was getting waayyyy too invested in list pets and demand and fair trading. This game is supposed to be about having fun collecting your favorites!!
Adopt the max amounts of litters each month and try to keep one of each before you know the rarities. Keep an eye on the pound and the free adoption forums, enter giveaways, and above all, HAVE FUN!!!