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Before you turn on your device, 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, holding C for 2 seconds will bring up the Settings screen. Holding the C button longer will let you power on and off the device regardless of whether any other buttons are also held. A sound will play before the device powers off. The Power menu item should be used instead for powering off to ensure the data saves properly.
• USB-C Port: Used for recharging the device. For best results, use a USB-C to USB-A cable, avoiding any USB-C PD cables. Any standard 5v charging brick should work fine. For best longevity, try not to let the battery drain too low or charge too high. In real-life usage, charging for one hour once a week is generally enough, but your usage may vary.

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

• A+C on main screen. Mutes the device, which can also be done from the settings menu.
• 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 a Grave. This will allow you to hatch a new Digimon

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. The top option is load, the bottom option is reset. If you choose reset, the top option is confirm, the bottom option is cancel.

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 recharging the battery, just hit LOAD to restore your progress. To ensure data saves when powering off the device, use the Power option in the Settings menu rather than holding down the C-Button for 10 seconds.

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

Various important stats about your Digimon appear here.

• Age - How many days your Digimon has been alive
• Weight - How much your Digimon weighs, in Gigabytes. Eating adds weight while trainings and battles shed weight
• Hunger - As time proceeds, these hearts will empty at a set rate, which can be seen by clicking on that Digimon in the Evolution Guide. Feed your Digimon meat to fill the hearts back up. Your Digimon can eat more than the number of hearts, and continuing to feed it until it refuses to will result in an Overfeed. This is an evolution requirement, so pay attention to how often you Overfeed.
• Strength - As time proceeds, these hearts will empty at a set rate, which can be seen by clicking on that Digimon in the Evolution Guide. Your Digimon likes to be at maximum strength, refill these hearts by feeding protein or training. When at full strength, your Digimon will receive a bonus to its Power stat, which can be seen the Power section below.
• Effort - Every 4 training sessions you perform will fill 1 effort heart. Training is very important for evolution: different numbers of training can lead to different evolutionary lines, so experiment with different amounts.
• Energy (DP) - Your stamina, this is required for battling. If you have no Energy, you can’t fight. Energy is completely restored by sleeping for at least 8 hours, or restored by 1 by feeding 4 Protein. You can see how much Energy each Digimon has by clicking on that Digimon in the Evolution Guide.
• Win Ratio - Your percentage of wins compared to losses. A high win percentage is required to reach Stages V and VI, and you need 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.

• Type - The Digimon's Attribute. There are 4 attributes: Vaccine, Data, Virus and Free (Free is indicated by there not being an attribute listed). 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.
• Vaccine is strong against Virus
• Virus is strong against Data
• Data is strong against Vaccine
• Free has no strength or weakness

Having an attribute advantage will grant 5 percentage to your hitrate in battle. The Free attribute also technically exists, but is not used by any of the Digimon in the Digital Monster Color series.

Pets need food to survive! 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. You can overfeed by feeding 10 more meat after having full hearts. Overfeeding will give you one extra Hunger Loss cycle before one of your hearts drop.
• Protein - Giving this to a Digimon will add one heart to the strength meter and two gigabytes to their weight. Every four Protein will increase your Energy and Protein Overdose by 1 each.

Training is the primary way of adding hearts to the strength meter, and the only way to add hearts to the effort meter. Every four trainings will add one Effort Heart, regardless of whether or not they are successful. Likewise, both succesful and failed trainings count for evolution. Your Digimon will also lose 1 gigabyte of weight every time they train. If training is successful, you will also gain a strength heart. The training method is different depending on which version you are raising. Training animations can be skipped on the Ver.3, Ver.4 and Ver.5. This means that on the 4 and 5 specifically, the required amount of training for evolution can be rapidly obtained by mashing the button.

• Ver.1 - Press A for a high attack or B for a low attack. If your attack reaches the opposing Digimon 3 out of 5 times, training is successful. Each session of 5 attacks counts as 1 training.
• Ver.2 - Press A or B to stop the meter. If you stop it when it is full, the punching bag is destroyed and training is successful.
• Ver.3 - Repeatedly press A or B to increase the meter. If you fill it to maximum before the time runs out, training is successful.
• Ver.4 - Press A or B to stop the number. If you stop it at 100, the rock is destroyed and training is successful.
• Ver.5 - Press A or B to stop the meter. If you stop it when it is full, the tree is destroyed and training is successful.

There is a pattern for the Ver.1 training, where the same 10 combinations of attacks will repeat forever. The easiest way to take advantage of this is to simply choose the low attack (B) every time until you fail a training session. Then do only low attacks for the next 4 training, only high attacks for the next one, and repeat that exact pattern of 4 low sessions and 1 high session indefinitely. If you want the detailed breakout of which button to press for each round, it is below.

Battling is a HUGE part of Digimon culture. It’s every Digimon’s dream to be the strongest, and there are two methods to fight on the Digital Monster Color.

• The first option is Quest Mode, which allows you to take on a series of areas. Each area consists of a several Digimon battles ending with a Boss. If you beat the boss, you gain the option to take on the next area. The winner of each battle is the first Digimon to land 3 hits against its opponent. Each individual battle in an area counts as one battle for evolution. In Ver.1 and Ver.2, you cannot leave a battle area until you have beaten its boss or have been defeated. In Ver.3, Ver.4, and Ver.5; you can exit the area between battles, and can also skip the intro animations by pressing the button.
• The second option is Communication, which allows you to battle against another Digital Monster Color. Once the screen says BATTLE, connect the two devices by the prongs on the top and press the A or B button on one of the devices. Whoever lands all four hits is the winner (the first three hits will always land on both Digimon, the final hit is the deciding one). Make sure your device is sufficiently charged when doing communication battles. Also note that the Digital Monster Color cannot battle against any older devices.

In order to Battle, you must have at least one DP, and must evolved to Stage III or higher. Whether you win or lose, your Digimon has a chance to become injured after battle, and getting injured 15 times will result in death. See the Heal section for more details.

Except for the first three hits of a Connection Battle, which area always guaranteed, whether an attack will land or not is determined by the hitrate formula. This formula can be repesented as follows:

hitrate = ((playerPower * 100)/(playerPower + opponentPower)) + attributeAdvantage

• hitrate - This numer represents the chance of your hit connecting, out of 100.
• playerPower - The current Power value of your Digimon. See the details on the Power stat in the Status section above.
• opponentPower - The current Power value of the opponent Digimon.
• attributeAdvantage - Equals 5 if you have an attribute advantage, -5 if you have an attribute disadvantage, otherwise equals 0. See the details on the Attribute stat in the Status section above.

You can calculate your hitrate by clicking here.

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: every 3 minutes at Stage I, every 60 minutes at Stage II and then every 120 minutes for the rest of its life. Just select the Poop icon to clean it up, and make sure you never let 8 piles accumulate, or else your Digimon will get injured! Remember: Poop and injuries are NOT Care Mistakes, but too many injuries will kill your Digimon.

When you choose this icon, you are given three options.

• Lights - This allows you to turn on or off the lights. When a Digimon falls asleep, the lights should be turned off right away to avoid a care mistake. If your Digimon is asleep and you disturb it by attempting to feed, train or battle with it, this will count as a sleep disturbance, which is an evolution requirement for certain Digimon. Waking a sleeping Digimon does not count as a Care Mistake. After being disturbed, the Digimon will fall back asleep after 10 minutes. All Digimon wake up on their own at 8:00 AM.
• Cold Mode - Freezes your Digimon, pausing it. Digimon do not age, evolve, lose hearts or call out while frozen, until you choose to unfreeze them.
• Backup - Allows you to put your current Digimon in backup to raise a different one. If there is currently no Digimon in backup, you will get a new egg. Otherwise, when you backup your current Digimon, you will receive the one you previously backed up, but it will have empty strength and hunger. A Digimon in backup is treated the same as being in Cold Mode.

Digimon can get injured from battling or from accumulating 8 poops. 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. You can see how many doses your Digimon requires by clicking on that Digimon in the Evolution Guide. If your Digimon gets injured 15 times, or remains injured for 6 hours, it will DIE. For battles, you have a 20% chance of getting injured when you win, and a 10% chance when you lose. That 10% chance is increased by 10% for every Protein Overdose you have, for a maximum of 80%. Every 4 Protein fed creates one Protein Overdose

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 at all. Calls may occur for the following reasons:

• The hunger meter is empty
• The strength meter is empty
• Your Digimon is asleep and wants the lights turned off

The call light will go out after 10 minutes for Hunger or Strength, and after 1 hour for sleep. 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 call again when its timer for that heart meter runs out again, and can result in another care mistake. A Digimon will only call one time for sleep, regardless of whether or not you turn out the lights. Hunger and Strength depleting at the same time will result in two care mistakes if you don't fill them, even if you only receive one call.

The Settings menu can be accessed by holding C on the main screen for two seconds while no icons are selected. There are four options.

• Background - Allows you to select which background to use from those available. Additional backgrounds can be unlocked by meeting various conditions, see the next section for details.
• Brightness - Change the intensity of the backlight to one of 5 steps.
• Sound - Default is loud, but can be changed to low. If you mute the device using A+C on the main screen on Ver.1 and Ver.2, you cannot use this option until you unmute it the same way. This was changed for Ver.3, Ver.4, and Ver.5; where you can also use this menu to turn the sound off and on.
• Save and Power Off - Saves your current progress and turns off the device. You will be given the option to load your data or reset it when turning the device back on. The top option is load, the bottom option is reset. If you choose reset, the top option is confirm, the bottom option is cancel.

Each version of the Digital Monster comes with its own unique background unlocked, as well as one other that is the same for all versions. Additional backgrounds can be unlocked by connecting to other devices, completing Quest areas and raising specific Digimon. This table shows all available backgrounds and how to unlock them. See the previous section for details on changing backgrounds.

	Grasslands Default on Ver.1, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Ver.1 Dusk | Night
	Desert Default on Ver.2, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Ver.2 Dusk | Night
	Forest Default on Ver.3, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Ver.3 Dusk | Night
	Mountains Default on Ver.4, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Ver.4 Dusk | Night
	Beach Default on Ver.5, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Ver.5 Dusk | Night
	File Island Connect with all 4 other versions of the Digital Monster Color Dusk | Night
	Abandoned Office Unlocked by default on all versions
	The Grid Clear the first area of Quest Mode
	Digimon Color Logo Clear the fourth area of Quest Mode Ver.2 | Ver.3 | Ver.4 | Ver.5
	Box Art Clear the final area of Quest Mode, color depends on device version Ver.1: Dusk | Night, Ver.2: Day | Dusk | Night, Ver.3: Day | Dusk | Night, Ver.4: Day | Dusk | Night, Ver.5: Day | Dusk | Night
	D-1 Grand Prix Win 10 connection battles
	D-1 Grand Prix Gold Win 100 connection battles
	25th Anniversary Raise Shin Monzaemon, Ebemon, Bancho Leomon, Gankoomon or Gaioumon

The Grasslands, Desert, Forest, Mountains, Beach, File Island and Box Art backgrounds will change color to reflect the time of day. The standard version will display starting at 6:00 AM, dusk will start at 4:00 PM, and night will begin at 7:00 PM.

It’s time to start raising your Digimon! Once you've turned on the device by holding the C button, 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. You will then see your very first Digitama (also called a Digi-Egg). After 8 seconds 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. 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.

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 isn't frozen or in backup, and will even progress during sleep. 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 Stages V and VI is 40%, but a higher win percentage increases chances of evolving further. Having an 80% Win Ratio will guarantee evolution into Stages V and VI, but you must also meet get 1 or fewer Care Mistakes for stage VI. Evolution into Stage VI is based on care mistakes and Stage VI+ is only achievable through Jogress for specific Digimon. If you have a Digimon capable of Jogress, you must do a communication battle with the appropriate opponent for the evolution to occur. Stage VI+ Digimon cannot evolve further.

Upon evolution, the following stats will reset: Care Mistakes, Trainings, Overfeeds, Sleep Disturbances, Overdoses, Injuries and your number of Battles for evolution. Win Ratio will persist across all evolutions.

Note: There is not actually any separate distinction for Stage VI+ Digimon on this device, they are internally the same stage as Stage VI Digimon. This guide refers to them as Stage VI+ regardless for the sake of clarity.

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 16 seconds, the screen will turn off. You can press any button to turn the screen back on. The screen will also turn on by itself when the Digimon calls you, poops or evolves.

Potentially you could keep your Digimon 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 15 times in one form
• Remaining injured for 6 hours consecutive in one form
• Leaving the Hunger or Strength hearts empty for 12 consecutive hours in one form
• Having 5 or more Care Mistakes when or after the evolution timer for your Stage IV or V Digimon runs out without having fulfilled the requirements for evolution
• Having 5 or more Care Mistakes when or after your Stage VI or VI+ Digimon has been in that form for 48 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! Press A+B simultaneously and just like that, a new egg will hatch. Note that while hearts would begin dropping at a faster rate after a certain point on other devices, this never occurs on the Digital Monster Color.

When a Stage V or higher Digimon dies, it has a 30% chance of leaving a Traited Egg. The egg will appear on the screen behind the grave of your Digimon, and the Digimon that hatches from it will receive a bonus to its Power. Details of that Power Bonus are in the Status section above.