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Before you remove the battery tab, it’s important to know what the buttons on your device are. The three buttons to the right of the screen are; from top to bottom: A, B and C. Their functions are as follows:

• A - Select: This lets you cycle through the different icons at the top and bottom of the device.
• B - Confirm: Once you have highlighted an icon or menu item, press B to confirm that selection. If no icon is highlighted, and you are not in a menu, B will show you the clock.
• C - Cancel: If you have an icon highlighted, C will cancel the selection, making it so no icon is highlighted. If you are in a menu, C will take you out of the menu. If no icon is highlighted, and you are not in a menu, C will switch what Digimon is shown on your screen (The ability to have two Digimon on screen will be automatically obtained after you have raised your first Digimon to Stage III)

Sometimes you can press two buttons together to create a different effect. The following combos exist:

• A+C on main screen. This will allow you to mute the sound on the device. Useful for school, work or other times when you don’t need beeps disrupting everything.
• A+C on clock screen. This lets you change the time. Changing time will not speed up growth on Digimon, but you may decide that your Digimon goes to bed later than you like. Change the clock to better match up with your personal schedule, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the real time after all.
• A+B on ? Egg or Grave. This gives you the option to select a new egg. Once you press the combo, a list of eggs you have available will appear, so use A to cycle through them and B to confirm the egg you want to raise.

That’s the reset button! You shouldn’t need to push it very often, but if at any point you think you want to reset your Digimon, you can press this button to soft-reset your Digimon, which brings up the option to Load or Reset. Choosing load will make you set the clock again, and then bring you back to the most recent saved state of your Digimon. Choosing Reset will erase EVERYTHING, so be careful.

Your device uses CR2032 batteries, make sure to have some spares handy! The battery that comes with new devices aren't always reliable, so they may die shortly after you buy a new device. Regardless of that, your progress will be saved automatically every minute, so you don't need to worry about continuing raising your Digimon when the battery dies. After putting in a new battery, just hit LOAD to restore your progress.

WAIT! Let’s make sure you know what the Menus are first.

Various important stats about your Digimon appear here. Stats will display for whichever Digimon is on screen. If both Digimon are on screen, you can cycle through both their stats.

• Name - The Digimon’s name, in Japanese
• Age - How many days your Digimon has been alive
• Weight - How much your Digimon weighs, in Gigabytes. If you hit 99 Gigabytes, your Digimon's power will decrease! Eating adds weight while trainings and battles shed weight
• Hunger - As time proceeds, these hearts will empty. Feed your Digimon meat to fill the hearts back up.
• Strength - Your Digimon likes to be at maximum strength, refill these hearts by feeding protein or training
• Effort - Every 4 training sessions you perform will fill 1 effort heart. Effort is very important for evolution: different numbers of hearts can lead to different evolutionary lines, so you don’t necessarily need to have full, or even any, effort hearts. Experiment and see what happens!
• DP - Your stamina, this is required for battling. If you have no DP, you can’t fight. DP is restored by sleeping for at least 3 hours or feeding proteins. Max DP starts at 14 for a Stage III Digimon, with each evolution granting 14 more Max DP for a total of 70 for Stage VI+ Digmon.
• Battle record -Your percentage of wins compared to losses. A high win percentage is required to reach Stage V, and you want to make sure to do at least 15 battles

In addition to the above stats, the following stats aren't displayed on the Stats screen, but are still important.

• Attribute - There are 4 attributes: Vaccine, Data, Virus and Free. These operate in a Rock-Paper-Scissors format, where if your attribute has an advantage over your opponent, you will have a higher chance to win than normal. If your Digimon is a Free attribute, there will be nothing listed for attribute.
• Vaccine is strong against Virus
• Virus is strong against Data
• Data is strong against Vaccine
• Free has no advantages or disadvantages

Having an attribute advantage will effectively grant a +32 bonus to your Digimon's Power stat.

• Power - How strong your Digimon is. If your power is higher than your enemy's power, then your attacks are more likely to hit. The higher the power difference, the higher the liklihood. All Digimon have a base power between 4 and 238. That number is the same for all Digimon of the same species. For example, all Seadramon have a base power of 50. Apart from base power, each Strength Heart adds 4 points to power, meaning you can add a total of 16 power to your Digimon. That same Seadramon has a power of 66 when its Strength Hearts are full. In other words, always make sure your Strength Hearts are full before battling! Something else to keep in mind is that if your Digimon is at 99G for weight, or has no Hunger Hearts, the Strength Bonus will be removed, reverting it to its base power.
• Care Mistakes - How many care mistakes you make by missing a Call. This stat resets on each evolution back to 0. See the Call section below for more information.

Pets need food to survive! Whatever Digimon is currently on screen will get fed, so you can feed them one at a time or both at once. Digimon can be given two types of food:

• Meat - Basic food. Giving this to a Digimon will add one heart to the hunger meter, and add one gigabyte to their weight.
• Protein - For strength! Giving this to a Digimon will add one heart to the strength meter, two gigabytes to their weight and restore their DP by .25 points. Be careful about feeding too many Protein! If your Digimon reaches 99G it will get be weaker in battle.

Training is the primary way of adding hearts to the strength meter, and the only way to add hearts to the effort meter. When you do a training, you get .25 points on the effort meter, so four trainings will make a full heart, regardless of whether or not they are successful. Your Digimon will also lose 1-4 gigabytes of weight every time they train, depending on performance. If training is successful, you will also gain a strength heart. For training one Digimon, you need to mash A as much as possible to fill its meter. If you hit the button at least 13 times, your Digimon will gain two Strength Hearts. For training two Digimon, you choose to fire a high shot or a low shot. If your shot gets past your partner's shield, you succeed. You need to succeed 3 out of the 5 rounds for training to be successful. There is a repeating pattern, so pressing the buttons according to the chart below will let you win tag training every time.

Battling is a HUGE part of Digimon culture. It’s every Digimon’s dream to be the strongest, and the Colosseum is where they all go to compete. You may choose to participate in Single or Tag battles, which are exactly what they sound like. After choosing your division, you will be able to Start or Continue. Starting will take you to the very first competitor or team, whereas continue will pick up where you left off. You will also choose which Digimon, including Copymon, will participate. There are 100 rounds of the Colosseum, both for Single and Tag battles. Clearing them all will not result in a reward, but you can unlock new eggs by doing 50 and 100 battles of any type. In addition, battling helps your Digimon achieve Stage V! As a note, your Digimon, no matter how strong, may not always win. If you lose, you may get injured, at which point you should head over to the Bandage icon to heal. There is also a chance that you may get injured even if you do win! Keep attributes in mind when fighting, and try to use a Digimon whose attribute is stronger than the opponent’s. Even then, if you have an Stage VI Vaccine, you may still lose to a Virus Stage III! Luck is a factor in these battles, so when that happens, just try again! If you keep losing, maybe you should wait until you get a stronger Digimon, or switch to one of a different attribute.

Before starting each battle, you will complete a minigame to determine your attack order, which in turn determines how much damage you will deal per shot. The possible attacks in order of damage output from lowest to highest are Weak, Strong, Double Weak, Double Strong and Critical. If your Digimon is at max Strength, damage output will increase for each attack by 1 in Single Battles, or 2 in Tag Battles (both Digimon must be at max Strength in Tag Battles for the bonus to apply). For single battles, you can get the strongest attack order by simply need to mash the A button so that the meter completely fills. Tag battles work differently, as there is another meter that goes up and down, which you must stop at one of 4 points. After stopping the first meter, you mash A to fill the second meter again. The strongest combinations for tag battles are as follows:

Poop is such an iconic part of the Digimon experience that there are over a dozen Digimon built entirely around POOP! Your Digimon will poop as time passes, and if you have two Digimon, both will lay waste to your screen. Just select this icon to clean it up, and make sure you never let 4 piles accumulate, or else your Digimon will get injured! The Digital Monster Ver.20th has a very frequent poop rate, so you will want to check it at least once an hour, if not more. If the poop is too much for you, you can just heal your Digimon after it gets injured from poop WITHOUT cleaning the poop, and it will never poop again as long as 4 piles remain on the screen. Since it cannot poop when there are already 4 piles, it can't get injured again from pooping.

When you choose this icon, you are given an option for On and Off, and these options do different things depending on whether your Digimon is tired or sleeping. Your Digimon will become tired every night, which is indicated by it having Z's above it's head. Failing to put a tired Digimon to sleep will result in a care mistake. Waking a tired or sleeping Digimon will not result in a Care Mistake. All Digimon will wake up at 7:00 AM. The evolution timer pauses while sleeping, so your Digimon cannot evolve while asleep.

• If your Digimon is not tired or sleeping.
• Wake  - Nothing!
• Sleep - Your Digimon takes a nap. It will wake up on its own in 3 hours unless the nap extends into its normal bedtime, in which case it will continue to sleep.
• If your Digimon is tired
• Wake - Wakes your Digimon up
• Sleep - Puts your Digimon to sleep
• If your Digimon is sleeping
• Wake - Wakes your Digimon up
• Sleep - Nothing!

Digimon can get injured from losing battles or from accumulating too much poop. When your Digimon is injured, it will have a skull floating next to it. When this happens you can use this option to heal them! Select this icon to heal your Digimon, and note that multiple doses of medicine may be necessary. Note that if your Digimon gets injured 20 times, it will DIE.

Information about your history as a Tamer is stored here. You have four options to choose between:

• Digimon: Here you can take a look at all the Digimon you have managed to raise so far. Adding entries into the album will unlock additional eggs, so raise a variety of Digimon! On the Japanese models you will also see some numbers here. These numbers were used for the D1 Grand Prix, and no longer serve any purpose.
• Copymon: If you currently have a Copymon, you can choose this option to see which ones you have.
• Record: These are your overall wins and battles.
• Tamer: Your Tamer Name

Those little metal nodes on the top of your device aren’t just for show, you can use them to connect to another device! After choosing the connection you wish to perform, your device will play a jingle indicating its ready to connect. While the jingle is playing, connect the devices and press the A or B button on one of the devices to initate the connection. Make sure to hold the devices together until you hear a confirmation sound, at which point you can pull them apart and view the result of your connection.

• Battle - Battling with another Digital Monster Ver.20th will function exactly like it does in the Colosseum. If you want to battle against something other than a Digital Monster Ver.20th, you can choose OTHER to use the original Digital Monster battle system. This simplified battle system will not take strength, power or attribute into account, and will instead use a predetermined slot from the original Digital Monster series for your Digimon, which is mostly based on your current evolution stage.
• Copymon - You can choose to receive or send a Copymon from/to another Ver.20th device. When sending, you choose a Digimon from your album to send. The copied Digimon can be used in Tag battles.

If your Digimon needs you, it will call out to you with a few beeps, and this icon will light up. When this happens, act fast! If the call light goes out before you take care of the Digimon, that counts as a care mistake. The number of care mistakes you have will affect the outcome of your evolution. For evolving to Stage III or IV, your number of care mistakes is a factor in determining what Digimon you evolve into. For evolving to Stage VI, too many care mistakes will prevent you from evolving. Calls may occur for the following reasons:

• The hunger meter is empty
• The strength meter is empty
• Your Digimon is tired and wants to go to bed

The call light will go out after 10 minutes, and note that if you have sound off, calls will still occur. If an empty meter is not filled after the call light goes out on its own, your Digimon will not call again unless it becomes tired.

It’s time to start raising your Digimon, pull that tab out! You’ll get a cute little splash screen and be asked to set the time. Use A to change the hours, B to change the minutes, and C to stop setting the clock. After that you will need to enter your name, which can be 4 characters long. You will then see your very first Digitama (also called a Digi-Egg). After 1 minute of an egg being on screen, it will hatch, and immediately beep at you because it is STARVING! Feed it, train it, or just do whatever. Literally nothing you do during this stage matters, but it’s a nice warm up. After 10 minutes, the Digimon will evolve to its Stage II form.

At this point, how you care for your Digimon begins to matter. Care mistakes are now being tracked on your device, but you won’t see a meter for that anywhere, so if you are concerned about that, you will just have to keep track separately. The number of care mistakes you make will decide which Stage III your Digimon will evolve into.

After reaching Stage III you will be given your second egg. Use the C button to make the egg the only thing on the screen, and press A+B simultaneously to pick which egg you want. Your device has 5 eggs on it when you start, but more can be found by meeting certain conditions. After choosing the egg, it will hatch in one minute, just like your first one. Both Digimon will grow, lose hearts and poop regardless of whether or not they are visible on screen. You can only raise two Digimon at a time, so you have to wait for a slot to open up via Jogressing or Death before you can choose your next egg.

Evolution will occur at set times, based on when the previous evolution occurred. The times are as follows:

The timer ticks as long as your Digimon is awake, so your Digimon will not evolve while sleeping. So long as you don’t completely neglect your Digimon, you are pretty much guaranteed to reach Stage IV. Stage V requires battling to reach, and these battles must be completed within 36 hours of it evolving. Additionally, not only do you have to battle, but you have to have a good win percentage. The minimum win percentages for Stage V is 40%, but a higher win percentage increases chances of evolving further. In addition, only your last 15 battles are counted for win percentage, so keep that in mind! Winning 12 out of your 15 most recent battles will guarantee evolution into Stage V. The times above are the official times from Bandai, but you may experience minor variances. Note that only specific Digimon can evolve into Stages VI and VI+, and Stage VI+ is only achieveable through Jogress. Stage VI+ Digimon cannot evolve further.

While you aren't interacting with your Digimon, it will move around the screen doing different animations. These animations are all just there for show, and don't mean anything by themselves. If you don't interact with your Digimon for about a minute, the screen will turn off. You can press any button to turn the screen back on.

The older your Digimon is, the harder it is going to try to die. Potentially you could still keep it alive forever, but you aren’t going to. You’re going to go to a party one night and forget to put them down for a nap before you leave.  And then they will die. You monster. There are actually several ways your Digimon can die, including the following:

• Getting injured 20 times in one form
• Getting a care mistake 20 times in one form
• Getting a care mistake 5 times upon or after your Digimon has been awake for 48 hours in its current evolutionary stage
• Remaining injured for 6 hours
• Having empty Hunger or Strength hearts for 12 hours

Once your Digimon finishes singing its dying song, you are now looking at a grave. Your Digimon has died and converted back into raw data. Oh well! LET’S MAKE A NEW ONE! Use C to make the grave the only thing on the screen, and then press A+B simultaneously. Just like that, you will be able to select a new egg and start all over again.

If you manage to keep your Digimon alive for 48 hours after its most recent evolution, you will get a Traited Egg when your Digimon dies. Note that like evolution, time is not counted while your Digimon is asleep. After the death animation plays, you will see your Digimon leave an egg before the screen turns into a grave. This will grant the next Digimon that you hatch from this slot a small bonus for chance to evolve to Stage V. However, because it is already possible to get 100% chance of evolution to Stage V, this bonus is honestly not useful.