Evolution

When a child evolves it is stamped with two things at once:

• an alignment: hero, neutral or dark
• a type: normal, swim, fly, run or power

They are decided independently, giving fifteen combinations. Both are read at the moment of evolution, at the end of the 24-hour child stage.

Nothing is read early and nothing is averaged over the life. What matters is the state of the two counters when the chao cocoons.

Type

Type is the strict leader of four investment counters: swim, fly, run and power.

• A clear leader gives that type.
• A tie for the lead gives normal.
• All four at zero gives normal.

Stamina has no counter and never votes.

“Strict” is literal. If two stats are level, neither wins and you get a normal chao. One stat has to be genuinely ahead.

What feeds the counters

Only gifted gains in those four stats, and only positive ones. Earned gains, meaning every mini-game and all garden practice, raise levels without voting. That is the earned-vs-gifted rule.

Animals are the only thing that can give one stat the lead.

Chao Fruit gives +24 to swim, fly, run and power together, which adds bulk to every counter and leaves the gaps exactly as they were. It cannot break a tie and cannot change a leader.

Two details that trip people

Negative deltas do not un-steer. Only positive gains write to the counters. A Penguin (+36 swim, +12 fly, +8 run, -24 power) banks 36 swim, 12 fly and 8 run. The power counter does not move, because the -24 lands on the power stat and nowhere else. You cannot walk an investment back by feeding the opposite animal, only outweigh it.

Grades do not affect steering. The counters take the animal’s raw number, not the grade-multiplied one. An E-grade and an S-grade swimmer given the same Otter both bank 44 swim toward type.

Alignment

Alignment is a single value from -100 (dark) to +100 (hero), starting at 0.

Only two things move it:

• Hero Fruit, +15
• Dark Fruit, -15

That is the entire list. Not animals, not swimming, not petting, not winning anything. Petting adds happiness and no alignment; being thrown costs happiness and no alignment.

Two fruit is enough. Two Hero Fruit is +30 and hero, two Dark Fruit is -30 and dark. Both cost 30 rings each, which makes alignment the cheapest decision you will make about a chao.

Neutral is the default and needs no effort.

Alignment resets to 0 at rebirth, so each life re-earns it.

Aiming at a specific chao

For the type: pick the stat, then give animals that lead with it. Consistency beats volume, since a run of Otters makes a swimmer while one of each makes a normal chao. Read down the column you want in the animals table.

For the alignment: two Hero Fruit, two Dark Fruit, or neither, at any point during the child stage. The counter does not decay.

For both: they do not interfere. Animals cannot move alignment and fruit cannot break a type tie.

Worked example

A dark flier:

1. Feed two Dark Fruit at any point during the child stage. Alignment -30.
2. Give fliers: Peacock (+48), Parrot (+48), Condor (+60). Two or three puts fly comfortably ahead.
3. Play whatever you like. Mode rewards cannot undo either decision.
4. Let it settle. Evolution waits for a resting moment.

If it comes out normal

Almost always a tie, or empty counters. A chao given nothing evolves normal, and so does one given a careful balanced spread. Give more of one animal.

Beyond the first evolution

Type and alignment are settled once a chao is an adult, but the body keeps moving. See second evolution.

One form ignores this page entirely: a chao reborn enough times and given one of every animal within a single life evolves into a Chaos Chao regardless of the type counters. The animal roster resets at every rebirth, so it must be done in one run.

See them all

Every adult shape is rendered on the chao forms page: three alignments across five types plus the Chaos Chao, each turnable. The parts that vary chao to chao rather than by evolution are on face genes.