KOTAMON Beginner Guide: First Hours at the Dump

The loop in one paragraph

You are a garbage man at Jenny’s dump with one goal, spelled out in the game’s absurd full title: find the entire Kotamon card collection and earn $1,000,000. Every run is the same satisfying cycle — grab trash, bag it, feed the compactor, get paid — with the real prizes buried in the piles: cards, figurines, audiotapes, cosplay cases and cereal boxes.

Movement, bags and the compactor

• Pick up trash and drop it into your bag; full bags go to the trash compactor for cash.
• You can throw bags and even single pieces of trash at the compactor tray — landing hits from 10/20/30 meters is a three-achievement chain, and standing on top of a garbage pile makes the 30-meter shot much easier.
• Clearing the entire yard is itself an achievement (“Is That All?”), so nothing you clean is wasted.

Search before you recycle

The single most useful habit: look through every fresh heap before you grind it down. Cereal boxes, tapes and figurine drops surface while digging — recycle first and you may be churning the very pile that held the drop. Collectibles arrive at a pace of roughly one figurine per full cleanup cycle, so patience beats backtracking.

Beer is a mechanic, not a joke

Beer cans restore energy — that’s why the achievement ladder runs to 1,000 cans, and why the Buzz stat exists. Drink when you’re winded instead of idling. (Steam’s official note: drinking is voluntary, and every character in the game is an adult.)

Your first purchases at Jenny’s shop

The shop sells seven upgrade tracks (full breakdown). Early money goes furthest in:

1. Bag — if you keep leaving finds behind because you’re full.
2. Energy — if you run dry before finishing an area.
3. Speed — once walking between heap, table and shop is your biggest time sink.

Prices were rebalanced down in the Aug 21 patch, so ignore launch-week complaints about the “Dark Souls economy” — that build is gone.

Cards: repair before you judge

Damaged cards rebuild from five fragments at the garage glue table (how repair works). Repair before deciding something is a duplicate — condition affects value, and the game lets you trade duplicates rather than just selling them. A Steam guide author’s confession: they spent two days re-finding cards they’d sold as “duplicates”.

What’s actually finite

• 40 base cards in four color sets, plus the special card Kotalion — the full list.
• 12 figurines — six at fixed landmarks, six from trash (locations).
• 7 audiotapes, random drops; the first is at the boombox.
• 3 cosplay outfits, from cases in the trash.
• 40 achievements, none missable — the complete table.

When you’re ready to push for 100%, switch to the collection walkthrough.