The Starface
A guide to what your Punyo's light is telling you.
Every Punyo has a single warm light on the free end of its body. That light is the starface. It's the most expressive thing about a Punyo, and the only feature present on every Punyo ever built. The minimal Punyo has nothing else, and even the fanciest Punyo speaks first through its starface.
The starface speaks two languages at once:
- Color tells you what. Each color points to one of the Punyo's states. The vocabulary is small and stable; you'll learn it within a few days of carrying one.
- Cadence tells you who. The breath is how the light rises, falls, lingers, or quickens. It is the Punyo's own personality showing through. Two Punyos in the same state will glow the same color but breathe differently.
The Color Vocabulary
| Color | State | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Warm amber | Idle | Content and unoccupied. Most common state. Slow breath. |
| Bright gold | Curious | Recently woken, usually right after a button press. Quick rise, then settles. |
| Peer's color | Excited | Briefly flashes the color of another Punyo it just met. Each Punyo has a unique identity color derived from its key. |
| Dim amber | Sleepy | Power-saving. Long breath, very faint. Most of the time when on a keychain. |
| Soft cream | Imprinting | Only seen in young Punyos. The hatchling color, present until the personality settles. Slow color drift within the cream range. |
| Warm orange | Tired | Long time since the last encounter or interaction. Slower than idle. |
| Clear white | Attentive | Plugged into a host computer. Brighter and steadier than any other state. |
| Cool blue-white | Low battery | Coin cell is running low. Slow dim pulse. Time to plug in or change the cell. |
The Cadence Vocabulary
The color tells you the state. The breath tells you the Punyo. Cadence is a function of personality, and personality grows from the Punyo's life, from how it was carried, when it was attended to, and who it has met.
A serene-personality Punyo breathes slowly with smooth, symmetric rises and falls. An excitable-personality Punyo's idle breath is faster, with quicker rises than falls. A patient-personality Punyo lingers at peak. An impatient one barely rests at all. None of these are programmed in by the manufacturer. They emerge from each Punyo's individual history.
Two Punyos in the same state, glowing the same color, will not breathe identically. That difference is the most honest expression of who each one has become.
The Encounter Flash
When two Punyos pass each other and recognize one another, each one briefly flashes the other's identity color before returning to its own current state. If you see your Punyo flash teal, then yellow, then settle back into warm amber, your Punyo just met a teal-identified Punyo. The brief inflection of that flash carries your Punyo's personality, not the other one's. Same encounter, different witness, slightly different rendering.
Meeting the same Punyo many times means something. Reference firmware extends the encounter flash for familiar peers. The longer-known the friend, the longer, warmer, and more deliberate the flash.
If There Is No Starface
There is always a starface. Every Punyo has one, by definition. A Punyo without a starface is not a Punyo.
Going Deeper
Punyo can go deep, but it doesn't have to.
The full specification of state transitions, color mappings, and personality-modulated cadence is in the protocol spec. You don't need to read it to enjoy a Punyo. It's there if you want to build your own, modify the behavior, or write a host application that visualizes it differently.