A Kongpanion (portmanteau of "Kongregate" and the word "companion") is an obtainable digital pet displayed on Kongregate account profiles. The first Kongpanion, Kongbot, was introduced on January 14th, 2014 and a new one has been introduced each week since every Monday at 00:00 a.m. midnight Pacific Time[1] (or 01:00 Pacific Time when Daylight Saving Time is not in effect). Each Kongpanion is drawn by the artist Jimp and implemented by the Flash game developer jmtb02.
List of Kongpanions[]
Acquirement[]
Badge of the Day[]
Every week, users can earn Kongpanions by completing at least one Badge of the Day for that week. This is the primary method for obtaining Kongpanions. Earning five of the Badges of the Day from a single week awards a Shiny version of that week's Kongpanion.
Limited-Time Quest Rewards[]
If a user misses out on any Kongpanion, one of them can be awarded to them by completing certain quests within a certain time period, usually one or two months. Doing so allows users to choose one previously-released Kongpanion that they have not already been awarded on their Kongpanion inventory page.
This opportunity to obtain an unavailable Kongpanion started with the Cuteness Overload quest, allowing users to pick one granted that they successfully finish this quest within the month it was released. After this period has passed, more opportunities have been given to users through "Best of" quests rewards.
Completing the Kartridge Quest[]
In a special case, the exclusive Kongpanion Joyce is permanently available to users in her Shiny form by default upon the completion of the Kartridge quest[2].
Features[]
Kongpanions feature as collectible creature companions on user profiles in the form of a PNG image. This image is slightly modified for the Shiny version of Kongpanions by having it wear a crown and have stars sparkle behind them.
Most Kongpanions based on animals, some even being caricatures of pets owned by Kongregate staff. Others are based on non-animate objects such as a burger (e.g. Patty), marketing tools for Kartridge games (e.g. Pupset), tributes to game developer mascots (e.g. The Beast) or even reflections on the year (e.g. MMXVI).
Each Kongpanion is also given a name, tags and flavor text to give them more personality, make references to popular culture and dedicate the Kongpanion to particular individuals among other reasons.
Profile Awards[]
In the "Awards" section of a user profile, the Kongpanions tab is shown by default, with the three most recently earned Kongpanions being visible in the box. The Kongpanions' names, tags, and date of acquisition are shown in this box. If a user manages to earn the Shiny version of a Kongpanion, a special icon is also shown to the right of its name.
On the dedicated Kongpanion collection page for each user, the names, tags, and acquisition date are also visible in addition to the Kongpanion's flavor text. Shiny Kongpanions retain their icon and also have their dedicated information box glow yellow.
If a user manages to earn every single Kongpanion for the year, they are bestowed the "Kongpanion Catcher" award for that year early in the following year. If they manage to accomplish the feat of earning the Shiny version of every single Kongpanion for the year, they receive the "Kongpanion Master" award instead.
Game Functionality[]
Kongpanions also have functionality in certain games where the game developer has enabled the use of them in-game. Their function in each game may vary as it is up to a developer how he chooses to use them.
If a user has earned the Shiny version of a Kongpanion, it will appear as that version in-game. The Shiny version replaces the regular version, so two copies of them cannot be in possession at the same time. The first game to utilize Kongpanions was Sandbox Hero, a game made for Kongregate by the developer jmtb02, and for a while it was the only game to feature them. Kongregate promised that they would be used in future games. Over time, more games using them were added.
Discussion Topic[]
In the Kongregate forum, a dedicated thread to discussing them was posted briefly before the release of the first Kongpanion. The thread has since been used as a place to discuss various aspects of Kongpanions including ideas of future functionality and the design or reference of the week's Kongpanion among others.
When the now-retired newsletters were sent to users weekly, a preview of the following week's Kongpanion was eventually included to it. This prompted users to post the Kongpanion section of the newsletter to the thread for discussion.
After the retirement of these newsletters, moderators began posting silhouettes of the following week's Kongpanion to the thread along with three of the Badges of the Day for the week. This led to speculative guesses as to what Kongpanion could be based on the silhouette shape and the theme of the badge selection. Eventually, users started a small game of filling in the silhouette to create either serious or outlandish predictions of what it could be.
Notable Incidents[]
Bugged Rose Release[]
The release of the site feature Blocks brought about a number of issues to the site with one of them being problems in acquiring of the Kongpanion of the week following Blocks' release (22/06/2020 to 28/06/2020), Rose. The site was unable to recognize numerous badge owners in order to award the Kongpanion for the Monday and Tuesday of that week. Among the very few users that managed to earn Rose in the first few seconds of its release, there was an issue of users having the same ordinal number of the Kongpanion. More details of other issues related to Blocks' release can be found here.
Delayed Mason Release[]
On the week the Kongpanion Mason was meant to be released (18/01/2021 to 24/01/2021), acquirement was impossible on Monday and several hours of Tuesday. This oversight was due to site administrators overlooking a setting related to releasing new weekly Kongpanions, leading to Mason being unobtainable through the usual BotD means[3]. It was fixed on Tuesday due to Kongregate staff being on holiday the day prior as Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Given the gradual removal of other site features in 2020 such as most chatrooms and forums, many users initially assumed the delay of Mason signified the end of Kongpanions as a feature. Numerous forum threads and comments on the games holding the BotDs for Monday and Tuesday were made expressing these users' reactions.
Delayed Bajie Release[]
Similar to the delayed released of Mason, it was impossible to acquire the Kongpanion Baijie on the Monday and the first several hours of Tuesday of its release week (22/02/2021 to 28/02/2021). The cause of the oversight was a similar oversight to that in the case of Mason's release[4], and was also also fixed on Tuesday.
There was still concern of Kongpanions being gone for good, though users were more mild with their reactions on the forums and games holding Monday and Tuesday's BotDs for that week compared to the Mason case.
Helpful Links[]
- Kongpanions page on Kongregate
- List of Games using Kongpanions
- Official Kongpanions forum thread
References[]
- ↑ Kongregate Forums Post by Moderator TheRealPip
- ↑ Kongregate Forums New feature: Kartridge Quest on Kongregate!
- ↑ Kongregate Forums Belated Kongpanion: Mason
- ↑ Kongregate Forums Belated Kongpanion: Baijie
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