CryptoKitties are ridiculous and ridiculously adorable. They’re built on exciting cutting-edge technology. They’re high stakes. They’re the coolest and most fun hobby I’ve ever been a part of. CryptoKitties are easy to dismiss, and easy to fall in love with. And above all else, CryptoKitties are really, really hard to figure out when you’re just getting started.
Allow me to help.
Hi, I’m AlanFalcon, and I’ve been playing CryptoKitties since December. Despite a limited budget, I’ve bred over 300 Kitties, created massive spreadsheets to help guide my efforts, then co-created a breeding calculator called KittyCalc.co to help others guide their own breeding efforts. (Pro tip: use this website!)
Recently, I joined the CryptoKitties team and gave up playing the game I love in order to best be able to help grow and improve the game I love. But even though I now know too many internal secrets to be able to play, I still remember what it’s like, and so this article is my attempt to share some of my own personal advice with anyone who is feeling lost, concerned, bewildered, or just curious. None of this is official, this is just me.
If you want quality, start with quality.
Like so many things in life, you get out what you put into a thing. The key to breeding quality CryptoKitties is to start with quality parents. The difficulty, of course, lies in identifying those quality parents! So let’s set up some guidelines.
The most collectible Kitties rarely make the best parents.
There are many kinds of CryptoKitties that are awesome to own, great to buy, sell, and trade, but not so great to breed with. For example, Cathena has normal Kitty genetics under that incredibly cool exterior. I’d LOVE to own Cathena. I’d never spend much to breed with Cathena. Most fancies fall under this umbrella, the only real exception being fancies that have not yet reached their breeding cap (and there aren’t a lot of those right now). So-called “original art” Kitties and low id Kitties are also fun Kitties to collect that add nothing special to their offspring.
Mewtation jewels kind of fall under this umbrella: if you have a spinning diamond first-ever bornwithit Kitty, that’s a super cool collectible. And if you breed with it and the child is, well, bornwithit, then that child is going to have a diamond family jewel but not another diamond Mewtation jewel. If you value family jewels (and I personally do, but everybody has their own opinion here) then that could definitely be seen as a quality breed. But since many people value keeping their most collectible Kitties virgins, that’s something to consider as well!
The cheapest Kitties often don’t make the best parents.
This should make sense if you think about it. Right now you can buy some Kitties for a fraction of the cost to create a new Kitty. If you buy two of them and then spend the breeding fee — which is the same whether you’re breeding two ultra rare top quality founders together, or two of the cheapest Kitties you can find together — then you’re very likely to end up with a Kitty that nobody sees as very high quality. It’s likely to be higher generation, have a lot of “overbred” common traits, and when you ask others how much it’s worth you’re likely to be disappointed with the results.
The lowest generation Kitties don’t always make the best parents!
This is somewhat counter-intuitive, and not everyone will agree with me here, but I think if you take the time to understand what I’m saying then it should make sense. The way the CryptoKitties genome works, there are multiple levels of mutations of genes that tend to be more unique and rare, and often more valuable than the base level or easier mutations. You can’t get a third order mutation gene until generation three at the earliest. And if you want to combine multiple third order mutations in one Kitty at a reasonable cost, you’re going to need to be looking to higher generation Kitties. This isn’t a bad thing! Combining multiple rare mutations together in a single Kitty, especially when you have a specific unique look you’re going for, can create the highest quality of Kitty.
When I was playing, I started becoming obsessed with generation 100 Kitties. Every Kitty born at these kinds of high generations is born catatonic, which means they only get to breed once per week at most. That means you need to be very intentional and have a great plan for every breed to make the most of your limited opportunities. It also means that if you breed two catatonic Kitties together, you get to have a week of anticipation waiting for that Kitty to be born, so you’d better have done your homework and increased your chances of creating a Kitty you’ll like! But the secret weapon is that because you can breed any Kitty with a gen 99 to create a gen 100, you can pick and choose from almost any Kitty in the game to be a breeding partner — you can focus entirely on looks, mutations, family jewels, or whatever you like, all while ignoring generation. I maintain that I created some of the coolest Kitties in the game, and they’re gen 99 and gen 100 CryptoKitties.
Gen 0s are the safest parents
The most common advice I see given to new players is that if they can afford it, they should try to pick up a couple of gen 0 Kitties and breed those. It’s solid, safe advice and I don’t dispute it. We’re guaranteed to never have more than 50,000 gen 0 Kitties in the game which means they’re the only generation that’s guaranteed any scarcity, and they can give birth to gen 1 Kitties which are born fast, meaning that along with gen 0 Kitties they have the most opportunity to breed before they turn catatonic. That kind of speed can matter a lot in a fancy chase or when going after new genes and mewtation jewels, or if you’re simply impatient. The advice I would give is take your time to find the right breeding pair, using a tool like Kitty411’s Mutation Match-Up and going for as high a chance as possible for as many mutations as possible with every breed. You could also try to breed for looks, but for reasons I’ve stated already I think you can create much more unique and interesting combinations at higher generations, and do it at a lower cost, so what you’re really doing by breeding at the lowest generations is trying to create quality breeders.
Above all else, have fun
I see CryptoKitties as an incredibly fun hobby with so much to master. The process of working towards breeding mastery, to me, is my favorite part of CryptoKitties and what makes it a game. But CryptoKitties is also a system of unique collectibles, the first of its kind. Whatever you do, make sure you’re having fun. If, to you, that means setting insane goals for yourself (like 8 diamond kitties) then go for it! If that means breeding and selling the highest quality Kitty breeders, more power to you. If it means carefully planning and crafting mid generation Kitty breeders and creating amazing unique looking CryptoKitties to trade and collect, then you’re a breeder after my own heart! And maybe it’s doing some combination of all of the above! Find what makes breeding fun for you, and become a master Kitty breeder. And be sure to find me on Discord and share your creations, no matter how they come out.
-AlanFalcon
Follow me on Twitter or talk about breeding CryptoKitties on Discord.