How to take care of your Inkmon

· 4 min read

Learning how to take care of your virtual pet in Inkmon takes about two minutes, and then you're done learning forever. There is no combat, no score and nothing to lose. Your creature has four needs, they fall at fixed rates, and topping them up is the whole game.

This guide covers what each need does, how quickly it drops, and the smallest routine that keeps a creature healthy without turning into a chore.

The four care stats

Every creature has four needs, each running from 0 to 100, where 100 is fully satisfied.

Stat Falls while awake Falls while asleep Restored by
Hunger 9 per hour 3 per hour Feeding
Energy 6 per hour refills at 14 per hour Sleep only
Hygiene 4 per hour 2 per hour Cleaning
Mood 3 per hour 1 per hour Play and petting

Those rates are chosen so the day has a shape. A creature fed at breakfast is asking again by early afternoon. Hygiene wants attention roughly once a day. A full night's sleep refills energy exactly — nothing bottoms out overnight if you tucked it in.

Nothing ticks in the background on a server somewhere. Values are calculated from the moment you last acted, which means the app is exactly right the second you open it, works with no connection, and never quietly drains while you're away faster than the table above says.

Mood is the stat that watches the other three

Mood is the one to glance at. It has its own slow decay, but it is also dragged down by everything else you've neglected. Each other need below 50 starts costing mood; each one that hits 0 costs a full 20 points.

So a creature that is starving, filthy and exhausted looks miserable long before any warning appears. That's deliberate. You should be able to read your creature's face and know whether anything needs doing, without reading a single bar.

Play and petting restore mood directly. Feeding and cleaning restore it indirectly, by removing the penalties.

The five things you can do

  • Feed — Hunger +35, Hygiene −4. Costs one food item, bought with Ink. Eating is messy.
  • Play — Mood +40, Energy −8, Hygiene −5. Free. After three mini-game wins your creature needs a 20-minute breather.
  • Clean — Hygiene straight back to 100. Free, no cooldown.
  • Pet — Mood +6, free, on a short cooldown so mashing it isn't the optimal play.
  • Tuck in — starts sleep. Free, once per night.

Overfeeding does nothing at all. Hunger stops at 100 and your creature politely declines. There's no weight stat and no getting sick from snacks. Punishing generosity is a mechanic from the 1990s and we left it there.

The two-minute daily routine

You do not need to check in constantly. The app sends at most three notifications a day, at roughly 07:00, 13:00 and 19:00 local time, and they map onto the only three moments that matter:

  1. Morning. Feed. Your creature wakes up hungry — this is the first interaction of the day.
  2. Midday. Play a round or two, and clean if hygiene has slipped. This is the mood top-up.
  3. Evening. Feed again if needed, then tuck in. The Den dims and your creature curls up.

That's it. Two minutes across a day keeps all four bars comfortable and earns the maximum daily Bond, which is what actually makes your creature grow.

What happens if you miss a day

Less than you'd fear. Inkmon has no death, no permanent loss and no punishment for a bad week.

If two or more needs sit at zero for six continuous hours, your creature becomes Unwell: droopy, grey, and — the only real cost — Bond stops accumulating until you fix it. Nothing you already earned is ever taken back. Recovery is covered in the Unwell guide.

If you never tuck in, energy drains to zero and your creature falls asleep on its own, recovering at half speed. Forgiving, but the ritual is strictly better — which is the design in one line: caring always beats neglecting, and neglecting is never fatal.

What care costs

Meals and medicine cost Ink, the soft currency, which you earn from daily rewards and in-app quests. Cleaning, playing, petting and sleep are free.

Care never requires Sparks or money. Sparks are only ever spent on hatching a new creature and on regenerating art at a growth stage. If you never spend a cent, your creature can still reach the final stage. See Sparks and Ink explained.

Next steps