Punirunes
I found Punirunes reduced from £20 to £8 at my local Entertainer and picked it up as an after-Christmas present to myself. I wasn’t expecting to be a fan… I suppose I’m a bit of a Tamagotchi purist, and never had one of the full colour or gimicky vpets before. I think I also had a misapprehension that Punirunes wasn’t Japanese but boy was I wrong.
There are several versions in Japan, where the product is called ぷにるんず, including the original, plus, plaza, Sanrio, and star.
The international version which you can buy is the Plaza model, with all text removed (how do I know? Because the secret codes from the for the Japanese Plaza model work on it - and the faceplate is the same)
It has the most enormous and least useful instruction manual I have seen. This is because it covers only basic setup, but does so in 19 languages! However, there are full, localised versions on the Spin Master website. English Punirunes manual. It also has a PDF of secret codes.
All of the words you can use to describe playing with this toy come off as weird and gross whether in Japanese or English. I am going to overlook that and use the following terms:
- Puni - the virtual pet character.
- Jelly button - the soft button inside the device.
- Petting - stroking the jelly button gently left and right.
- Squishing - pressing the jelly button down so that the character bounces up.
- Seed - the red/blue/yellow orbs that appear in the air and are used to cook food and to colour accessories and evolutions.
- “Magic Squishy” (I think Wonder Seed is a better name) - the silhouettes of evolutions available to you. Sometimes you will unlock a new one of these when evolving from baby to kid. In Japanese, these are called “Fushigipuni” and/or “Mysterious Puni” (same thing).
Quick Review
So far my kids and I have enjoyed it! There are a mix of cute and ugly characters. The core gimmick of the jelly button inside is pretty good.
The build is good quality. The buttons work well. The UI decisions makes sense, but it’s a bit slower to use than Tamagotchi and if you have sound switched off, it seems slow to respond (when it’s actually waiting for silenced sounds to finish).
Because of internationalisation, all screen text has been removed or changed into icons instead of being translated. The lack of text does make the game harder to understand. It’s also a shame that the unique names of each Puni have been lost. It would have been cool just to have the Japanese character names transliterated into latin characters. I guess this wouldn’t have worked for languages with significantly different phonics or characters, like Russian, Chinese, Hungarian, Bulgarian etc.
The biggest faff in this game is the dust. There is too much dust and it’s kind of boring to clean it up, as it’s always the same three pieces in the same places. This should happen once or twice a day but it happens a lot more.
Care Guide
Creatures never die/leave like they do in traditional vpets. Whereas in Tamagotchi you are playing a “high score” care game (feeling proud of yourself for getting to 15 days or a top tier character), this is more of a pastime and a discovery/unlocking game.
First-time quick start instructions: Pet the Puni a few times. You have to stroke it back and forth about 5 times to count as a quality interaction. Feed it using your unlimited supply of gummy bears initially. Play some games by going to the Door icon then the theme park to earn coins.
The heart menu icon checks status. This is the penultimate menu item, because you don’t need to check status as often as you would a Tamagotchi - it’s not key to the game:
- The first row shows a mini-sprite of your Puni and its evolution stage - baby, kid, or adult. On the Japanese editions, this has text showing the character name.
- The second row (heart) shows a happiness bar that fills up with yellow/orange. Pet the Puni or play games to increase it.
- The third row (gummy bear) shows fullness, measured in stars. Feed Puni to increase it.
- The fourth row (coins) shows money earned from games.
If you neglect the Puni for too long, it will melt into a puddle, and you have to pet it back and forth to reform it. However, its happiness level could still be medium or high after this. I understand that the puddle happens if you leave it with too much poop, dust, or hunger for too long. There’s no real penalty if this happens.
I haven’t yet figured out the evolution tree and whether care mistakes affect which characters you can unlock!
When you’re fed up of happy with the time you’ve spent with an adult character, you can take it to the “magic forest” to go away into the wilds, at which point a baby puni will fly from space to join you anew.
Icons
Here’s a breakdown of the various icons that appear on screen:
The exclamation ! speech bubble appears on screen when you put your finger near the jelly button (there is an IR sensor that checks this), or when the Puni is notifying you of a seed. It’s not a cry for care like on a Tamagotchi.
The singing 🎵 speech bubble appears when the Puni is moderately happy with what just happened - after petting, games, or an acceptable food.
The hearts expression 💞 appears above the Puni’s head when it’s very happy with petting or after a favourite food.
The blue squiggle ➿ speech bubble appears when the Puni doesn’t like a food.
The bath 🛁 speech bubble appears when you’ve used the Puni to gather dust and it needs a bath.
If there’s a yellow arrow at the top of the screen, it means press/hold/use the jelly button.
Lastly, the characters will do “big emotes” at certain times after a happy interaction. For every adult, this is different. Paferun (the ice cream) blows a kiss. Pikarun (the geeky one with glasses), has a eureka lightbulb moment.
Foods, Recipes, Cooking, and Feeding
When the Puni is really hungry, it will show a speech bubble of three of its favourite foods. This is useful to remember.
Buy the base food items by going to the Door icon, choosing the supermarket, and squishing the Puni through the portal. The expensive foods are not better! If your Puni says its favourites are the onigiri rice ball 🍙 (80) and the salad 🥗 (250), it’s ok just to buy onigiri 😊 Of course it’s more fun to use your imagination and empathy when playing vpets, so you may choose to buy the expensive foods anyway.
Go to the cooking pot icon to cook base foods. The food will “think” of two seeds it wants to be combined with. Remember and select these on the next screen. To mix the food, stir the jelly button. You can do this fast or slow but it takes an equal amount of time, so I stir slowly to reduce wear and tear.
If you experiment with combining base foods with seeds that don’t make a real recipe, it will turn into a blue bone. This works like a gummy bear as far as I can tell.
- Favourite foods increase fullness by 1 star
- Acceptable foods increase fullness by 0.5 star, as do gummy bear and the blue bone
- The Puni will refuse some foods and do an inscrutable blue ➿ speech bubble
Finding info from Japanese sites
There’s not a lot of English language info, but you can put something like “Punirunzu Evolutions” into a web translator to get Japanese, and then search the web with the Japanese phrase.
E.g. “Punirunzu how to get Nyarurun” -> ぷにるんず にゃるるん の 入手方法
I found these sites have good info about evolutions (use browser translation to translate to English):
- https://maripoo.jp/punirunes-character/
- https://maripoo.jp/punirunes-evolution/
- https://present-nonnon.hatenablog.jp/entry/punirunzu_character_shinkazukan
The official Takara Tomy site is some help for character names:
When reading Japanese sites through the translator, note that Fushigipuni and Mysterious Puni are the same thing - the silhouettes of Puni adult shapes which you have unlocked (“Magic Squishy”).
Games and Coins
Sometimes you want to maximise coins. Here’s a table to help:
| Game Name | Duration | Coin Criteria | Difficulty Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mochi (Hammer) | 30s | 300pts for 300 coins | Tricky at first, easy with practice to get 300pts+ |
| Pot | 30s | 100pts for 300 coins | Tricky if you’re tired, easier with practice and when you’re alert |
| Platformer | Goal reached or 60s | 8 stars (80pts) for 300 coins, 5 stars (50 pts) for 200 coins | You can “speedrun” this in 15 secs to gather 5 stars and 200 coins |
| Rhythm | Song lasts around 43s | 380pts for 300 coins (I think) | Quite hard with the imprecise controls |
| Bubbles | 40s | 10 bubbles (100 pts) for 300 coins | Easy - get the first three bubbles and follow the blowfish without going up or down, you will easily get 140pts |
| Claw | 3 rounds of 10 seconds | 1 toy for 100 coins, 2 for 200, 3 for 300 | Quite hard |
I mostly play the Bubble game for easy coins, and the other ones for variety.
Characters and Evolutions
Baby: Bebirun
Child: Akarun (R), Kirirun (Y), Aorun (B)
Adults:
Evolution paths are mainly based on the colour of the child level, and the “Magic Squishy”/Fushigipuni which you have collected. Collecting all the possible evolutions requires replaying the game a few times, which is cool.
I am trying to unlock Nyarurun 🤞
Passwords
I’m going to list ALL the Japanese passwords that I found! But only the “Plaza” ones will work with international Punirunes.
Key: (S)tar, (B)lue, (R)ed, (H)eart, (G)reen
Punirunzu SUTARU (Star)
S B R H G - Teddy Bear
R G R S H - Lab background
B R S R B - 1000 coins
R G B G S - 1000 coins
Sanrio
H H S B R - Wings
B S G G H - Heart clip
R H B G S - 1000 coins
S R H B B - 1000 coins
Totsushin (TV connect)
None listed
Puni Plaza (International)
R G S H B - Red Seeds
G G R S H - Yellow Seeds
B R R B S - Blue Seeds
S H B G R - Playroom background
S G H S G - Top hat
Punirunzu Original
H G B S R - Red Seeds
G S H R G - Yellow Seeds
B R S R B - Blue Seeds
S H H H G - Seeds?
R B G S S - Party Place background
H R B S G - Top hat
Secret code to get Hapirun?
On the Spin Master site, there are some secret codes listed to trigger special animations featuring Hapirun.
Cover the IR sensor (insert finger), then:
- CCAACACA on the default room
- AACCACAC on the rainbow slide room
- CACACCAA on the moon room
- ACACAACC on the underwater room
I wonder if doing all of these will unlock the Magic Squishy for Hapirun…?
Ending
Thanks for reading my Punirunes article! You can reach me by email at ste at this domain.
nyarurun: にゃるるん itsumo MAIPE-SU de hokkori: いつも マイペース で ほっこり Always at my own pace and warm and cozy 😸