Starter Tips for the Swords of Ditto

New to Ditto? Confused on what the hell you need to do first? This tip guide covers some of the basics with a few light spoilers to help you make the most out of your game.

-Intro-

The Swords of Ditto can be a rewarding game once you figure of the basics. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t explain some very important concepts that you need to know to keep moving forward.

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#1 Starting Tip: Collect 8 'shards' from dungeon chests, then find and interact with the whale statue!
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Seriously, this game doesn't tell you, but there's a second carry-over currency that's required to be unlocked one time before becoming a permanent currency on additional playthroughs.

Otherwise, the rest of these tips will help you on your adventure, take a look!

Time Limit

The clock only runs in the overworld, it automatically stops any time you enter a dungeon, house, or town etc. Avoid fighting monsters in the overworld, they have no additional benefits compared to monsters found in dungeons.

Time can also be 'Permanently' extended by the unlabled Frog quest (Which is also covered in this guide.)

Shards

Shards are initially found in dungeon chests, you need to collect 8 Shards and then head to a whale statue and activate it. You’ll unlock the ‘shard’ currency that allows you to reverse time and even get a second life. This also allows you to purchase items from certain NPCs that charge by the shard.

The Whale statue will offer you these two additional functions once unlocked:
100 Shards: Rollback time by one day. Costs +50 shards for each additional day (150 for the second day, 200 for the third etc.)
200 Shards: Be given a tear-drop item that affords a second life.

Permanent Sword Upgrade

Another big, unlabled quest that you want to keep in the back of your mind; finding four different stones to upgrade your Sword!

You need:
Iron Nugget
Moebius Coal
Burnish Stone
Nova Stone

These can be found anywhere loot drops, they can also be bought from the Cat vendor.
Once you find the blacksmith, bring all four stones and he'll upgrade your sword for free. The actually % increase isn't explained as you just get a +1 to the sword like you would a toy upgrade.

Permanent Time Extension (Frog Fountain)

As you move through the overworld, you'll notice a sentient bubble that will slowly float away from you before teleporting out. If you kill him, he will drop an orb. Collect all five colored orbs and bring them to the Frog in the Fountain (Time is also stopped when you're in the Frog-Fountain map section.)

Once you fill the slots, the frog will grant you a permanent day increase.

NPC Quest Givers

Certain NPCs in town or found in the wild will offer quests. You need to get close enough to them to see the “!” appear, then look for the context (It may be X or A.) These NPCs sometimes give keys to unlock mini-dungeons, or quests for rewards.

mini-dungeons contain random items, and may sometimes unlock toys that would normally only be found in dungeons (Like the drone.)

The 'Crown' Icon

You may have noticed a 'crown' icon next to certain monsters while on your adventures. This means that each 'strike' against the creature will cause them to drop coins and other loot. If you kill the monster with the crown, it will fly (sometimes visible.) to another monster, letting you repeat the process.

You can semi-farm some monsters that have the shield trait by attacking them while their block is up (If they have the crown.)

Currency Types

Coins and Shards carry over, toys and stickers do not! If you know you won’t be able to defeat the final boss in your current run, its best to farm shards/coins to use in the next. You can also 'buy back' stickers/toys provided you've unlocked Shards.

Coins:
Bushes hae a chance to offer a a few coins.
Small Diamond Mounds almos always have more than a few coins.
Chests may contain a large monetary reward.
Shards:
Shards are primarily earned through defeating enemies. Dungeons with the 'regenerating room' effect allow you to farm shards if you're short on time. Chests may rarely carry a moderate amount of Shards.

Cracked Walls

Certain dungeons can’t be completed unless you have some basic bombs or the drone-toy. You may have to backtrack to town (Use your whistle!) and buy some bombs before heading back to the dungeon.

Drone Toy: It has the same effect as a regular bomb when blown up, just fly it over to a crack and let it do it's thing.

Super Sentai toy: Stunned enemies can be picked up with the 'A' button and thrown like a bomb.

Bowling Ball toy: Throw the ball directly at the crack and the bowling ball will break through.

(Bug) Stuck in Room with Locked Doors

THIS IS A BUG
This happens for primarily one reason, you knocked a monster off an edge. As of the release build, monsters knocked off ledges don’t count towards the ‘kill counter’ You’ll need to equip the whistle and head back to the start of the dungeon to try again.

Certain rooms require you to kill all monsters in order to unlock the doors, just remember to physically kill them and not just knock them off a ledge.

Tentacle/Roots Doors (Found in Overworld)

You may start to notice that certain doors are 'locked' by colored tentacles (Also called Roots.) Attempting to unlock the door will do nothing (and may even break the door permanently.)

You have to search the overworld for dungeon-holes, eventually you'll run into one that has a large imobile monster in the middle, kill it and all those doors will be released in the Overworld!

Please note that you can have more than one colored root in your world, and they can sometimes appear as invisible.

Visiting town Before Final Battle

Talk to every single wandering NPC, some of them offer food and +1 toy upgrades for free. Don't forget to swtich your stickers to dungeon-based ones (Health/Mana regen etc)

-Closing-

These tips are not exhaustive and there’s plenty of other secrets to be found in game. But hopefully they’ll help you get over some of the starting hurtles that may be preventing you from enjoying the Swords of Ditto, good luck and happy hunting!

|SPOILER| Beating the Game

|SPOILER|

The game does not end when you beat Mormo for the first time. Instead, 100 years will pass and all buildings will be repaired like new, these things change:
-You'll lose all toys/stickers but retain sword and time upgrades, you won't have the option to save your gear like you normally would when dying.
-Food drops become almost non-existent, you'll have to start spending coin at the mart and food-stand if you want edibles for the road.
-Mormo's Castle becomes harder with each subsequent win.
-A statue of your last character will be in town, you can heal any time by visiting this statue. If you die at any time, this statue will dissapear in the next game.
-You gain a medal from the last bearer that indicates they beat Mormo.

You need to take the medal to a section of the Overworld that has a Stronehenge-like asthetic, you'll see a giant glowing circle in the middle for you to stand on, then "sacrifice" the medal to the stones. If you look at the platform, you'll notice that one circles surrounding it is lit now.

Keep defeating Mormo and sacrificing medals, eventually you'll reach the true ending!

[Thor]

@Zed Explosives like the drone or bombs can ignite torches, other Toys like the starter gun or the Frisbee projectiles will catch fire when passing through a flame. Lastly, you can augment a projectile-base toy with a Fire upgrade to make it apply the fire effect.

If none of those are available to you, trying coming back later. As far as I know, Toy/Chain dungeons will never require abilities you don't have yet.

[Zed The Red]

Any tips on how to light torches which are too far to reach?

[Pretentieux]

Thanks! So that's why I suddenly get instakilled after turning into a crystal and ragequit the game.

[Thor]

@Pretentieux
-Ether added to your weapons will eventually 'Crystalize' monsters in a block of pink crystal.
-Fire will cause the mob to burn and can spread (including to you.)
-Poison will slowly kill you until you drink an antidote, it also can leave puddles on the floor.

Ether is probably the weakest ability because certain bossess are immune to it, and others can take 5+ hits before it freezes them.
Fire is the best because you can just roll around it put it out, most mobs are not immune, and you only have to deal one hit in order to start damaging the creature. Fire is also used in a lot of world-triggers, so putting it on your sword/toys will allow you to activate switches much faster.

[Pretentieux]

wtf does ether damage even do? why is none of this explained in the game?

[Darkrenown]

Nice guide, but you call the kazoo a whistle which cannot be forgiven.

[quite the notorious scoundrel]

Nice tip guide......thank you.

[lenswer]

Thanks @Thor! I will do it in the next run, runing out of time (only 8 h remains) now farming shards in a dungeon.

[Thor]

@lenswer
This seems to be a recurring challenge with the game. I've had multiple playthroughs where the final colored-orb fails to spawn, or 3 of the 4 stones are available but I can never get the fourth.

This is more of an exploit, but you can repeatedly farm the beach for crates to bring to the lighthouse. Just repeatedly walk in and out of the lighthouse until a box appears out front, then bring it in and repeat. All of the stones can be found in this way (but none of the orbs.)

[lenswer]

Thanks @Constable Leon. I figured out myself today (by accidently hitting the right key in the right moment) little buggers are fast and the game forget to tell you, to catch them you must pick them up......in the midle of an enemy group......or around some stones and bushes (that you will pick up by accident) My only gripe now is, I can't find the Burnish Stone for the sword upgrade, and the last colored buble for the permanent time extension.