Game Mechanics

## Imagination Forms

There are 7 different forms Jimmy can turn into (as well as 2 secret forms) that each grant Jimmy different moves, passives and stat increases depending on the level of each form. When Jimmy gets experience after finishing a battle, he gets an equal amount of experience put to whatever form he's in which levels up separately from him. Each level up on a form gives +1 to a specific stat no matter what Jimmy is transformed into, for Blob it's defense, for Bird it's speed, for Bear it's attack and so on. As well as stat increases leveling up forms allows you to take skills from that form and put them on other forms so you can use certain skills cross class. Putting a skill on a starred slot will make it always available no matter what, putting a skill on a circle slot will make it available in Jimmy's base form. The same goes for passives, although passives will only work after you've unlocked them, they are not natural to the forms.

Different forms also have different uses on the over-world, some of them are more utilitarian while others are used only to solve specific puzzles. Just like in battle on-field skills are separated between active and passive. For example the Blob can actively call random encounters by pressing "a," but he can also squeeze into tight spaces just by walking into them. A few forms only have active skills, but every on-field ability has multiple uses, usually to find light-bulbs.

Jimmy does not get access to all his forms until a good ways into the game, and every required form has a boss battle you need to fight in order to absorb its powers. These bosses usually utilize skills that Jimmy will get direct access to after defeating them.

## Toy-Boxes

Toy-boxes are this game's equivalent of treasure chests. Sometimes when opened, toy-boxes will give an additional effect as well as an item, these can be:

* Disembodied Eyes - Enemies start the next encounter asleep.
* Love - Recover all HP.
* Confidence - The next encounter gives double the imagination experience.
* Shiny Rubies - Bank account gains 20% interest.
* Sparkles - Recovers 10% MP.

## Light-Bulbs

Light-bulbs can be found in numerous locations throughout the game, always locked behind some sort of puzzle. Finding all of them grants access to a secret level on the world map that has a crazy good reward at the end. For locations of every light-bulb, see Light-Bulbs.

The drum detective Ludwig in Mute Notes can give you hints on the locations of light-bulbs if you pay him. He will never activate the light-bulb on his own(well except 1 during postgame) and his hints vary in usefulness, but he's also a good way to see what light-bulbs you have and haven't found.

## Status Effects

A full comprehensive list of status effects can be found here.

Status effects can be afflicted to the player or enemies (most often the player) to effect their stats or their general person in some way. The three common status effects are Sick, Sleep and Immunodeficiency, what these all have in common is that they can be cured with Vitamins or Mental Clarity, and are also resisted by Helga. These aren't the only status effects that effect the player negatively but are the only ones that can be cured.

Some status effects ignore death, meaning that they don't go away when a party member falls in battle, like other status effects do, these include Miasma and Lethargy. Miasma is a generally weaker, incurable poison that can range anywhere from a -5% to a -20% HP drain, it only occurs in boss fights with the exception of the enemy Jennifer Skunk. Lethargy is only present in the Ebeezil boss fight, and drains 5% of your MP every turn which is especially dangerous paired with Withering which drains 5% of your HP and MP every turn.

Some status effects can also provide buffs, like Motivated which gives a +50% attack buff and Immune which protects against common status effects.

## Stats

Max HP is the amount of damage you or the enemy can take before falling in battle.

Max MP is the amount of moxie points a character has access to for casting spells.

Attack is the amount of damage you or the enemy deals with physical attacks.

Magic Attack is the amount of damage you or the enemy deals with magical attacks.

Defense determines how much damage is resisted from any given physical attack.

Magic Defense determines how much damage is resisted from any given magical attack.

Agility determines who goes first in battle.

Luck effects critical hit chance and steal rate.

## Party Member Passives

Every party member aside from Jimmy has a passive effect that makes them special.

Buck gets a 25% to attack twice whenever he uses his normal attack, which means if he has something like the Power of Friendship equipped, he can effectively double the effect of that weapon.

Helga is immune to the three common status effects, which compliments her healing skills.

Jonathon gets double use out of items, which means ants on a logs heal 100% of HP, and super balls do 600% damage and so on. This does not effect smoke bombs however.

Lars gets a passive 5% per turn HP regeneration, which pairs well with Metabolize.

Andrew gets a 5% per turn MP regeneration, which pairs well with Focus.

Punch has a higher steal rate than other party members, as well as having a naturally higher luck stat.

Hitomi can equip 3 trinkets as opposed to the usual 2.

## Damage Formulas

A 100% physical damage attack uses the formula a.atk\*\*2/(a.atk+b.def). "a.atk" is the user's attack stat, "b.def" is the target's defense stat, so the formula takes the user's attack stat, multiplies it by 2 and divides that total by the user's attack + the target's defense. This formula is the same for magic attacks as well just with attack and defense swapped out with magic attack and magic defense. By extension, a 200% damage attack would be 2 times that formula, and a 150% attack would be 1.5 times that formula etc.

## Equipment

Equipment is split up into Weapons, Clothing, Trinkets and Manuals. Weapons typically provide offensive buffs and sometimes swap out your basic attack with something unique. Clothing typically provides defensive buffs and sometimes gives passive effects, such as the Rose Shirt which regenerates +5% HP every turn. Trinkets are miscellaneous pieces of equipment with a wide variety of effects, party members can only equip 2 of them at a time with the exception of Hitomi, who can equip 3 because of her passive. Manuals are equip-able skills, party members can only equip 2 of them at a time except for Jimmy who can't equip any.

## Optional Dungeons

There are a number of completely optional horror-themed dungeons in the game with varying levels of difficulty. Typically these will have a boss fight at the end and you will be rewarded with 3 toy-boxes after clearing the boss, which will almost always be 2 pieces of equipment, and 1 piece of furniture. On a narrative level, dungeons range from relating directly to Jimmy and his experiences, to not being related to Jimmy's world at all, to not being related to anything at all and just existing for the sake of being spooky. The earliest nightmare dungeon accessible to the player is Slither's.