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Virtual Pets: Raising Your Own Best Friend




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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4635
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 10:15 am Reply with quote
I was watching an episode from this season of Bob's Burgers, and Gene was playing with what was obviously a Tamagochi.

I had one back when they came out, but I didn't stick with it. It kept getting sick and dying very quickly, and there wasn't much of a way to figure out why since there was no internet to rely on, and nobody I knew had one. Very young me just didn't have the dedication to go through the trial and error.
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wolf10



Joined: 23 Jan 2016
Posts: 929
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 2:39 pm Reply with quote
I had a few of them as a kid, but no idea what happened to them.

Recently, though, I picked up the latest-gen Digivice (as seen on Ghost Game), and it's literally just a smart watch, with a port on the side that lets you load 'mons off of cards (sold separately, of course). My Gammamon evolved into Gulusgammamon and has been judging me from my wrist for about a month now without change. He might be telling me to exercise more.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 5:41 pm Reply with quote
Never had one. I did sign up for an online knock-off once but lost interest in about two days (I still have a password for Metapet, but what I can find about the 1999 game doesn't look like what I remember, and Metapet seems to be some kind of crypto scam now. oO).

So do Tamagochi have persistent memory or does the battery dying (or being removed to change) kill the pet and make you start over? How long does a battery last? That part sounds like it could get expensive if they're not rechargeable.
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 511
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 8:45 pm Reply with quote
the Battey is the mem on the old stuff
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 644
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 3:02 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
Never had one. I did sign up for an online knock-off once but lost interest in about two days (I still have a password for Metapet, but what I can find about the 1999 game doesn't look like what I remember, and Metapet seems to be some kind of crypto scam now. oO).

So do Tamagochi have persistent memory or does the battery dying (or being removed to change) kill the pet and make you start over? How long does a battery last? That part sounds like it could get expensive if they're not rechargeable.


Older pets had their memory tied to their batteries (which is why if you futzed with the battery on an old Digimon pet you could "hack" some evolutions). Newer pets have backup memory, so if the battery dies or is removed your progress is still saved.

The Tamagochi Minis are problematic, though, because their screens never shut off and their batteries only last about a month--and they have some rare forms you can only get by acquiring some earlier forms. And some of the branded Tamas use that hardware (the Eva and Kamen Rider ones, I can confirm)--so it's borderline impossible to get all the forms on one go-through unless you mute the device or something.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11597
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 4:31 am Reply with quote
Sounds like it would have been too frustrating to deal with for very long, forget expensive. I suppose there's something to be said for the realism though - no matter how well you care for them, pets don't live forever.
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AmpersandsUnited



Joined: 22 Mar 2012
Posts: 633
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 8:57 am Reply with quote
The only digital pet I ever had besides the Pokemon one you got with Heart Gold/Soul Silver was one of those GigaPets one. The blue alien one. For some reason I remember having it when I saw Good Burger in theaters.

The not-Fitbit watch from Ghost Game interests me. Technology has evolved greatly since the 90s so it doesn't make sense to still do digital pets with those LCD screens in 2022 outside of nostalgia like the Digivice re-releases. Although I suppose in this day and age it'd also be easier and more convenient to just release an app on phones for that kind of thing.
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Moonsaber



Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 343
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 8:08 pm Reply with quote
It still lives, though!

And let me introduce you to the wifi sniffing pet, the Pwnagatchi.

https://pwnagotchi.ai/

Encouraging hackers to go out and walk since 2019, build your own.
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wolf10



Joined: 23 Jan 2016
Posts: 929
PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2022 3:56 pm Reply with quote
AmpersandsUnited wrote:
The not-Fitbit watch from Ghost Game interests me. Technology has evolved greatly since the 90s so it doesn't make sense to still do digital pets with those LCD screens in 2022 outside of nostalgia like the Digivice re-releases. Although I suppose in this day and age it'd also be easier and more convenient to just release an app on phones for that kind of thing.
The Ghost Game Digivice (or, "Vital Bracelet," since it also has a Kamen Rider variant)) actually links up to an app via NFC, that gives you access to much more detailed settings and monster stats, as well as the ability to store multiple mons, since the device only holds one at a time. As a proud owner of the one phone released in 2020 without an NFC chip, I had to get a little creative about it. It only has about 30 hours of battery life, though, so you have to spend two hours a day charging it, and there's a risk of overcharging and damaging the battery. Also, while it has flash memory, it won't write to it unless you manually trigger a backup, which also clears the mon from RAM. So, basically, you should only back up when you need to turn it off.

But the tradeoff is being able to wear your nerd-cred (and a little friend) basically anywhere without getting caught. And the display is full-range RGB, with decent pixel art and illustrations. Gulusgammamon is much less horrifying when you watch him dozing or lifting weights.
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nobahn
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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 5150
PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2022 9:12 am Reply with quote
I remember this from back in the day; and, yes, you can color me surprised that they are still a thing decades later. When the show ER set aside 1 minute to show one of them in action, I was convinced -- and still am -- that all of the manufacturers had chipped in to pay the executive producers for that prominent product placement.
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