Gacha Club is a misleadingly named game that’s about customization, roleplaying, and sharing stories. Use a 100% free character creator to make the chibi avatar of your dreams and use your character in videos, pictures, minigames, and more.

Gacha Club is one of several similar games made by Chicago-based developer Lunime. These games all prominently feature the word “Gacha” in their names and branding, utilize small anime characters with big heads, and center around customization and community. One of the biggest draws to all of these games is the so-called Gacha Studio, a fully-featured editor that allows you to customize characters, place them in scenes, and take screenshots or movies.

A very basic scene in the in-game editor

Not a Gacha Game

In most contexts, the word “gacha” refers to a game with prevalent gambling mechanics. Gacha games force players to purchase tickets in in-game lotteries in order to have a chance to assemble rare and powerful in-game items. These systems are designed in order to entice players to gradually spend increasing amounts of real-life money in order to acquire advantages within the game.

By most metrics, Gacha Club does not fit this model. The biggest difference between a traditional gacha-style game and Gacha Club is that Gacha Club does not have a shop that allows you to spend real money. While it does have in-game currencies that you can exchange for gacha-style pulls, you earn these currencies by playing games and watching ads. 

A “pull” within Gacha Club. Remember, these are free!

More importantly, Gacha Club isn’t really about the minigames and modes that these randomized pulls and in-game currencies are used for. Instead, the game serves as a hub for a community that enjoys creating content with the Gacha Studio. The minigames and other game modes see some play, of course, and there are some players who care a lot about the characters that they purchase with in-game currency, but for many players, it’s not the focus of the game.

Community Driven

Lunime’s Gacha Studio games have been an internet sensation for years. The studio’s ability to export pictures and videos (complete with narration, text, and more) has paved the way for “GachaTubers” to use the games to tell stories and make friends over the internet. These creators use the freedom provided by Gacha Studio to make just about every kind of content you can think of. You can find livestreams, YouTube videos, images, subreddits, Facebook groups, and more all devoted to the game. A lot of these communities are made up of young people who have turned to Gacha Studio as a way to express themselves socially in recent years.

One of 33 pages of backgrounds available to creators

Comprehensive Customization

Gacha Studio is the big thing that makes Gacha Club tick. When you launch the character customizer or the studio, you’re welcomed by a huge plethora of fully free options that give you almost unparalleled freedom to make avatars and scenes look just the way you want. There are almost countless hairstyles, clothes, colors, and accessories. One of the more common activities in the Gacha Studio community is to recreate characters from other media in Gacha Club, and the versatility and depth of the toolkit really shows. In many cases, these community-made efforts look like official images that were just drawn in the Gacha Club style.

The character customization screen

The Secrets to Gacha Club Success

While the character creator and studio might be the most popular modes in Gacha Club, the RPG mode is very much a part of the game for some people. Here are some tricks you can use to get ahead early when playing Gacha Club’s games.

Don’t Ignore Story Progress

Gacha Club gates a decent amount of its rewards behind the RPG’s main story. The challenging stages in this core mode give very good rewards, especially when you take advantage of the game’s idle mode. With the right team setup, you can farm these rewards as many times as you wish. You’re only limited by your device’s battery!

Note the rewards you get for clearing levels!

Don’t Underestimate Starter Units

In most gacha games, the team you start with isn’t great. In Gacha Club, however, your starter characters are quite acceptable. You get a good spread of units with desirable attributes split between them. You’ll definitely replace these if you keep playing the game for weeks or months, but don’t be afraid to spend some currency on starter characters that you like.

Play Mini Games

Not only are none of the in-game currencies in Gacha Club sold for real money, but there’s no energy bar or other mechanic preventing you from playing mini-games over and over. These games give surprisingly good rewards for the amount of time it takes to complete them. While you shouldn’t feel obligated to spend hours playing games you don’t like, do take the time to check out all of the games and figure out which ones you like best. Whenever you’re low on gems or bytes, play a few rounds of your favorite mini-games to top off your balance!

One of the minigames in Gacha Club

Are you a Gacha Club fan? Who are your favorite Gacha Club creators? Did we miss any big tips or tricks? Let us know in the comments below!