This page documents gameplay-related aspects of the Dinkie Dino tamagotchi. Most of the information on this page is based on trial and error testing.
About Dinkie Dino
The Dinkie Dino (aka Raku Raku Dino-kun) is a generic virtual pet that was out on the market shortly after tamagotchis first appeared. The objective is to have it evolve into an adult dinosaur by taking good care of it. You can give it something to drink, feed it, turn off/on light (when it sleeps), pet it, check status, play rock-paper-scissors with it, have it study, have it take a shower, turn off/on air conditioner and inject medicine.
Drink & Food
Self-explanatory.
Light
This is for when Dinkie sleeps (from 9 pm to 9 am). It is unknown what happens if the light stays turned on during night, or is turned off during day.
Pet
I'm not really sure what this is for. But I noticed at one point it behaved just like Study (improves his education level by 1 unit).
Status
This shows Dinkie's mood, room temperature, drink meter, food meter, weight/days since birth, education level.
Play
This starts a rock-paper-scissors game. You play a set of 5 games, although it doesn't matter if you finish a set. A draw will be counted as a win for you.
- If you win or there is a draw, Dinkie's mood is unchanged.
- If Dinkie wins, his mood improves by 1 unit.
- If Dinkie wins a set, his mood doesn't change.
Study
This improves Dinkie's education level by 1 unit.
Shower
This will clear the 'dirty' status ailment (he blinks black).
Air conditioner
When the room temperature is too high (beyond 30°C?), Dinkie may get the 'angry' status ailment. Turning the air conditioner on will cure it.
Otherwise, if the temperature is too low (below 20°C?), Dinkie will get the 'freezing' status ailment in which case turning off the air conditioner will cure it.
Regardless of Dinkie's status, the air conditioner has a direct influence on the room temperature. It will decrease or increase the temperature on an hourly basis by a random amount (0~8°C or so). If Dinkie does get a status ailment, the air conditioner must be used even if it already had been adjusted before, in order to cure the ailment.
Medicine
This will clear the 'sick' status ailment.
If the sickness isn't cured in time, Dinkie dies. The timelimit seems to be really random, ranging from a few minutes up to a few hours. When it is cured, all meters (mood, food, drink, education) are reset to zero.
About the status screen
Food level & Drink level
- Each empty plate represents that you should feed Dinkie twice.
- Each empty glass represents that you should give Dinkie a drink once.
Mood level
There are 6 possible mood levels. Each time Dinkie wins at rock-paper-scissors, his mood improves by 1 unit. The mood may decrease on an hourly basis (although I don't know if it's random or scripted. Also check the Schedule section below.) I'm speculating that the mood level has an influence on whether Dinkie stays alive or dies.
If Dinkie is Neutral or worse(?), he can receive the 'bad mood' status ailment.
- Unhappy
- Slightly unhappy
- Neutral
- Slightly happy
- Happy
- Very Happy
Weight/Days since birth
It seems that food and water you gave to Dinkie will be converted to 1kg in weight on an hourly basis. If his plates and glasses on the status screen stay empty, he will not gain weight. If his weight exceeds a certain amount at 9am (when he wakes up), he will move to the next evolution level.
The 'days since birth' number on this status screen doesn't accurately tell how many days actually passed. It seems to be tied to the weight and evolution level, instead.
- 1 kg = level 1
- 15 kg = level 2
- ...
Education level
Petting Dinkie or having him study will improve this meter by 1 unit. There are 5 possible education levels. I'm not sure if this meter is of any importance, but I'm speculating that it has some influence on whether Dinkie lives or dies.
- E+
- D+
- C+
- B+
- A+
The course of the game
Schedule
It seems, depending on his evolution level, everything will occur at a set schedule. (This needs more testing though.)
- 1am
- 2am
- 3am
- 4am
- 5am
- 6am
- 7am
- 8am
- 9am
- 10am
- Evolution level 1: 2 empty plates, 2 empty glasses, -1 mood, +1 kg
- Evolution level 2: 1 empty plates, 1 empty glasses, -1 mood, +1 kg
- 11am
- Evolution level 1: 2 empty plates, 2 empty glasses, +1 kg
- Evolution level 2: 1 empty plates, 1 empty glasses, +1 kg
- 12am
- Evolution level 1: 2 empty plates, 2 empty glasses, -1 mood, +1 kg
- Evolution level 2: 1 empty plates, 1 empty glasses, -1 mood, +1 kg
- 1pm
- Evolution level 1: 2 empty plates, 2 empty glasses, +1 kg
- Evolution level 2: ???
- 2pm
- Evolution level 1: 2 empty plates, 2 empty glasses, -1 mood, +1 kg
- Evolution level 2: ???
- 3pm
- Evolution level 1: 2 empty plates, 2 empty glasses, +1 kg
- Evolution level 2: ???
- 4pm
- 5pm
- 6pm
- 7pm
- 8pm
- 9pm
- 10pm
- 11pm
- 12pm
Additionally to this schedule, room temperature changes by a random amount each hour.
When one of the status meters is too low, Dinkie will alert you by beeping sound. If nothing is done, it seems he will beep again every 4 minutes for a few times. If you don't take care in a certain amount of time, Dinkie may die.
Timer abuse
You can change the ingame clock by holding the Esc + Enter buttons. If you set the time to right before a full hour passes over and over, you can receive the changes described in the schedule above quicker. This would allow you to have Dinkie evolve faster and finish the game within a few hours - The game lasts about 13 days normally.
Dinkie will move to the 2nd evolution level if he is 14kg and has full plates/glasses on the status screen, sleeps and 9am passes. At the time he wakes up, he is at 15kg. (Therefore, we conclude that the game follows this order: 1) convert full plates/glasses to weight 2) check if weight is enough to evolve).
But when I adjusted the timer like that a few times in a row, Dinkie died on me even though all the status meters were fine. So either the game straight-up prevents you from cheating, or there might be some nifty game mechanic. E.g. I'm speculating the game sets a status ailment that should occur within the next hour and it checks if you cured it. But if you skip over the hour by adjusting the timer, then you fail the flag.
Evolution level
Dinkie moves to a higher evolution at 9am when he wakes up and his weight exceeds a certain amount (see Weight section above). He will follow a certain evolution branch depending on what you feed him.
He will eventually turn into an angel or vampire for 1 day. You will not be able to interact with Dinkie during this day. He will die the next day inevitably. Therefore, one could consider the game 'beaten' if the angel/vampire screen is reached.
Note, on the image below, the pasta evolution branch was taken, yet Dinkie turned into an angel. And I remember from playing as a kid, I treated my Dinkie very well and it turned into a vampire in the end. So it seems to be random and independent of the evolution branch which of the two he turns into. My speculation at this point would be that he becomes a vampire if you feed him ice cream.
Memory corruption
There is a slot where you can insert a piece of paper in order to suspend the battery power. If you insert it and pull it out at the right time, you can corrupt the game's memory.
I've had the education level status screen show various glitched screens of Dinkie's hand (from rock-paper-scissors) while occasionally going through the normal E+ ~ A+ screens each time I had him study. So his education level must have been out of bounds of the normally possible values.
Also, I have had his weight turn to 41kg. He didn't gain an evolution level when 9am passed, so I'm assuming the game handles evolution levels only on certain weight values instead of checking if you're above a certain value.