Product Control Game Guide

Introduction

Product Control is a multiplayer game where players try to control ordinary products. Products are identified using their barcodes. The players create the game world themselves by reading barcodes and providing information about the products (a name and a photo). The game is always on, and players do not have to be online at the same time to have battles over the same products.

The idea in Product Control is to use your phone's camera to read the barcodes. In the current version, you have to simulate this by typing in the numeric code that is printed below the barcode.

Goal of the game

Your goal is to collect as many points as you can and be number one on the hi-score list.

The way to get points is to capture one or more products and hold on to them as long as you are able. The more valuable they are and the longer you hold them, the more points you get. The values of products are dynamic: they change based on what players do. When players fight over a product, its value increases.

This is how the scoring system works: once per hour, you get points from the products you own. For example, if you have two products worth 4 and 6 points, you gain 10 points per hour and 240 points per day.

However, points are only valid for seven days. Every time you get new points, your oldest points are discarded. This means that your current score is the sum of the hourly points you have gotten during the past seven days. Assume that you have no products and no points, and you then capture a 4-point product and a 6-point product. One week later you have 7 times 240 = 1680 points. After that, your points remain constant. If you now lose the products, your points begin to drop, and after seven days you are back to zero points.

Products begin to lose their value after a while if no new battles are fought. Old battles are also eventually forgotten, so that attacks by players once again increase the value, even if those players have already attacked the product twice. All this means that the value of a product reflects its recent popularity among all the players in the game.

Getting started

After entering the game, you are shown some information about the current "weekly challenge", if there is one. After that, you enter the main screen.

In the beginning, "Products" just displays an empty list, and all your monsters can be found under "Free monsters". First you should try to get some products, so select "Scan barcode".

Capturing a product

Pick any product that has an EAN-8 (8 digits printed below the bars), EAN-13 (13 digits) or UPC-A (12 digits) barcode. Most consumer products should have one of these codes. Type all the digits (the first digit may be further away from the others, but it is still a part of the code).

If you are the first player to scan that product, you get to give it a name. You also get a new monster.

After naming the product and collecting the new monster, you enter the product screen where you can move monsters into the product, add a photo, and view more details. If you want to keep the product, you must place at least one monster to guard it (select "Add").

If you now select "Products" in the main screen, you see your portfolio of products, which consists of a single product for now. The number next to the tentacle icon is the number of monsters placed into that product.

Scanning new products will give you some points, but to get really high scores, you will eventually need to scan a product that is owned by somebody else and send your monsters to attack it. Try browsing the list of products that is available from the menu in the main screen. If one of the valuable items is available near you, go and enter its barcode and try to beat the defending monsters. See the section Battles below for more information.

Collecting monsters

You start the game with a few monsters. New monsters can be found in products that no one has scanned before.

You can have at most ten monsters. After that number has been reached, you can still replace existing monsters with new ones.

Battles

To take a product from another player, you must scan the barcode and send some of your monsters to capture it. Your monsters will then fight against the monsters that the owner has placed in that product. If your team wins, they drive away the defenders and the product is yours.

When you enter the barcode of a product that has been taken by another player, you are offered the option "Attack".

If you select it, you see a list of your available monsters. Free monsters are at the top of the list. Monsters that are placed to guard a product have the name of that product after their name. Mark the monsters you want with the select key and press the left softkey ("OK").

The next task is to select a fighting order. Fighter monsters should go first and supporting monsters (Semimoths and Quasimoths) should be last. See Monster gallery for the monster abilities. You can skip numbers: assigning numbers 2, 3 and 5 is the same as assigning 1, 2 and 3. If two monsters have the same number, they can fight in any order.

After the order has been decided, you enter the battle screen. The monsters will take care of all the fighting, so you only need to watch. In fact, the battle is finished before showing you the results, so you can even skip the "video" if you like.

One monster from each side is always active, and the others wait. Your active monster fights the opponent's active monster. If the active monster is knocked out, the next monster in turn takes its place. To win the battle, you only need to knock out three monsters on the other side. Naturally, if one side has fewer than three monsters, and they are all knocked out, that side loses. If there is a draw (last knockouts happen simultaneously), the defending player - the one currently holding the product - wins.

Note that Melphits can also knock out monsters that are not active.

If you lose the battle, your monsters are moved to your home location ("Free monsters"), even if they were stationed elsewhere before the attack.

Monsters suffer no damage from fighting, but after an attack they need to rest for thirty minutes.

When you go to "Free monsters" or go to one of your own products and select "View", you see all resting monsters marked with a blue pie chart. Initially the pie is a full circle, which represents 30 minutes. After half an hour the pie slice is completely gone and the monster can move and attack again. Even while resting, monsters still defend the products they are in.

Defending and recapturing your products

So what happens when you are not in the game and some other player attacks one of your products? If a product has been recently taken from you, it is still shown in the list on the main screen when you log back in, but with a red "X" drawn over the barcode icon. If you select it from the list, you can immediately try to recapture it without entering the barcode again.

If you are in the game when one of your products is taken, you should get a notification.

To adjust the battle order your monsters use when defending a product, select the product and select "View".

Evolving monsters

It is possible to sacrifice some points to upgrade a monster to a stronger version of itself. Unfortunately, being a supermonster is quite stressful, which is why evolved monsters will retire and leave your service two weeks after they are upgraded. Ordinary monsters, on the other hand, never need to retire.

Upgrading a monster costs 100 points.

To evolve a monster, go to Free monsters, or go to one of your products and select "View". Select the monster you want, and prom the dialog that appears, select "Evolve". If you have enough points, the monster is immediately transformed. Selecting an evolved monster from the list shows you how long it has to retirement.

Evolved monsters get +2 to their normal attack and +20 to their normal hit points (see below). Semimoths and Quasimoths also get +2 to their attack boosting and healing skills.

Monster gallery

Here is an overview of the seven monster types of Product Control. An arrow means that the monster has an advantage against the monster the arrow points to.

Semimoths and Quasimoths are supporting monsters that usually stay behind the stronger fighter monsters. The red Semimoth gives an extra boost the active monster's attack, while the blue Quasimoth heals the active monster a little every time it takes a hit. Attack boost and healing both have maximum values. They have been chosen so that if you have two Semimoths and two Quasimoths in your attacking or defending team, adding more will not give any benefit.

Melphits are special because their attacks hit every monster on the other side, not just the active monster. Melphit's main attack is against the opponent's active monster, though, so the monsters behind it only get a fraction of the damage. Melphits are nevertheless efficient against supporting monsters. This special ability only works when the Melphit is the active monster.

Flumpf's special skill is Confusion. If one side in a battle has a Flumpf, the other side will fight in random order.

Ambhimoid