Pick any of the three starters — none of them is a trap. Buy basic Captals at 200 coins each before leaving town, keep a second element in your party by the time you reach Route 01, and read the type chart once: with 13 elements and no Normal type, matchups decide more fights in this game than levels do. Steam's own achievement rates say the steepest early drop-off is before the first catch — get past Twindle Forest with a full team and you are already ahead of most players.
- Answer
- Choose a starter, catch a second Dokimon in Twindle Forest, and stock Captals before Route 01.
- Evidence
- Area order, encounter tables, item prices and move data are read from the game's own files; the professor's name is quoted from the game's Steam achievement text; player drop-off numbers are Steam's global achievement percentages, captured 2026-08-27.
- Rule
- Element matchups multiply; levels add. A 2x matchup is worth more than four levels in most early fights.
- Confidence
- Route order, encounter data and prices are extracted and exact. The pacing advice is a draft and has not been checked against a full playthrough.
- Updated
- 2026-08-30
The three starters
The game opens with Professor Rei offering you one of three Dokimon: Burnsby the Fire type, Bulbapod the Grass type, or Squibbly the Water type. Each is the first of a three-stage family, and each one ends up strong — the final forms sit at 593, 561 and 548 base stat total respectively, close enough that the choice will not decide your run.
What does differ is how they feel to play. Burnsby is fast and magical, evolving earliest of the three at level 14. Squibbly is slow and extremely sturdy, and its final form Krakanchor has the highest Health and Defense of the three. Bulbapod starts weakest at 273 base stat total but has the friendliest early matchups — Grass hits the common early wild types super-effectively.
If you have no preference, take Squibbly. Its bulk absorbs the mistakes a first playthrough makes.
Captals and catching
Captals are this game's capture item — a card that a Dokimon shrinks into and lives inside. The basic one costs 200 coins, and there are stronger and situational variants all the way up to the 8,000-coin Midnight Captal, which the game's own item text says ensures guaranteed capture.
Buy more than you think you need before leaving a town. Running out mid-route is the single most common way a first session stalls, and the walk back is longer than the shop trip you skipped. One honest caveat: the extracted data carries prices but not shop inventories, so this site cannot tell you which town stocks which variant.
Every Captal and what it costs
| Captal | Price | What the game says it does |
|---|---|---|
| Captal | 200 | The basic capture card. |
| Super Captal | 400 | Stronger morphing properties than normal Captals. |
| Medical Captal | 500 | Heals the Dokimon upon capture. |
| Premium Captal | 900 | Powerful morphing ability, for strong Dokimon. |
| Lightning Captal | 1,000 | Makes capturing easy on the first turn. |
| Theft Captal | 4,000 | Steals a Dokimon from another trainer; the battle ends on use. |
| Midnight Captal | 8,000 | Ensures guaranteed capture. |
Thirteen elements, and no Normal type
Dokimon Quest has thirteen elements: Fire, Grass, Water, Electric, Dark, Light, Flying, Fighting, Poison, Dragon, Fairy, Ghost and Ice. There is no Normal type. Light does that job — it is the largest move pool in the game at 18 of the 105 moves, and it holds the generic moves nearly everything learns.
Matchups are multiplicative. A super-effective hit does double damage, a resisted one half, and a few pairings do nothing at all. Against a dual-type target both of its elements apply and the two multipliers multiply together, so 2x into 1/2x comes out neutral — and 2x into 2x comes out quadruple. 85 of the 144 Dokimon carry a second element, so this happens constantly.
The first four areas, in order
- Lillywood — your home town. No wild encounters; stock up here.
- Twindle Forest — five wild species between level 1 and 3. Carrotti is the most common at 43.8%, then Furreal and Quackfil at 18.8% each, Casper at 12.5% and Luna at 6.3%.
- Route 01 — the first real route, levels 2 to 4. Furreal leads the table at 29.4%.
- Route 02 — levels 3 to 7, six species, and the last stop before Xelos City.
Where the first catch happens
Building a first party
- Two elements minimum by Route 01 — a single-element party gets walled by the first resistant trainer.
- Keep something with a Light move. Light is neutral into almost everything, which is what you want when you are unsure.
- Do not over-level one Dokimon. Evolution levels sit between 14 and 16 for the starters, and a party that all evolves at once is far easier to manage than one carry and five stragglers.
- Check a Dokimon's page here before investing in it — base stat total tells you quickly whether it is worth the levels.
Where new players actually stop
Steam's global achievement rates sketch the first hour bluntly. As of 27 August 2026: 94.3% of players have launched the game, 60.4% have met Professor Rei, 46.6% have fought the first battle with Koi, and 41.7% have caught their first Dokimon.
Read that as a map of friction, not of quality — the game had a large influx of brand-new players in late August 2026, and many of them are days into it. But the lesson for a new player is real: the game's steepest cliff is between starting and the first catch. Stock Captals, walk into Twindle Forest, and catch something. Everything after that is gentler.
The pages you will want open
- Best starter compared — All three families, stage by stage, with early matchups
- Type chart — All 13 elements and every multiplier
- Twindle Forest — The first wild area — full encounter table
- Route 01 — Levels 2–4
- Route 02 — Levels 3–7
- Captal — The basic capture card, 200 coins
- Full walkthrough skeleton — All 69 areas in critical-path order
Beginner questions, answered
How many Dokimon are there to catch?
The data contains 144 Dokimon, and 104 of them carry wild encounter data. The rest come from evolution or other means. The Steam store page advertises the roster as 140+.
How many elements does Dokimon Quest have?
Thirteen: Fire, Grass, Water, Electric, Dark, Light, Flying, Fighting, Poison, Dragon, Fairy, Ghost and Ice. There is no Normal type — Light holds the generic moves instead.
How much do Captals cost?
The basic Captal is 200 coins. Variants run from the 400-coin Super Captal up to the 8,000-coin Midnight Captal, which guarantees the capture.
Who is the professor in Dokimon Quest?
Professor Rei — the game's own achievement text reads "Professor Rei at your service!".
What should I catch first?
Anything in Twindle Forest. Carrotti (Grass) is the most common at 43.8%; Furreal (Light) and Quackfil (Dark/Flying) each appear 18.8% of the time, and the two Ghosts, Casper and Luna, are rarer. Any of them gives your party a second element.
Where to go next
Once you have picked a starter, the next real decision is which of the three families to commit to for the mid-game.
Compare the three startersSources
- Game data extracted from the v1.0 release build — Base stats, encounter tables, item prices, move data and area order come from the game's own files.
- Steam global achievement percentages — The first-hour drop-off numbers, captured 2026-08-27. "Professor Rei at your service!" is the game's own achievement text.