How to Chibi
A guide to optimizing your ChibiBuddy™.
Contents
ChibiExposition™
So, you've spent a total of 2500 items that you stole off of Japanese pseudo-elves in Crimbo Town--or, alternatively, you let others beat up said animelves and bought the illicit goods off of them. You've since gone to Uncle Crimboku and had him create your very own ChibiBuddy™. There's only one problem: what does this thing do, and how does it work, exactly?
The ChibiBuddy™ is essentially a virtual pet. Luckily, this means that you get to take have all sorts of fun interactions with it. These interactions are--thankfully-unlimited on a day-to-day basis, though you may choose to spend adventures making a more meaningful impact on your ChibiBuddy™ up to five times per day. Unfortunately, it lacks a self-preservation instinct and loves to murder itself--however unintentionally--if you aren't being a good ChibiParent™. A ChibiBuddy™ has four stats: fitness, intelligence, socialization, and alignment. If any one of these stats hit their maximum or minimum values of 10 or 0, respectively, your ChibiBuddy™ will die. This system is slightly more complicated than that, though, as each ChibiStatPoint™ is composed of several ChibiSubStatPoints™ which you can not easily determine. This, the changes your actions cause may not be immediately reflected in your ChibiBubby™'s visible ChibiStatMeters™.
Raising a ChibiBuddy™ is ultimately worth it, though. For each day your ChibiBuddy™ stays alive, he can grant you an additional five turns of the--eventually--powerful ChibiChanged™ buff, and--provided you're willing to take on the Great Responsibility of raising your ChibiBuddy™ to adulthood over the course of 11 days--can even net you your very own trophy.
Starting Your Chibi: Day One
So, where can you get started? The ultimate goal when raising a ChibiBuddy™ is to keep him alive for as long as possible, and thereby increase the duration and returns from the daily ChibiChanged™ buff and prove that you're capable of taking on a Great Responsibility. Because your ChibiBuddy™ will die if any of his stats hit 0 or 10, you're going to want to bring all of his stats to a balance. Though it might seem odd at first, this balance is best achieved when two of your ChibiBuddy™'s stats are at four, and the other two are at six--which stats are at which values is ultimately unimportant. It might seem as though keeping your ChibiBuddy™'s stats at exactly five is more logical: wouldn't keeping them at a literal balance be the easiest way to keep your ChibiBuddy™ alive? Sadly, the nature of "Random Events!" and your ChibiBuddy™'s infuriating to-do list (to be discussed later) means that this is not the case. Random Events always alter a ChibiBuddy™'s stats away from the centre - and there is no telling whether a 5 will go up or down, whereas you know that a 4 or lower will always go down, and a 6 or higher will always go up. So, bring two of your ChibiBuddy™'s stats to four and two to six by raising low stats and lowering high ones; don't be afraid to use your five adventure-spending options to remove extraneous stats or add missing ones! Don't worry if this takes multiple tries, you can kill your ChibiBuddy™ and start over with a new one as many times as you like with no negative repercussions on day one.
Day Two
So, you've gotten your ChibiBuddy™ to a balanced set of stats and waited for rollover to occur. What's this? Your ChibiBuddy™ has crossed some things off of his to-do list? His stats are all different--What happened!?
Every rollover, your ChibiBuddy™ crosses two to three things off of his to-do list, and thus his stats are randomly increased or decreased depending on whether the stats were previously above or below five (a 5 may go either way). This is annoying, to be sure, but don't be alarmed! This is where having your Chibi's stats at a 4,4,6,6 balance shines: although being careful when using the non-adventure options from this point forward--due to "Random Events!"--is of course wise, as they unpredictably change your ChibiBuddy™'s stats (again, depending on whether the changed stat is above or below five) while you are redistributing points, the nature of the 4,4,6,6 means that you are equally likely to receive a subtracting "Random Event!" or an additive one, and thus there is a fair chance that you can play off one stat's addition against another's reduction, countering both with a single non-adventure choice. (You may, of course, be unlucky enough to get a set of three Random Events at once, either overnight or when making a non-adventure adjustment, which *all* increase your already high stats without touching the lower ones, or all decrease the already low stats without touching the high: something like this will need adventures to be spent to fix it at once, since only the adventure-costing choices are capable of bringing one stat up or down without sending another in the opposite direction! Fortunately, spending an adventure guarantees no Random Events during this adjustment.)
This is also why one should avoid leaving stats at exactly 5 overnight, in case it results in having three or even four "high" and only one or zero "low" stats (or vice versa), making it much harder to use non-adventures to fix stats that have come too far from the desired point. You should use non-adventure choices carefully to get your stats comfortably close to 4,4,6,6, (such as having two stats at 7 and two at 4, or something similar) and then use your 5 daily adventures to get your ChibiBuddy™'s stats back to a balanced state--though performing those steps in the opposite order usually works just as well. All that's left is to wait for rollover of the next day. (If you can't get all of them to a balance, don't worry about it -- it's fine to have one or two stats above or below 6 or 4 respectively by a single box, but make sure to use the next day's 5 adventures to get them back to normal!)
Day Three and Beyond
Keep balancing your ChibiBuddy™'s stats after rollover, reap the benefits, and prove that you're capable of the Great Responsibility of being a ChibiParent™. Be warned: Random Events when using non-adventure adjustments seem to become more frequent the longer your ChibiBuddy™ has been alive, making it more risky to attempt to keep your ChibiBuddy™ alive without spending adventures on him - there are always two to three Random Events overnight, and these will still need countering somehow. Nevertheless, if your target is a fixed number of days, you are probably safe to leave stats no higher than 7 and no lower than 3 over the last couple of days, because even if all three overnight Random Events hit the same stat (up or down, but always away from the centre), it won't push it all the way to 0 or 10.
A Guide to Altering Stats
There are 5 ChibiSubStatPoints™ per ChibiStatPoint™, and each trade-off choice grants +1 to the target stat and -1 to the second stat. Additionally, Random Events grant ±3 to the selected stat. Because multiple Random Events can happen after a single trade-off (including to the stat currently being modified), it will become increasingly unlikely to keep a ChibiBuddy™ alive without using the adventure-taking choices.
To increase his | and decrease his | Choose this | Choice # after using your five daily adventures |
---|---|---|---|
Fitness | Intelligence | Interact with your Chibi→ Choice 3 | Choice 1 |
Fitness | Socialization | Explore with your Chibi→ Choice 4 | Choice 2 |
Fitness | Alignment | Entertain your Chibi→ Choice 4 | Choice 2 |
Intelligence | Fitness | Explore with your Chibi→ Choice 3 | Choice 1 |
Intelligence | Socialization | Feed your Chibi→ Choice 3 | Choice 1 |
Intelligence | Alignment | Interact with your Chibi→ Choice 5 | Choice 3 |
Socialization | Fitness | Entertain your Chibi→ Choice 3 | Choice 1 |
Socialization | Intelligence | Explore with your Chibi→ Choice 5 | Choice 3 |
Socialization | Alignment | Feed your Chibi→ Choice 5 | Choice 3 |
Alignment | Fitness | Interact with your Chibi→ Choice 4 | Choice 2 |
Alignment | Intelligence | Feed your Chibi→ Choice 4 | Choice 2 |
Alignment | Socialization | Entertain your Chibi→ Choice 5 | Choice 3 |
Fitness (1) | None | Feed your Chibi→ Choice 1 | N/A |
Intelligence (1) | None | Entertain your Chibi→ Choice 1 | N/A |
Socialization (1) | None | Interact with your Chibi→ Choice 1 | N/A |
Alignment (1) | None | Explore with your Chibi→ Choice 1 | N/A |
None | Fitness (1) | Explore with your Chibi→ Choice 2 | N/A |
None | Intelligence (1) | Feed your Chibi→ Choice 2 | N/A |
None | Socialization (1) | Entertain your Chibi→ Choice 2 | N/A |
None | Alignment (1) | Interact with your Chibi→ Choice 2 | N/A |