The 'Tamagotchi On' (Tamagotchi Meets in Japan) line of electronic toys has been around in the US since 2018, but I stopped caring about virtual pets circa 1998. Until this week. Apparently it's what it's always been, but now with added features that put it in this weird/amazing Venn diagram middleground of Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley... and a breeding simulator?
What is familiar?
You have a small plastic egg device that fits in the palm of your hand and a small blob cracks out of a digital egg, begging for attention for it's brief 1-hour baby phase. It then spends the next days going from child to teen before reaching adulthood. It follows a real-time clock in which hunger, happiness, and their bowels empty over time and it is YOUR duty to sweep the doodie away and shove endless bowls of rice into those now vacant bowels until you either forget, get bored, or decide to start all over again. Perhaps my dumb kid-brain prevented me from realizing it at the time when these were new, circa 1997, but the rhythms of the Tamagotchi after the initial 1-hour baby phase are actually incredibly reasonable to upkeep. They wake up at 7 AM, sleep at 8 or 9 PM, and only truly require care for a moment or two every ~3 hours. It is actually eerie how the fairly early bedtime has made me feel more attachment and routine for the toy than I ever did as a child (giga pet, digimon, et al) as I can slot it into my work breaks and own life routines very well. COVID-year has also made me really starved for routine and relationships with others and this stand-in seems to fill a certain niche expectation well enough (much like Animal Crossing New Horizons did March/April of last year).
What is modernized?
Not only does the display look actually stunning with the vibrancy and pure kawaii~ nature of a series that has undeniably leaned into 'girly' aesthetics, it also introduces lots of quality of life features for those that just can't manage to ALWAYS be present for their new alien egg-baby. There are nearly a dozen 'locations' to visit and the first 'unlocked' location is a hotel/resort where you can drop your tamagotchi off for a nominal fee (in-game currency - no microtransactions [odd to have to state that given the current climate of games today]) from 7 AM to 7 PM - this will keep your tamagotchi in stasis, shielding them from death, hunger, and depression.
Each location also provides a few new meals and snacks, items to play with, and accessories to dress up your adult tamagotchi. Each location also has a unique 'activity' as well, but more importantly each location needs to be 'unlocked' and those conditions are either cryptically hinted at by other NPC tamagotchi you can meet in the in-game park, or by randomly discovering as you play through multiple generations of your babies. Or, you know, you could just google that shit. Some locations introduce a new minigame or 'feature' like the farm location where you visit each day to water a tree that grows more and more each day. Each location has a few specific tamagotchi NPCs you can befriend by playing with and bringing toys with you when you travel, and thus can eventually woo and 'marry' to breed those sweet sweet genetics together. These locations, as they open up, allow for more and more engagement and exploration much like a town or island opening up with features in Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley.
The toys and animations in general nearly always hurt my soul with their cuteness. Sometimes it's as simple as choosing a toy to play with and seeing whether the eggbaby enjoys it or is terrified by it. (seriously, does any one of them actually LIKE the rocket toy?). Much like the heart-events in Stardew Valley, there are some strange and psychedelic moments that can just crop up when you're pressing a button to turn the screen on and make sure they aren't dead or doused in diarrhea - such as the other night when I was about to go to sleep around 10 PM in real life and I heard a 'chirp' and noticed the device was illuminating on its own! I look over and it's my tamagotchi with a dreamy thought bubble above them. I clicked the 'activate' button and entered into my tamagotchi's dream watching a short animation as they explored their food-laden wonderland before my eggbaby grumbled and rolled over to return to sleep. My partner's tamagotchi twins (yes, twins are a thing wtfff) last night engaged in something similar and they were having a nightmare instead!
But, like, where's the GAME?
Up front, these are ~$50 which is a big ask, but this Tamagotchi line feels the most like a 'video game' any virtual pet game has every attempted. Again, in line with life-sim styled games, there is an emphasis on the slow discovery and semblance of 'slice-of-life' ambiance to interactions. What's been the strongest motivator for me thus far has been the gradual progression in growth and generational changes as my partner and I smash our tamagotchi together to make new hybrid versions of the cuties we had previously. The unlocking of new locations and new features being unknowns has also been engaging and has already last us a couple weeks. Looking online for those features would rob a lot of the experience, imo, but connecting with the mobile app and seeing all of the WILD tamagotchi has the opposite effect. I don't feel like I'm being spoiled, but inspired, much like browsing the SPOREpedia once was a decade ago. Seeing the ways in which folks are breeding certain types of tamagotchi or feeding them certain foods to get unique coloration combinations just make me excited for what is in store for my own journey through (hopefully) a dozen+ generations of eggbabies. The mobile app also seems to work seasonally (current May items and events include a trash-can tamagotchi, cherry blossom minigame, and other things that don't really matter), and it also works fairly seamlessly with bluetooth features within the device able to wirelessly transfer your tamagotchi to the social-network-lite app.
The other meta-game element, much like Animal Crossing, is the social media intersectionality: everyone has fun sharing all the cute shit they make, decorate, or discover.
Additionally, though these now boast a full color LCD screen, they run at roughly 1 fps. Which, works out with helping the 2x AAA batteries last for literal weeks at a time I assume; it also seems to help keep the charm of the classic memories as the in-between frames and time helps with ~imagination~ which is the right amount of suspension of disbelief to make one start to think and care and fill in the gaps for why they should give a care about the well-being of a blob of pixels.
If that wasn't enough to be be potentially off-putting, let me introduce the ridiculous tama-exclusivity chart:
Oh, also your tamagotchi can adopt a tama-pet.
and, yes, the pets can fuck and mix and match body parts with other pets too.
What is familiar?
You have a small plastic egg device that fits in the palm of your hand and a small blob cracks out of a digital egg, begging for attention for it's brief 1-hour baby phase. It then spends the next days going from child to teen before reaching adulthood. It follows a real-time clock in which hunger, happiness, and their bowels empty over time and it is YOUR duty to sweep the doodie away and shove endless bowls of rice into those now vacant bowels until you either forget, get bored, or decide to start all over again. Perhaps my dumb kid-brain prevented me from realizing it at the time when these were new, circa 1997, but the rhythms of the Tamagotchi after the initial 1-hour baby phase are actually incredibly reasonable to upkeep. They wake up at 7 AM, sleep at 8 or 9 PM, and only truly require care for a moment or two every ~3 hours. It is actually eerie how the fairly early bedtime has made me feel more attachment and routine for the toy than I ever did as a child (giga pet, digimon, et al) as I can slot it into my work breaks and own life routines very well. COVID-year has also made me really starved for routine and relationships with others and this stand-in seems to fill a certain niche expectation well enough (much like Animal Crossing New Horizons did March/April of last year).
What is modernized?
Not only does the display look actually stunning with the vibrancy and pure kawaii~ nature of a series that has undeniably leaned into 'girly' aesthetics, it also introduces lots of quality of life features for those that just can't manage to ALWAYS be present for their new alien egg-baby. There are nearly a dozen 'locations' to visit and the first 'unlocked' location is a hotel/resort where you can drop your tamagotchi off for a nominal fee (in-game currency - no microtransactions [odd to have to state that given the current climate of games today]) from 7 AM to 7 PM - this will keep your tamagotchi in stasis, shielding them from death, hunger, and depression.
Each location also provides a few new meals and snacks, items to play with, and accessories to dress up your adult tamagotchi. Each location also has a unique 'activity' as well, but more importantly each location needs to be 'unlocked' and those conditions are either cryptically hinted at by other NPC tamagotchi you can meet in the in-game park, or by randomly discovering as you play through multiple generations of your babies. Or, you know, you could just google that shit. Some locations introduce a new minigame or 'feature' like the farm location where you visit each day to water a tree that grows more and more each day. Each location has a few specific tamagotchi NPCs you can befriend by playing with and bringing toys with you when you travel, and thus can eventually woo and 'marry' to breed those sweet sweet genetics together. These locations, as they open up, allow for more and more engagement and exploration much like a town or island opening up with features in Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley.
The toys and animations in general nearly always hurt my soul with their cuteness. Sometimes it's as simple as choosing a toy to play with and seeing whether the eggbaby enjoys it or is terrified by it. (seriously, does any one of them actually LIKE the rocket toy?). Much like the heart-events in Stardew Valley, there are some strange and psychedelic moments that can just crop up when you're pressing a button to turn the screen on and make sure they aren't dead or doused in diarrhea - such as the other night when I was about to go to sleep around 10 PM in real life and I heard a 'chirp' and noticed the device was illuminating on its own! I look over and it's my tamagotchi with a dreamy thought bubble above them. I clicked the 'activate' button and entered into my tamagotchi's dream watching a short animation as they explored their food-laden wonderland before my eggbaby grumbled and rolled over to return to sleep. My partner's tamagotchi twins (yes, twins are a thing wtfff) last night engaged in something similar and they were having a nightmare instead!
But, like, where's the GAME?
Up front, these are ~$50 which is a big ask, but this Tamagotchi line feels the most like a 'video game' any virtual pet game has every attempted. Again, in line with life-sim styled games, there is an emphasis on the slow discovery and semblance of 'slice-of-life' ambiance to interactions. What's been the strongest motivator for me thus far has been the gradual progression in growth and generational changes as my partner and I smash our tamagotchi together to make new hybrid versions of the cuties we had previously. The unlocking of new locations and new features being unknowns has also been engaging and has already last us a couple weeks. Looking online for those features would rob a lot of the experience, imo, but connecting with the mobile app and seeing all of the WILD tamagotchi has the opposite effect. I don't feel like I'm being spoiled, but inspired, much like browsing the SPOREpedia once was a decade ago. Seeing the ways in which folks are breeding certain types of tamagotchi or feeding them certain foods to get unique coloration combinations just make me excited for what is in store for my own journey through (hopefully) a dozen+ generations of eggbabies. The mobile app also seems to work seasonally (current May items and events include a trash-can tamagotchi, cherry blossom minigame, and other things that don't really matter), and it also works fairly seamlessly with bluetooth features within the device able to wirelessly transfer your tamagotchi to the social-network-lite app.
The other meta-game element, much like Animal Crossing, is the social media intersectionality: everyone has fun sharing all the cute shit they make, decorate, or discover.
Additionally, though these now boast a full color LCD screen, they run at roughly 1 fps. Which, works out with helping the 2x AAA batteries last for literal weeks at a time I assume; it also seems to help keep the charm of the classic memories as the in-between frames and time helps with ~imagination~ which is the right amount of suspension of disbelief to make one start to think and care and fill in the gaps for why they should give a care about the well-being of a blob of pixels.
If that wasn't enough to be be potentially off-putting, let me introduce the ridiculous tama-exclusivity chart:
Much like Pokemon these are device-specific access to other tamagotchi with which to interact and breed with - with enough access to the mobile app syncronization, equally invested friends, or an outpouring of your own funds, they can all be brought or bred into your own device. There's an afternoon's worth of research to fully understand the chart as it relates to devices available from USA, Japan, and even Korea - but that's not important. What's important is these creatures can be diced into parts and RNG'd together to make literally millions of combinations of new tamagotchi and holy shit is that fucking cool. example below:
Oh, also your tamagotchi can adopt a tama-pet.
and, yes, the pets can fuck and mix and match body parts with other pets too.
