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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. This also lets you choose between different menu items. When viewing the clock, this toggles the display between 12 hour and 24 time.
• 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 Computer. 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.

As a warning, the Pendulum Ver.20th is known to lose data while changing batteries sometimes. To help prevent this from occurring, it is recommended that you always reset to the splash screen (The one that says Digimon Pendulum) before removing the battery, and after inserting the new one.

Because it contains a pendulum! A little clacky thingy that keeps track of the number of times you shake the device vertically. Well, that’s not entirely true anymore though, because the Pendulum Ver.20th now uses an accelerometer, just like the one in your phone, to keep track of shakes. That clacky pendulum is apparently just for show now. The shaking is mainly used for training and battles. When shaking the device, keep the chain edge pointed downward, and don't shake as fast as you can. Calm, deliberate shakes will create the best results.

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 will get sick! 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. You also need full DP in order to Jogress. DP is restored by a full nights sleep, feeding proteins or by being frozen for three hours (see the Light section for information on how to freeze a Digimon). 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.
• 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. In addition, attribute determines Jogress compatibility and outcome.

• BJ - B stands for Battle, J stands for Jogress. An O next to the letter means that you can do that action, an X means you cannot.
• Battle record - Number of wins vs number of losses. A high win percentage is required to reach higher stages without Jogressing, 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.

• 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 Ikkakumon have a base power of 58. 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 Ikkakumon has a power of 74 when its Strength Hearts are full. In other words, always make sure your Strength Hearts are full before battling!
• 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 sick, and too many sicknesses can kill your Digimon!

Note that if you feed both Digimon at once, they will receive double the hearts they normally would. So one big meat will fill two hunger hearts for both Digimon.

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 one gigabyte of weight every time they train. If training is successful, you will also gain a strength heart. If you manage a mega hit, you will lose more weight. When training begins, you are asked to COUNT, which means SHAKE THE DEVICE! Each Digimon has a specific number of shakes that it requires to get a Megahit, which is the best result you can get from training. A Megahit will completely fill your Strength and reduce your weight by 8. Try to make your shakes nice and even, and use a consistent speed. Once you have determined your Digimon’s specific shake count, you are ready for the Colosseum! Tag Training is performed the same way, but you only do shakes for the Digimon that appears immediately after initiating Tag Training.

If you have a Copymon during single training, you can get a Gigahit instead of a Megahit, which really reduces your Digimon’s weight. Whether you get a Gigahit or not depends on the attribute of your Copymon. The attribute that works for your Digmon is shown in parentheses in the evolution guide, following the Megahit Shake Count.

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, and you will be handsomely rewarded for clearing them all. In addition, battling helps your Digimon achieve the Stages V and VI! 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 Vaccine Stage VI, 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. When doing Tag Battles, you will need to do the shake count for the Digimon you first selected for the battle. Critical hits can occur in tag battles when the second Digimon you choose fulfills the Gigahit requirement, as described in the Training section.

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 sick!

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, sleeping or frozen. Your Digimon will become tired every night, which is indicated by it switching between its idle and sleeping animation. 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 08:00 unless they were not put to bed, in which case they will wake up at 10:00. A sleeping Digimon will still grow, and may even evolve while sleeping, while a frozen Digimon does not grow at all.  When your Digimon is frozen, its sprite is replaced with a refrigerator.

• If your Digimon is not tired, sleeping or frozen
• On  - Nothing!
• Off - Freezes your Digimon
• If your Digimon is tired
• On - Wakes your Digimon up
• Off - Puts your Digimon to sleep
• If your Digimon is sleeping
• On - Wakes your Digimon up
• Off - Nothing!
• If your Digimon is frozen
• On - Unfreezes your Digimon
• Off - Nothing!

If your Digimon gets sick or injured, this is how you heal them! There are two types of ailment: Dots and Skull. Dots means your Digimon is sick (probably because it’s TOO FAT) and Skull means your Digimon is Injured (probably because it LOST A BATTLE). When you select this icon, you choose which one your Digimon has, and it will be healed. Whichever Digimon is on screen is the one that the medicine is applied to. If both are on screen, both will get healed. Note that if your Digimon gets sick or injured 20 times, it will DIE. They are separate pools though, so you can get sick 19 times and injured 19 times without dying.

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!
• 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. It only goes up to 999, and once you hit 999 wins you gain the title of CHAMPION, which is entirely cosmetic and doesn't unlock anything else.
• Pass: This is where you can put in a password for one of the 15 Password Copymon. These passwords can be found in the Password Copymon section of the site, and are reusable.

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 Pendulum Ver.20th will function exactly like it does in the Colosseum. If you want to battle against something other than a Pendulum Ver.20th, you can choose Pendulum Original or OTHER to use the original Pendulum and Digital Monster battle systems respectively. The Pendulum Original will assign your Digimon a slot from the original Digimon Pendulum based on your evolution stage and attribute, and will not take your strength or power into account. The OTHER 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.
• Jogress - Apparently if you take two Digimon and smash em together, you get a new Digimon! In order to Jogress, you will need two Digimon that are Stage IV or higher, and both will need to be at full DP. Most of the time, both Digimon will need to be at the same stage, but there are some special evolutions that use Digimon of two different stages. You can choose to Jogress between two devices, or two Digimon on your device, including Copymon. The Digimon in the “Left” slot determines the outcome Digimon, based on the attribute of the Digimon in the “Right” slot. When Jogressing between two devices, both Digimon will evolve, and will be treated as the “Left” Digimon. When Jogressing on the same device, the Digimon in the right slot will disappear, because it has just been absorbed by another Digimon. For information on what combinations make what Digimon, check out the evolution guide.
• 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. When receiving, the copied Digimon will show up next to one of your two normal Digimon, but as a little “doll”. Its normal LCD image can be seen when viewing its stats, battling or Jogressing. Copymon are a great way to get Jogresses!

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 Stages III or IV, your number of care mistakes, along with your effort, will decide what Digimon you evolve into. For evolving to Stages V or VI, too many care mistakes will prevent you from evolving naturally, leaving Jogressing as your only option. 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 for an empty meter, and after 30 minutes for a tired Digimon. If an empty meter is not filled after the call light goes out on its own, your Digimon will call again after some time, which can lead to more care mistakes if not taken care of. Note that if you have sound off, calls will still occur.

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. 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 Stage II.

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 3 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 isn’t frozen, so your Digimon will grow even while sleeping. So long as you don’t completely neglect your Digimon, you are pretty much guaranteed to reach Stage IV. Stages V and VI requires battling to reach, and these battles must be completed within 40 or 48 hours of it evolving respectively. Additionally, not only do you have to battle, but you have to have a good win percentage. The minimum win percentages 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 at least 12 out of your 15 most recent battles will guarantee evolution into Stage V or VI as long as you don't have too many care mistakes. Winning 9 to 11 out of 15 will give you a 75% chance of evolution, and winning 6 to 8 will give you a 50% of evolution. The times above are the official times from Bandai, but you may experience minor variances.

Alternatively, you can also choose to Jogress to reach Stage V or VI, but some Stage V Digimon can only proceed with natural evolution, and some can only proceed via Jogress. Note that only specific Digimon can evolve into Stage VI+, which is only achieveable through Jogress (except for Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode). Jogressing can be done with two Digimon on your device, or by connecting to another device. See the Connect section above for more details on Jogressing.

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 freeze them before you leave.  And then they will die. You monster. There are actually several ways your Digimon can die, including the following:

• Getting sick 20 times in one form
• 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 reaching the evolution window for Stage V or VI; or after hearts start depleting faster
• Remaining sick or injured for 6 hours

Sometimes though you may be able to prevent death! When a Digimon is about to die, it stops moving and lets out a series of cries that get progressively more desperate for one minute. This is your chance! SHAKE! SHAKE YOUR DEVICE! SHOW YOUR LOVE BY SHAKING! If you shake hard enough, you very well could save it. Please never do this to a real pet. Ever.

For those of you that couldn’t save your Digimon, you are now looking at an old school computer (or an egg, see below). Your Digimon has died and converted back into raw data. Oh well! LET’S MAKE A NEW ONE! Use C to make the Computer 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. After the death animation plays, you will see your Digimon leave an egg which will remain on the screen. This will grant the next Digimon that you hatch from this slot a small bonus for chance to evolve to Stages V and VI. However, because it is already possible to get 100% chance of evolution to Stages V and VI, this bonus is honestly not useful.