Piñata Journal:Style guide

This is the Piñata Journal Style Guide. It documents the conventions used for writing, naming, formatting, and linking across the wiki.

Piñata Journal is intended to function as an encyclopedia of the Viva Piñata series. Articles should document game mechanics, behavior, and content as they exist within the games themselves. They need not function as strategy guides or walkthroughs, as gameplay advice is often subjective and not in keeping with the site's goal of being a repository of knowledge.

Editors are encouraged to read this manual before contributing.

This document provides general guidance but cannot anticipate every situation. Where conventions are already established across multiple pages, they should not be changed without good reason. Proposed changes to established style should be discussed on article talk pages.

General writing style

Encyclopedic tone

Piñata Journal articles should be written in a clear, neutral, and informative style.

Avoid:

• Second-person perspective (e.g. "you")
• Player-directed advice
• Strategy recommendations
• Conversational tone
• Speculation or opinion
• Flavorful or narrative phrasing where mechanical description is sufficient

Articles should describe systems as they function in-game. Statements about efficiency, optimization, or recommended player behavior dip into subjective advice and therefore do not belong in fact-based articles.

Perspective

Articles should describe what occurs within the game world, not what the player should do.

Avoid:

• "Players must…"
• "The player can…"
• "You should…"

Instead:

• "A piñata will mature after completing the following:"
• "This behavior occurs when:"
• "The following conditions are required:"

Game titles and terminology

Official game titles

Use official English titles when referring to games.

The original game should be referred to as:

• Viva Piñata (2006)

This distinguishes it from the franchise title Viva Piñata.

Use the year on the first occurrence within an article. Subsequent mentions may omit the year if no ambiguity exists.

Example:

In Viva Piñata (2006), the Dragonache cannot be crated.

Abbreviations

Informal abbreviations such as:

• VP1
• VP Classic
• Classic
• TiP

should not be used in article prose.

Redirects may exist from common abbreviations to improve searchability. Unofficial fan terminology should be avoided in article titles and categories unless no official equivalent exists.

Localization changes

Viva Piñata (2006) and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise feature minor wording differences between their UK and US English releases (e.g. "bacon butty" vs. "bacon sandwich", "happy sweet" vs. "happy candy"). As the games were originally written in UK English and later localized for US audiences, this wiki uses UK English terminology by default (e.g. Happy Sweet) for the sake of consistency.

American English equivalents are documented in the In other languages section of each relevant page.

Article titles

• Titles should use official English names where available.
• Titles should be written in sentence case.
• Titles should generally be singular.
• Do not begin titles with "The", "A", or "An" unless it is part of the proper name.

Disambiguation using game titles in parentheses is preferred where necessary.

Examples:

• Dragonache
• List of piñata species by level

Linking

Only link to a given article once per section on first occurrence. Repeated linking within the same paragraph should be avoided. However, lists of related items may link consistently where appropriate.

Opening sentence

The subject of the article should appear in bold within the first sentence.

Example:

Dragonache is a species of piñata introduced in Viva Piñata (2006).

Capitalization

The following are capitalized:

• Piñata species names
• Character names
• Shop names
• Building names
• Garden areas
• Game titles

The following are not capitalized:

• piñata
• variant
• egg
• trick
• surface

Unofficial terminology should be lowercase unless part of an established proper noun.

Lore sections

Lore summaries should describe narrative events without referring to player agency.

Avoid:

• It is up to the player to…
• You must help…

Use:

• The events of the game follow…
• The gardener is tasked with…

Images

For article images, official material is highly preferred. In-game screenshots create visual clutter and appear less professional. Image content should be prioritized in the following order:

• Official renders by Rare (e.g. promotional material such as wallpapers)
• Direct game-ripped assets, including:
  • Journal icons
  • 2D art (e.g. P-Factor portraits, concept art)
  • Data-rendered models
• In-game screenshots (last resort)

If no other options are available, gameplay screenshots are permissible for demonstration purposes. Screenshots of an object should use its appearance in the Journal if applicable. However, as the Journal distorts the dimensions of most items and uses a dark background, even these should be avoided if possible. In-garden screenshots should not be used if possible, but when used, they should be taken in an empty garden without distracting background elements or player-defined names.

Pages needing additional work

As a fan wiki driven by community editors, Piñata Journal is ever-changing and will never be fully complete. To this end, several templates and categories have been created to mark pages in need of additional work:

• Stub: For empty or near-empty pages. Most or all information about the subject should be filled in.
• Expand: Similar to Stub, but for individual sections within a page that are empty or lacking in information.
• Needs testing: For pages or sections that require in-game testing to verify data, behavior, etc.
• Needs research: For pages or sections that require information derived from external non-gameplay research (e.g. developer interviews, promotional material, etc.).

Categories

Categories should reflect official game distinctions where applicable.

Species, items, mechanics, and structures introduced in specific titles should be categorized using the full game title and year where needed.

Avoid legacy or unofficial terminology in category names.

Language

Serial commas should be used where appropriate.

Game titles are italicized.

Section headers are not italicized.