How to Quickly Hatch an Ichumon and Other Basic Care Questions
By TestName
Hatching and caring for your new virtual pets will not be difficult, but the process may be confusing and tedious at first if you are unfamiliar with the site. I have written this guide in the hopes that it will help alleviate some of this confusion and ease the more monotonous aspects of transforming a pet from its egg to its adult form.
Choosing Your Ichumon
First, of course, you must actually have an egg to hatch! To obtain an Ichumon egg, click on the ‘Create’ link under ‘Explore Ichua’ in the sidebar. This will take you to Dr. Dim’s laboratory. Click on ‘Egg Types’ to be taken to the hatchery to select your egg. Currently there are 10 different species to choose from, and you may see examples of all of these species here on The Promised Land. To choose a pet to hatch and name, click on the egg of the desired species. Be aware that although you are allowed to choose the gender of your new pet, you may not choose its initial color; it will randomly hatch as either blue, red, yellow, or green. You may change the color of your pet after it has hatched; a process that I will explain later.
Hatching and Closeness Points
First, make sure that the egg you want to hatch is set as your active pet. This will allow all efforts you make towards hatching your pet to actually be rewarded to your pet. To make a pet an active pet, click on ‘My Pets’ in the side bar, scroll down to the pet of your choice, and click on the ‘Make Active Pet’ link in their box beneath their battle statistics.
Once you have selected your egg, you can check its progress by clicking on the ‘Hatch’ link in Dr. Dim’s laboratory. Your pet’s progress is measured by ‘Closeness Points’ (CPs) that can be earned by performing different tasks throughout the site: the more CPs it has, the closer it is to hatching. When your pet has obtained a minimum of 100 CPs, an option to hatch your pet will appear on the page. Keep in mind that CPs will only be rewarded to your active pet.
The following is an outline of how many CPs you can earn for different tasks on the site. This table is also available on the ‘How to Hatch’ page in the laboratory:
*insert table here*
As you can see, not all tasks are created equal: some tasks will give you more points than others and will therefore push your pet’s closeness level to 100 faster. Although there are a number of ways to reach 100 points using these methods, the following is one of the quicker ways (especially if you are not a frequent forum poster like myself):
1) Play all 50 rounds of Higher or Lower. My strategy is to always pick Higher if the number is 7 or below and Lower if the number is 9 or above (at 8 there is an equal chance that the number will be higher or lower, since the cards only go up to 15). Every win will give you 2 CPs; even if you only win half of the rounds, you will accumulate 50 CPs alone from a day’s worth of playing this game!
2) Try all 15 rounds of Dr. Dim’s Quests. This does not mean you have to actually complete them all; unless you have enough disposable iP to warrant completing all 15 quests I highly recommend giving him all 15 items he asks for. My personal iP limit for his quests is currently 2000 iP (meaning I do not buy him the item unless it costs under that amount), which allows me to complete 3-5 of his quests a day under the current economy, which would give my pet 15-25 CPs a day if I was hatching a pet. 2000 iP may be a low limit for some players; the bottom line is to use an iP limit you feel comfortable with and complete as many of his quests as you can.
3) Hearting another user is not only a nice way of rewarding a player for a good deed, but it also allows you an extra 5 CPs a day! To heart a player in the forums, simply click on the ‘+’ sign next to the heart beneath their screen name next to their post. To heart a player elsewhere on the site, click on their username to be taken to their profile page and click on the pink heart in the top left corner. Remember: you can only heart one player a day once a day, and the player will be sent an e-mail explaining who gave them the heart (so there is no anonymous hearting).
4) If you are willing to chat for a little bit, you can make the missing CPs by posting in the forum. Every post you make adds 2 CPs to your active pet. DO NOT SPAM THE FORUMS TO SIMPLY RAISE YOUR PET’S CP COUNT. Make sure anything you post is on-topic and follows the rules of the forum.
5) If you would rather avoid the forum, you can instead donate apples to the Donation Hole (found in Fargo’s Forest on the map). Every apple you donate will give your pet 1 CP. You can find free apples in the Under the Rock game, which you can play every half-hour (something that I would recommend you do anyway, because you can also win iP depending on which rock you choose).
Once you have accumulated 100 CPs for your pet, you can free them from their egg by taking them to the ‘Hatch’ page in the laboratory. Congratulations on hatching your Ichumon! To hatch your next Ichumon egg, make the egg your active pet and start the process over (you may have to wait for the next day to allow quests and other tasks to reset).
Feeding and Entertaining Your Pet
Like all pets, your Ichumon must be kept fed and be played with on a regular basis. There is currently no resort that you can send your pets to that will feed and play with them for you (as there are on some other pet sites), so you must keep track of keeping your pet healthy and happy.
The easiest way to do this is to feed and play with them once each day. The cheapest way to do this is to feed them one of the free green apples you receive from the Under the Rock game, and to buy a cheap toy from the Toy Pen when they restock (I personally prefer Grey Doughnut Key Chains, as they cost less than 100 iP in the shop when they restock). Keep a backup supply of food and toys in your ToyBox if you can in case you don’t have time to restock every day.
As of the time of writing this article, there is no penalty for not feeding or playing with your pet. This may change in the future, but this will be at the discretion of the site owners.
Changing Your Pet’s Color and Gender
If you are not happy with the color your pet hatched with, there is good news: you can change your pet’s color! Currently there are two sets of items that will allow for a color (and for one set, species) change: crystals and mirror shards. Crystals can be bought from the Magic Stall or other users and allow you to change your pet’s color to the color of the crystal; for instance, a Pink Crystal will turn your pet pink, a Bubble Crystal will turn your pet Bubble-colored, and so forth. Mirror shards can also be bought from the Magic Stall, but unlike crystals, these will transform your pet’s color AND species to reflect the creature seen in the mirror shard; so, a Magical Blue Arro Mirror Shard will transform your pet into a Blue Arro, regardless of what color and species the pet was before.
Depending on the popularity of the creature you wish to eventually turn your pet into, it may be cheaper to buy the mirror shard than the crystal. For instance, if you own a red Sui and wish to eventually turn it into a Brown Sui, it may be cheaper to find a Magical Brown Sui Mirror Shard than to buy a Brown Crystal because there is a relatively low demand for Brown Suis compared to Brown pets in general. It is also important to remember that not all pets are available in every color yet. Make sure that your Ichumon actually has a Bubble form before you run off and buy that Bubble Crystal.
You can check the colors available for each species on this site.
If you wish to change the gender of your pet, this is possible through use of the Gender Potion, which also restocks in the Magic Stall or can be found in user shops, auctions, and trades.
Please keep in mind that, like food and toys, all of these items are one-use items; once you have applied them to a pet, they cannot be reused or resold.
That’s All, Folks
Thus concludes this beginner’s guide to hatching and raising an Ichumon. If you have any suggestions for or questions about this guide, please to not hesitate to contact me on Ichumon.com.