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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. 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, 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 Computer. 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 is frequently saved automatically, 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.

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 Digimon Pendulum Color now uses an accelerometer, just like the one in your phone, to keep track of shakes. That clacky pendulum is just for show now. The shaking is mainly used for training and battles. Bandai recommends holding it chain side down, but as long as you are moving the device on its X-axis (left to right if holding the device normally, up and down if holding it with the screen or buttons on top) the shakes should properly register. Don't kill your wrist either, you only ever need to shake about 4-5 times a second to get the results you want.

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

Two options are given here, the first of which is Status. 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. If you reach 99 Gigabytes, your Digimon will get sick. Stage I Digimon do not gain or lose 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't eat more than the number of empty hearts. If your hearts deplete completely, it adds to the Starvation counter. If the Starvation counter reaches 20, your Digimon will die. Filling the hearts completely will give you a bonus 60 minutes on top of your Digimon's loss cycle before they decrease again. Feeding any amount of meat and will reset your starvation counter back to 0. If anyone manages to actually kill their Digimon because of the Starvation counter without specifically trying to, I will be very impressed.
• 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. Effort hearts cannot be reduced, but will be completely emptied upon evolution.
• Condition - These hearts will be removed any time you make a care mistake, which will occur any time you miss a call. Condition hearts cannot be restored, but each evolution will start with a specific number of Condition hearts regardless of whether any were previously lost. Losing all Condition hearts will change your Digimon's options for evolution into Stage III and Stage IV, and will prevent natural evolution into Stage V and Stage VI. See the Call section below for more information on acquiring care mistakes.
• DP - Your stamina, this is required for battling. If you have no DP, you can’t fight. DP is completely restored by sleeping for at least 8 hours, or restored by 1 by feeding 4 Protein. Stage I Digimon don't have DP, but Stage II Digimon do for absolutely no reason.
• 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 Digimon Pendulum Color series.

• 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 for each Stage.
• 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. All Stage III and higher Digimon can battle, all Stage IV and V Digimon can Jogress, and certain specific Stage VI+ Digimon can also Jogress.

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 of each hit connecting. Each Digimon has a Base Power that can be seen by clicking on that Digimon in the Evolution guide. All Digimon of the same species will have the same Base Power. In addition, having full Strength Hearts will grant a bonus to power, as will hatching from a Traited egg and shaking the egg 100 times before it hatches. The below chart displays how much is added to power for each evolutionary stage.

  Stage	Strength Hearts	Traited Egg	Shaken Egg	All Three
  III	+5	+5	+10	+20
  IV	+8	+8	+10	+26
  V	+15	+15	+10	+40
  VI	+20	+20	+10	+50
  VI+	+20	+20	+10	+50

  See the Battles section for a breakdown on how hitrate is calculated.

The second selection under this icon is the Album. Here you can review all the species of Digimon you have raised, and see the slot numbers for ones you have not. Digimon that require unlocking will not have their slots appear until the appropriate connection has been made. The slots of Stage VI+ Digimon are also hidden until they are obtained.

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 cannot continue feeding more meat after having full hearts. If you fill up all 4 hearts, your hunger heart loss cycle will be paused for 60 minutes. You will not lose a heart once that 60 minutes is over, rather your next heart loss will be after however long your Digimon's specific cycle is, unless it has failed evolution. You can find the loss rate on the evolution guide.
• 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 likilhood of getting injured when losing a battle by two percentage points, and will restore 1 DP unless your Digimon is sick. Reaching 99 gigabytes for weight will cause your Digimon to get sick, so be cautious when using protein too much. Your Digimon will also get sick if it is already at 99 gigabytes and gets fed another meat or protein after it has been healed.

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 lose weight and gain strength hearts depending on the training results. It will also reduce its current Loss Injury Rate if it is above 10%. Exact values are in the table below.

When training is selected, the word READY! will appear with a specific background color. Once the word COUNT! appears, shake the device until the background color matches the one that was shown on the READY! screen. If the correct color is on the screen after the 3 second timer runs out, then your Digimon will fire 5 Super Hits, which is called a Mega Hit. Outcomes are based on Digimon attribute and the hitting the taget color. The order of appearance for the colors is Blue, then Yellow, then Red. The below chart displays which Color results in which amount of Super Hits, as well as the shake count needed to reach that color. If you do not shake at least two times, you will only get 0 or 1 Super Hits.

This menu allows for battling and Jogress. Battling is a HUGE part of Digimon culture. It’s every Digimon’s dream to be the strongest. You cannot battle if you do not have any DP or if your Hunger hearts are empty. Jogress is an evolution method that allows one Digimon to evolve using another Digimon as a requirement. The available functions of this menu are below.

• Battle: Quest - which allows you to take on a series of stages. Each stage consists of a several Digimon battles ending with a Boss. If you beat the boss, you gain the option to take on the next stage. You begin each battle by shaking to get a specific color, just as you do in Training. Each Digimon has 3 health points which will be reduced by 1 for a normal hit and by 2 for a super hit. Once a Digimon runs out of HP, it loses the battle. Each individual battle in an stage counts as one battle for evolution, and will consume one DP.
• Battle: Connect: Pendulum - Allows you to battle against another Digimon Pendulum Color. You begin each battle by shaking to get a specific color, just as you do in Training. The word BATTLE will appear once you have finished shaking. Connect the two devices by the prongs on the top and press the A or B button on one of the devices. Each Digimon has 3 health points which will be reduced by 1 for a normal hit and by 2 for a super hit. Once a Digimon runs out of HP, it loses the battle. Make sure your device is sufficiently charged when doing communication battles.
• Battle: Connect: Digimon - Allows you to battle against the Digital Monster Color. There is no shaking required for this type of battle, simply connect the devices and press A or B on one of them and the battle will proceed. You Digimon will exchange 3 normal hits, followed by one of the two participants sending a super hit, making them the winner. Devices prior to the Digital Monster Color cannot be battled against.
• Jogress: Backup - Allows you to Jogress with the Digimon you currently have backed up. Full DP is not required to Jogress like it was on older Pendulums, nor will it be consumed when Jogressing. Jogress can be performed by all Stage IV and V Digimon as well as certain Stage VI+ Digimon. Each Jogress capable Digimon will have one or more possible results that will depend on the attribute of the Digimon in backup. For Stage VI Digimon, the backup Digimon needs to be a specific species of Digimon. Details of which Digimon result from which combinations can be found on the Evolution Guide. The backup Digimon will not influene the stats of the resulting evolution in any way, it is merely a requirement. After a Jogress has been performed using a backup Digimon, it will be consumed and the backup slot will be empty.
• Jogress: Connect - Allows you to Jogress with a Digimon being raised on another device. The details for connection Jogress are mostly the same as for backup Jogress except for the following distinctions. Both Digimon in the connection will evolve into a new Digimon, based on their own available options. For example, if you were to Jogress Rukamon from the Deep Savers device and Kabuterimon from the Nature Spirits device, Rukamon would become Whamon and Kabuterimon would become Jyagamon, since those are their specific results for Jogressing with a Vaccine Stage IV Digimon. The connected Digimon will not influene the stats of the resulting evolution in any way, it is merely a requirement.

If you lose a battle, your Digimon has a chance to become injured after battle, and getting injured 12 times will result in death. See the Heal section for more details. Winning battles reduces Loss Injury Rate by two percentage points. All battles will cause your Digimon to lose 4 Gigabytes of weight.

Except for the first three hits of a battle with a Digital Monster Color, which are always guaranteed, whether an attack will land or not is determined by the hitrate formula. It is not known yet whether this formula is the same as the one used by the Digital Monster color, but if it is, this formula can be repesented as follows:

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

• hitrate - This numer represents the chance of your hit connecting, out of 100. The maximum value is 99, even if the calculation would exceed that amount.
• 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 - For Pendulum battles: Equals 10 if you have an attribute advantage, -10 if you have an attribute disadvantage, otherwise equals 0. For battles with the Digital Monster Color, the values a 5/-5 instead of 10/-10. See the details on the Attribute stat in the Status section above.
• handicap - Used in Quest Mode only, certain Digimon have a handicap that will reduce your hitrate. The specific handicap values can be found on the Quest Mode page.

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 at a set rate: 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 sick! Remember: Poop and sickness are NOT Care Mistakes, but too many sicknesses 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 increase your chance of injury when losing by 2 percentage points. Waking a sleeping Digimon does not count as a Care Mistake. After being disturbed, the Digimon will fall back asleep after 15 minutes. All Digimon wake up on their own at 7:00 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. When a Digimon is unfrozen, its hunger/strength loss and poop cycles restart from that point.
• Change - 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. Stage I Digimon cannot be backed up.

Digimon can get injured from losing battles, or they can get sick from accumulating 8 poops or reaching 99G for weight. When your Digimon is injured, it will have a skull floating next to it, while sickness will have an ellipses in a speech bubble. When this happens you can use this option to heal them! Select this icon and choose the option that matches your Digimon's affliction and will be healed. If your Digimon gets injured or sick 12 times, or remains injured or sick for 6 hours, it will DIE. Injuries and sickness use separate counters, so getting sick 11 times and getting injured 11 times will not kill your Digimon. The chance of getting injured after losing a battle is 10% to start, but will increase by two percentage points for every 4 Protein you feed it. This percentage is reduced by 2 points for every battle or training you perform. You can have up to a 50% chance of injury. When your Digimon is sick, it can still battle. I highly recommend battling another Digimon Pendulum Color while you are sick, just to see what happens.

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. You can reference the Condition stat to determine whether or not you have made enough care mistakes to affect evolution. 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 or off.
• 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 performing connection battles 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.

	Lakeside Default on Nature Spirits, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Nature Spirits device Dusk | Night
	Underwater Default on Deep Savers, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Deep Savers device Dusk | Night
	Castle Default on Nightmare Soldiers, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Nightmare Soldiers device Dusk | Night
	Flower Field Default on Wind Guardians, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Wind Guardians device Dusk | Night
	Factories Default on Metal Empire, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Metal Empire device Dusk | Night
	Sky Default on Virus Busters, can be unlocked on other versions by battling with a Virus Busters device Dusk | Night
	Grasslands Unlocked by battling with a Digital Monster Color Ver.1 Dusk | Night
	Desert Unlocked by battling with a Digital Monster Color Ver.2 Dusk | Night
	Forest Unlocked by battling with a Digital Monster Color Ver.3 Dusk | Night
	Mountains Unlocked by battling with a Digital Monster Color Ver.4 Dusk | Night
	Beach Unlocked by battling with a Digital Monster Color Ver.5 Dusk | Night
	File Island Connect with all 5 versions of the Digital Monster Color Dusk | Night
	Folder Continent Connect with all 5 other versions of the Digimon Pendulum Color Dusk | Night
	Living Quarters Unlocked by default on all versions
	The Net Clear the first area of Quest Mode
	Box Art Clear the fifth area of Quest Mode, color depends on device version DSa | NSo
	Field Alt Clear the final area of Quest Mode, image depends on device version DSa | NSo
	D-1 Grand Prix Win 10 connection battles
	D-1 Grand Prix Gold Win 100 connection battles
	Pendulum Swimmers Register 10 Digimon in the Album

The Lakeside, Underwater, Castle, Flower Field, Factories, Sky, Grasslands, Desert, Forest, Mountains, Beach, File Island and Folder Continent 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). While waiting for the Digimon to hatch, shake your pendulum repeatedly! If you shake at least 100 times before it hatches, your Digimon will receive a +10 bonus to its Power. After one minute 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 will affect its evolutions. I would recommend experimenting for yourself for your intial runs, but if you want to aim for a specific Digimon later make sure to check the Evolution Guide from the site menu.

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 32 hours of it evolving. Additionally, not only do you have to battle, but you have to have a good win percentage. A Win Ratio of 80% or higher results in a 100% chance of evolution, assuming you have fulfilled the other requirements for that Digimon. If you have 70% or higher, but less than 80%, you will have a 70% chance of evolution. If you have 40% or higher, but less than 70%, you will have a 40% chance of evolution. You will not be able to evolve if your Win Ratio is less than 40%. Stage VI+ is only achievable through Jogress for specific Digimon. Stage VI+ Digimon cannot evolve further. Jogress evolutions do not rely on the times above, and will happen immediately when executed. See the Battles and Jogress section above for more details.

Upon evolution, the following stats will reset: Condition, Effort, Injury count, Sickness count, Weight, Starvation count and your number of Battles for Evolution. Win Ratio and Loss Injury Rate will persist across all evolutions.

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. It becomes more difficult if your Stage IV or higher Digimon has failed to evolve, as at that point the hunger and strength meters will deplete twice as fast, and your Digimon will poop twice as often. The following are the death conditions for the Digimon Pendulum Color:

• Getting sick or injured 12 times in one form
• Remaining sick or injured for 6 hours consecutive in one form
• Letting the hunger meter empty 20 times without refilling it completely
• 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

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 do enough shakes, you very well could save it. Please never do this to a real pet. Ever. You must shake at least 50 times in 30 seconds to save your Digimon.

For those of you that couldn’t save your Digimon, you are now looking at an old school computer (which may have an egg on it, see below). Your Digimon has died and converted back into raw data. Oh well! LET’S MAKE A NEW ONE! Press A+B simultaneously while looking at the computer and just like that, you will be able to select a new egg and start all over again.

Meeting certain conditions upon your Digimon's death will give you what is called a Traited Egg. The egg will appear on the screen of the computer after your Digimon dies, 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. The requirements are as follows, they must all be fulfilled to receive the traited egg.

• Your Digimon is Stage V or higher.
• Your Stage V Digimon failed to evolve, or your Stage VI/VI+ Digimon has been in its current form for at least 48 hours.
• Your current Win Ratio is 60% or higher. The number of battles does not matter.