Pokémon Card Game: How to Play DS (Nintendo DS): lessons, decks & modes


Titles	Pokémon Card Game: How to Play DS (English translation; never released in English) ポケモンカードゲームあそびかたDS (Pokémon Kādo Gēmu Asobikata DS), often shortened to Asobikata DS
Platform	Nintendo DSgame card; also plays on DS Lite, DSi and Nintendo 3DS-family systems
Availability	Only inside the Pokémon Card Game BW Beginning Set + box (はじめてセット＋, ¥2,980 including tax); never sold separately
Developer	Creatures Inc. and Zener Works
Publisher	The Pokémon Company
Players	1 (DS Download Play sends a one-battle demo to a second DS)
Genre	Card game tutorial
Lessons	9 story episodes, plus a 40-question quiz
Decks	3 ready-made 30-card Half Decks (Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott)
Released	5 August 2011 (Japan only) Free one-battle demo: Nintendo Zone and the Wii’s Minna no Nintendo Channel, summer 2011
Rating	CERO A
Predecessor	Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR!(Game Boy Color, 2001; the previous Pokémon TCG video game)
Successor	None
Sales	No figures published (bundled software)

Overview

Pokémon Card Game: How to Play DS (ポケモンカードゲームあそびかたDS, Asobikata DS) is a Nintendo DS tutorial for the Pokémon Trading Card Game, released only in Japan on 5 August 2011. You could never buy it on its own: the game card came packed inside the Pokémon Card Game BW Beginning Set +, a ¥2,980 starter box holding three ready-made 30-card Half Decks built around Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott, where it took the place of the how-to-play DVD supplied with the original Beginning Set. Creatures Inc., the company behind the card game, developed it with the smaller studio Zener Works, and The Pokémon Company published it.

Its heart is a nine-episode story about Shun, a boy who thinks the card game is about throwing cards, and Nanami, the childhood friend from next door who teaches him to play it properly. Each episode tackles one part of the rules, from setting up and attacking through evolution, Trainer cards, Weakness, Special Conditions and Abilities to Supporters, in guided battles on the touch screen that use the very decks found in the box. Around the lessons sit a Rules Dictionary and a true-or-false quiz in four levels; finishing the story opens a Battle mode against five computer characters and a hidden coin-flicking mini-game, and DS Download Play lets you send a one-battle demo to a friend’s DS.

It was the first new Pokémon TCG video game in a decade, following Pokémon Card GB2 on the Game Boy Color in 2001, but it was designed as a teaching aid for the real cards rather than as a game in its own right. It never left Japan, offered no way for two people to battle, and was dropped after a single product: the National Beginning Set of April 2012 went back to a DVD. That makes it a short-lived experiment, and one of the more obscure Pokémon releases on the DS.

ロジックはシンプル、かつポケモンカードゲームをやる上で必要な要素が全て入ったカードで構築。1人でプレイできるから、周りに遊び方を教わる環境がない人にもオススメ！

In English: “Built from cards with simple logic that still contain every element you need to play the Pokémon Card Game. Because you can play it on your own, it’s also recommended for anyone who has nobody around to teach them how to play!”

— Product description of the Beginning Set + (with our English translation)

Quick Answers

The questions people ask most about Pokémon Card Game: How to Play DS, answered first and explained further down the page.

Was Pokémon Card Game: How to Play DS ever sold on its own?

No. The DS game card only ever came inside the Pokémon Card Game BW Beginning Set +, a starter box released in Japan on 5 August 2011 for ¥2,980 including tax. Alongside the game it held three 30-card Half Decks, damage counters, a coin, a playmat and a manual, and it cost about ¥1,000 more than the original Beginning Set, which had come with a DVD instead. More →

Was it released in English or outside Japan?

No. It came out only in Japan, entirely in Japanese, and there was never an English, European, Australian or Korean release. Its English name is simply a translation of the Japanese title, Asobikata DS, in which asobikata means “how to play”. English-speaking players got their own digital way into the card game the same year, in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online. More →

Can you still play How to Play DS in 2026?

Yes, if you can find one. It has been out of print for years and only turns up second-hand, usually in a complete Beginning Set + box. The game card runs on any DS or 3DS-family system from any region, though every word of it is in Japanese, and it has never had a digital re-release. More →

A Nintendo DS — Any DS or 3DS-family system will run the game card.

Can two players battle each other with it?

No. There is no two-player battle mode, as staff confirmed when the game was first shown. Send to a Friend uses DS Download Play to beam a short demo to another DS, but that demo is a single guided battle against the computer, with Nanami explaining each step, and it ends with an advert for the card game. More →

How many lessons are there, and what do they teach?

Nine story episodes. In order they cover what you need to play, setting up and attacking, evolution and retreating, Trainer cards, Weakness and Resistance, Special Conditions, Abilities, a test match with a shuffled deck and, last of all, Supporter cards. Each one ends with a recap, and from the fifth episode the lessons move to the local Gym and its regulars. More →

Which decks and Pokémon does it use?

The same three Half Decks that come in the box: Snivy (Grass and Fighting), Tepig (Fire and Lightning) and Oshawott (Water and Psychic). Each has 12 Pokémon, six Trainer cards and 12 Energy, and between them they feature 27 Unova Pokémon, from the three first partners and their evolutions to Joltik, Darumaka and Bouffalant. More →

How do you unlock Battle mode and the Coin Toss Game?

At first only the story is open. Finishing episode 1 adds the Rules Dictionary, the quiz and Send to a Friend to the menu. Finishing all nine episodes unlocks Battle mode, where you can take on the five story characters again, and lets you open the hidden Coin Toss Game by pressing L and R together on the menu screen. More →

Is it a sequel to the Game Boy Pokémon Trading Card Game?

Not really. It was the first new Pokémon TCG video game since Pokémon Card GB2 in 2001, and it was billed that way when it was first shown, but it is a short tutorial built around three fixed decks, not a card-collecting adventure like the Game Boy games. Nothing followed it, either. More →

The lessons and the decks you learn with

How to Play DS teaches the card game through the story of Shun, a boy who has never played, and Nanami, the friend next door who knows the game inside out. Across nine episodes she takes him through the Black & White era rules one at a time, first one-to-one and then at the local Gym, and every battle uses one of the three Half Decks packed in the Beginning Set +. Shun swaps between them, mostly borrowing Nanami’s, so that each match shows off the rule being taught.

9story lessons
3Half Decks of 30 cards
27Unova Pokémon species
5opponents to replay in Battle mode

The nine lessons

Each episode follows on from the last, so taken in order they tell the whole story. The titles are translated from the Japanese:

Episode 1: Pokémon Card Game? (ポケモンカードゲーム？)Shun is at home trying to work out the rules for himself, sure the game is about throwing cards, when Nanami lets herself in. There is no battle yet: she runs through what a player needs before a match, from the deck and the playing field to the coin and damage counters. Clearing it opens the Rules Dictionary, the quiz and Send to a Friend.

Episode 2: Let’s Battle! (バトルしよう！)The first guided battle. Nanami takes Shun through setting up, the Active Pokémon and the Bench, Prize cards, attaching Energy and attacking. He plays the Tepig deck with its Item cards taken out, so only the basics come into play.

Emboar card — Emboar, the Tepig deck’s Stage 2 (English print).

Episode 3: Evolve! (進化だ！)Nanami shows how Basic Pokémon evolve into Stage 1 and Stage 2 forms, and how to retreat the Active Pokémon to the Bench. Shun again uses the Tepig deck without its Items, this time with Tepig, Pignite and Emboar in action.

Episode 4: Trainer Cards (トレーナーズカード)The Item cards go back in as Nanami explains Trainer cards. Afterwards she owns up to having lost on purpose to build Shun’s confidence, and tells him about the Gym, where players gather to battle. He wants to go, and she agrees to take him.

Episode 5: Weakness? (弱点？)At the Gym, Shun realises he has forgotten his deck, so he borrows Nanami’s Oshawott deck to take on Chizuru and her Snivy deck. When her Grass-type attacks hit harder than he expected, Nanami explains Weakness and Resistance.

Whirlipede card — Whirlipede, whose Poison Sting can Poison (English print).

Episode 6: Special Conditions (特殊状態)Shun switches to the Snivy deck against Masayoshi, whose Oshawott deck carries the Venipede line. When Shun’s Snivy is Poisoned, Nanami explains Special Conditions such as Poison and how they take effect between turns.

Episode 7: Abilities (特性)Iwao overhears Shun and Nanami and challenges Shun to a battle of Tepig decks, and Nanami uses the match to explain Abilities, the Black & White era’s replacement for Poké-Powers and Poké-Bodies. Shun wins, and Iwao heads off to train in the mountains.

Episode 8: Time to Test Your Strength! (ちからをためすとき！)Shun thanks Nanami for her help, but Jay, who has heard about him at the Gym, wants to see what he can do. Shun plays the Tepig deck against Jay’s Snivy deck, and for the first time the deck order is shuffled at random, which makes this the story’s end-of-term test.

Cheren Supporter card — Cheren, the Supporter Nanami gives Shun (English print).

Episode 9: Supporter Cards! (サポートカード！)Nanami gives Shun a Cheren card and starts to explain Supporters, until Jay comes back and insists they make more sense in play. Nanami swaps two Grass Energy in her Snivy deck for two Cheren and lends it to Shun, who wins. She talks him through balancing a deck and suggests he build his own, and she is about to tell him the secret of the Coin Toss Game when he cuts her off.

The three Half Decks

All three decks follow the same recipe: 30 cards, made up of 12 Pokémon across nine species, six Trainer cards and 12 Energy, six each of two types. Each is built around a first partner’s full evolution line, with another Pokémon of the same type, four cards for the second Energy type, a Colorless Pokémon and one of Unova’s elemental monkeys. They share a Potion, a Switch, a Pokédex and two Poké Balls, plus one Trainer card each of their own: Super Scoop Up for Snivy, Energy Retrieval for Tepig and Energy Switch for Oshawott.

Half Deck	Energy (6 of each)	Pokémon (12 cards)	Trainer cards (6)	Played by
Snivy (Grass)	Grass, Fighting	Snivy ×2, Servine ×2, Serperior, Maractus, Panpour, Timburr, Sandile ×2, Krokorok, Patrat	Potion, Super Scoop Up, Switch, Pokédex, Poké Ball ×2	Chizuru and Jay; Shun in episodes 6 and 9 (with two Cheren in place of two Grass Energy in episode 9)
Tepig (Fire)	Fire, Lightning	Pansage, Tepig ×2, Pignite ×2, Emboar, Darumaka, Blitzle ×2, Zebstrika, Joltik, Bouffalant	Energy Retrieval, Potion, Switch, Pokédex, Poké Ball ×2	Nanami and Iwao; Shun in episodes 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 (without its Item cards in episodes 2 and 3)
Oshawott (Water)	Water, Psychic	Pansear, Oshawott ×2, Dewott ×2, Samurott, Basculin, Woobat, Venipede ×2, Whirlipede, Lillipup	Energy Switch, Potion, Switch, Pokédex, Poké Ball ×2	Masayoshi; Shun in episode 5

Snivy card — Snivy, lead of the Snivy deck (English print).

Tepig card — Tepig, lead of the Tepig deck (English print).

Oshawott card — Oshawott, lead of the Oshawott deck (English print).

What came in the box

How to Play DS was never on sale by itself. The Beginning Set + box, priced at ¥2,980 including tax (¥2,839 before tax), held the three 30-card Half Decks, a sheet of damage counters and markers, a Pokémon coin in a different foil finish from the original set’s, a playmat with a redesigned reverse side, an instruction manual and the DS game card, which took the place of the original Beginning Set’s how-to-play DVD. The original box had cost ¥1,980, so the software effectively added about ¥1,000 to the price, and it came with a Club Nintendo serial code.

Its cards carry a set symbol of their own in place of the original set’s . In Japanese the box is called はじめてセット＋ (Hajimete Set Plus), literally “first-time set plus”.

The original Beginning Set coin — The original Beginning Set’s coin…

The Beginning Set + coin — …and the Beginning Set + version.

Gameplay & modes

How to Play DS is built to be used alone: every mode either teaches you something or pits you against the computer, and the menu fills in as you go.

How the menu opens up

From the start: Learn How to Play (あそびかたをおぼえる), the nine-episode story.
After episode 1: the Rules Dictionary, the How to Play Quiz and Send to a Friend.
After episode 9: Battle mode, and the hidden Coin Toss Game, opened by pressing L and R together on the menu screen.

Lessons on the touch screen

Learn How to Play (あそびかたをおぼえる)The main mode is the nine-episode story, played in order. Each episode is built around one area of the rules and mixes conversations between Shun and Nanami with a guided battle, then closes with a recap of what it covered; the first has no battle at all. The story is short: speedrunners finish it in under 40 minutes, though a newcomer reading every explanation will take a good deal longer.

Guided battlesThe lesson battles are kept on a tight rein. On-screen prompts tell you which card to touch and why, the Item cards are held back until episode 4 so that new players meet one idea at a time, and the decks are chosen to show off each rule, such as a Water deck facing a Grass one to demonstrate Weakness. Not until episode 8 is the deck shuffled at random.

Touch controls and the two screensEverything is done with the stylus. The touch screen holds your own cards and the top screen shows your opponent’s, and the field updates as each card goes down, so the whole table can be seen at a glance. Any card can be enlarged to read its attacks and small print. At the game’s first showing the press contrasted this with the Game Boy card games, where players kept having to switch screens to see everything, and launch coverage suggested laying the set’s real cards out beside the DS while you play.

Battle mode, the dictionary and the quiz

Battle (バトルする)Battle mode opens once all nine episodes are done. It lets you take on any of the five story characters, Nanami, Chizuru, Masayoshi, Iwao and Jay, as often as you like, with only the three ready-made Half Decks in play: Nanami and Iwao use Tepig, Chizuru and Jay use Snivy, and Masayoshi uses Oshawott. The Pokémon Company pitched it as a way to carry on playing the card game against the computer once the lessons were over.

Rules Dictionary (ルールじてん)A reference section that sets out the rules with text, diagrams and pictures, so you can look something up without replaying a lesson. It opens after the first episode, and launch coverage called it a rulebook you could carry around with you.

How to Play Quiz (あそびかたクイズ)True-or-false (○×) questions on the rules in four levels, very easy, easy, normal and hard, with ten questions in each and 40 in all. Every answer is followed by an explanation, so a wrong guess becomes another chance to learn the rule properly. Like the dictionary, it opens after episode 1.

Coin Toss Game (コインとばしゲーム)A hidden mini-game that opens once the story is complete, by pressing L and R together on the menu screen. You flick the Pokémon coin into the air and try to send it as high as possible, and your best height is saved as a record. The final episode teases it: Nanami starts to explain the command, and Shun hurries her along before she can finish.

Send to a Friend and Download Play

Send to a Friend (ともだちにおくる) uses DS Download Play to beam the Asobikata DS Download Version to a second DS that has no game card in it. The demo is a single battle against the computer that starts as soon as Start is pressed, with Nanami, the only character in it, explaining every step, and it ends with an advert for the Pokémon Card Game BW. It cannot be used for two people to battle each other: staff at the game’s first public showing confirmed there was no two-player link mode. The option opens after episode 1. For a limited time around launch, the same demo was also handed out at Nintendo Zone hotspots and through the Wii’s Minna no Nintendo Channel.

Characters

Six characters carry the story, all of them players at or around the local Gym. The game never came out in English, so the names are romanisations of the Japanese.

Shun (シュン)The hero of every episode and the character you play as. Shun starts out knowing next to nothing, guessing at the rules at home and assuming the game is about throwing cards. He learns through a run of battles, first against Nanami and then at the Gym, grows a touch overconfident along the way, and ends the story sure he has a gift for battling and ready to build a deck of his own.

Nanami (ナナミ)Shun’s childhood friend from next door, who walks in without knocking. She learned the game from her older brother, explains every rule in the story and lends Shun her decks throughout. She admits to losing their early battles on purpose to build his confidence, and gives him his first Supporter, a Cheren card. She is the only character in the Download Play demo, and she plays the Tepig deck in Battle mode.

Chizuru (チヅル)A mysterious girl who tells fortunes and trusts her lucky colour to see her through. She is the first opponent Shun meets at the Gym, in the Weakness lesson, where her Snivy deck’s Grass-type attacks punish his borrowed Oshawott deck. She returns in Battle mode.

Masayoshi (マサヨシ)A studious-looking boy in glasses who carries a book. He faces Shun in the Special Conditions lesson with the Oshawott deck, and when one of his Pokémon Poisons Shun’s Snivy, Nanami steps in to explain. He can be challenged again in Battle mode.

Iwao (イワオ)A tough-looking boy who comes across as a bully but has only just taken up the card game. He overhears Shun and Nanami and challenges Shun to a battle of Tepig decks, the lesson in which Nanami explains Abilities. After losing he leaves to train in the mountains, and he turns up again in Battle mode.

Jay (ジェイ)A player who has heard rumours about Shun at the Gym and wants to see what he can do. Jay plays the Snivy deck and is Shun’s opponent in the last two episodes, the shuffled-deck test match and the Supporter lesson, where he argues that Supporters are best understood by using them. He is the final story opponent and the fifth Battle mode character.

Pokémon

Venipede card — Venipede, one of two in the Oshawott deck (English print).

Every Pokémon in How to Play DS comes from the three Half Decks in the Beginning Set +, so the whole roster is from Unova. Each deck holds 12 Pokémon cards across nine species, 27 species in all: a first partner’s line up to its Stage 2 form, plus supporting Pokémon chosen to suit the deck’s second Energy type, such as Sandile and Krokorok for Fighting, Blitzle, Zebstrika and Joltik for Lightning, and Woobat and the Venipede line for Psychic. The same decks serve every character in the story and in Battle mode, so the cast never grows beyond these 27.

Some of them have starring roles. Tepig’s deck is the one Shun learns with, Emboar’s Flare Blitz hits for 150 damage at the cost of all the Fire Energy attached to it, and Whirlipede’s Poison Sting gives the Oshawott deck its way of inflicting Poison, the Special Condition at the heart of episode 6. Each deck’s Pokémon, with each card’s stage and how many copies the deck holds:

Snivy deck: Grass and Fighting

SnivyBasic ×2
ServineStage 1 ×2
SerperiorStage 2
MaractusBasic
PanpourBasic
TimburrBasic
SandileBasic ×2
KrokorokStage 1
PatratBasic

Tepig deck: Fire and Lightning

TepigBasic ×2
PigniteStage 1 ×2
EmboarStage 2
PansageBasic
DarumakaBasic
BlitzleBasic ×2
ZebstrikaStage 1
JoltikBasic
BouffalantBasic

Oshawott deck: Water and Psychic

OshawottBasic ×2
DewottStage 1 ×2
SamurottStage 2
PansearBasic
BasculinBasic
WoobatBasic
VenipedeBasic ×2
WhirlipedeStage 1
LillipupBasic

Trivia & facts

It was the first new Pokémon TCG video game in a decade, arriving ten years after Pokémon Card GB2 on the Game Boy Color, and coverage of its first public showing billed it as exactly that.
When the story begins, Shun is convinced that the Pokémon Card Game is a contest about throwing cards.
Nanami loses the early practice battles on purpose to build Shun’s confidence, and only owns up after the fourth episode.
The Coin Toss Game is teased at the very end of the story: Nanami starts to tell Shun the secret command, but he hurries her along and she never finishes, leaving players to find the L and R trick for themselves.
The Beginning Set for Girls (2010).

The Beginning Set + cards are numbered out of 034 rather than the original set’s 037, because the three cards found only in the Beginning Set for Girls, Minccino, Audino and Alomomola, were left out.
The Supporter card Nanami gives Shun shows Cheren, one of the player’s two childhood friends in Pokémon Black and White. Its effect is simply to draw three cards; it was first printed in Japan’s White Collection expansion and reached English players in Emerging Powers.
Each Half Deck includes one of Unova’s elemental monkeys, paired exactly as in Pokémon Black and White, where the player is given the monkey that covers their first partner’s weakness at the first Gym, in Striaton City: Panpour comes with Snivy, Pansage with Tepig and Pansear with Oshawott.
The Nintendo DS logo.

The official copyright credit romanises the title as POKEMON CARD GAME ASOBIKATA DS, and the game card’s product code is NTR-TBWJ-JPN.
Japanese speedrunners race the story from the start of episode 1 to the end of episode 9. The fastest time on record by August 2024, 36 minutes 53 seconds, was set on a New Nintendo 3DS.
Nanami shares her Japanese name with Daisy Oak, the rival’s older sister in Pokémon Red and Blue, though nothing links the two characters.

Legacy

What came after

The original Beginning Set – 29 October 2010. The first Black & White era starter box, with Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott Half Decks and a how-to-play DVD, for ¥1,980; a Beginning Set for Girls launched the same day
Beginning Set + listed – Mid-June 2011. Japanese shops list the new box and its bundled DS software
Announced and first shown – Early July 2011. The Pokémon Company announces the Beginning Set + with How to Play DS in place of the DVD, and a trial version is playable at the World Hobby Fair 2011 Summer
Free demo – Summer 2011. The one-battle Download Version is handed out for a limited time at Nintendo Zone hotspots and through the Wii’s Minna no Nintendo Channel
Release – 5 August 2011. Out in Japan inside the Beginning Set + at ¥2,980 including tax; never sold separately
Beginning Set Pikachu Version – 18 November 2011. A Pikachu-themed starter box reuses the Beginning Set + Half Deck line-up and card numbering, adding a Pikachu promo card
National Beginning Set – 20 April 2012. The next starter box goes back to a how-to-play DVD, leaving How to Play DS a one-off

Where to play it today

As of October 2026, the only way to play How to Play DS is on its original game card. It was never sold separately and has never been re-released, digitally or otherwise, so that means tracking down a second-hand Beginning Set + box, or a loose card from one. The card runs on any DS or 3DS-family system regardless of region, but every word of it is in Japanese. The free demo distributions ended in 2011, though the full game can still send its demo to another DS by Download Play.

How it was made

How to Play DS was made by Creatures Inc., the company behind the Pokémon Trading Card Game itself, working with the smaller developer Zener Works, and The Pokémon Company released it as part of its card range rather than as a video game in its own right. Its job was to replace the how-to-play DVD in the Beginning Set, the Black & White era starter box launched in October 2010, with something interactive that a newcomer could use alone.

The Beginning Set + first appeared on Japanese shop listings in mid-June 2011, and The Pokémon Company announced it at the start of July. A trial version was playable days later at the World Hobby Fair 2011 Summer, where staff confirmed there would be no two-player battle mode, and the game went on sale inside the box on 5 August 2011.

The contents of the original Beginning Set — What came in the original Beginning Set of 2010.

Reception

Sales

No sales figures were ever published for How to Play DS or for the Beginning Set + box that carried it, and as bundled software it never appeared in Japan’s video game sales charts.

What the press said

As a free extra in a card product, How to Play DS was never reviewed by the big outlets and has no review scores. The Japanese site Inside played it at launch and summed it up as 「チュートリアルソフト」, “tutorial software”, while praising its タッチ操作による直観的な操作 (“intuitive touch controls”) and the way both screens show the state of the table as it changes. Its writer also found the quiz, with its explanations, a handy way to check what had sunk in.

The main complaint was the packaging. Because the software was never sold on its own, anyone who already owned the original Beginning Set had to buy a whole new box to get it. Inside also hoped for a fuller follow-up with wireless and Wi-Fi battles and StreetPass, and its report from the World Hobby Fair wished for a true successor to the Game Boy card games that could bring back their infrared Card Pop! feature on the 3DS.