Virtual Pet Games

[Swiftpaw]

You can click on the dragons in my signature for a link, but I'd recommend Xanje! There are many unique pets and colors, and it has a very chill community for a petsite.

My system is on quite a few petsites, but we don't actively play too many nowadays because a lot of them have drama-filled communities which ruined it for us a bit.

[glow]

oh man, i really loved seeing a ton of the pet sites i hadn't heard of before on here! i used to be a pretty avid player on them, since they made up a lot of my formative years online, and i've only just started coming back to them too.

i only really spent time on proper neopets as a teen. where i was a little too late to the party and never knew how to afford or find some of the paintbrushes and other dressup accessories in that late-game, and nearly empty, state. though i sure did pile them onto my wishlist anyway. then i went on to spend a lot of time on the habitarium, after learning it was kind of the go-to game for earning currency. except that taking care of its pet3's and sending them off to work was genuinely so stupidly fun to me. it was this micro management/resource clicker game that used to be a huge part of the site, but eventually shut down in 2014. which ended up being why i stopped checking in on the place altogether, at least outside of a few games of kass basher with friends...
i did manage to find a screenshot of the time i got to the highest level in habi though! good times.

neopets habitarium

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i joined flightrising around its launch, from hearing word about it on tumblr, but i never really got too far on it despite having an og account. i'd like to return to it now but i have no idea what the economy, or community, on there is like. aside from it being one of the major sites out there now, as far as these kinds of games go. same went for goatlings which was, and is, really cute!

old flight rising

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recently though, i joined pixel cat's end during its opening window this past weekend, and i've been liking that one a lot. i think it being inspired by ttrpg's makes it a lot easier to get involved, and the small but friendly community is a cherry on top. it's what revived my interest in these places, alongside the general nostalgia i was pining for. so i'll definitely make a note to look out for moderneo's next opening date, and dappervolk and icepets are already next on my list too! i think the thing that got me interested in them altogether again can also get chalked up to their communities though. the forum revivals they nurture, and the personal art trades of people's virtual pets, is maybe my favorite thing. plus, the dressup and fun lore you can give your fantasy pets is another big seller.

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as far as physical virtual pet toys go though; i'm also a huge fan of tamagotchis, the digimon v-pets, furbies, and the more modern magic mixies (if those count)! while i understand some of the complaints in the thread for the simple "gameplay" in tamagotchi and its clones, i feel like it can be justified depending on the generation of them. which is something i try and remind myself of, especially considering that they were meant for use in moderation between short periods of time, and not the way i and other collectors wind up playing them excessively lol. i'm definitely one to get a little bored of their repetitive nature too, so i usually look out for more unique variations, and for me that usually means more involved games or a larger quantity of pets on one device that's specific to a generation. sometimes it comes down to vis-aesthetics and character designs being more than enough to compel me on their own too, though. things like the jp-exclusives osutchi and mesutchi, which were some of the first tamagotchis that allowed you to raise a family, and so on and so forth with the tamagotchi connection v5 that was the western release of the former's concept, to the more recent tamagotchi on that boasts a colored screen and a chance to create fusions with tamagotchi designs from its playerbase, or the digimon line of v-pets that include funkier pixel mons that you can fight. are all some of the few that immediately come to mind when i think about more exciting editions i've played. it does get to be a pricey collector's hobby though, and at that point i think the most fun anyone owes themselves is making a game out of writing and drawing about your v-pets, modding and physically customizing the looks of these toys, and delving into the more niche and weird variants of bootlegs too. something about putting your own nice personal spin that involves them, can make it mean a little bit more by virtue of doing so, imo! 

[Alexandriarch]

This is awesome!  Thank you all for this wonderful thread!

The entire reason I am on this forum is because of Tamanotchi's salvation at the hands of Melonland.  Virtual pets rule.  Some of my favorite experiences were the original Tamagotchis & Digivices up through the Tamagotchi Connection & that one Digivice shaped like a Yakbak.  I've been having fun with the Tamagotchi ON for over a year now.  I also had these things called "Skannerz" or something that would scan barcodes & unlock pets.  I got two & gave one to my friend so we could play together, but they never did 
Another one I did that with was a weird handheld called POX.  I hadn't thought of that in ages until just now! It had the ability to wirelessly connect, & I would always check the device at traffic lights in the hope that some other kid also had one within 25 feet who was also trying to connect to a POX device 
Games like Black & White were neat, too. I was envious of my neighbor with a Dreamcast.  The little VMU game looked so fun.  I have been playing Nights into Dreams recently just to get into it's A-Life system.
As far as websites go, for years I used to just type "free multiplayer game" in Yahoo or Altavista or whatevs & hope for new results.  There was always this game listed first on alphabetical lists called "Alien Adoption Agency."  The game looked really interesting, but the site was always down.  FOR YEARS.  Well, I remembered it again recently & looked it up on the Wayback Machine only to find that the game is actually functional now! Here it is!I haven't had time to explore too much, but the whole feel of it is like a time capsule for early 2000's browser games.
Hearing from everyone on the internet about their virtual pets just brings me such joy.  Thank you for making me feel less alone!

[wygolvillage]

I think I might have heard of the bar-code scanner based pet!! I wonder if anyone's ever tried to do something similar with QR codes... Closest I can think of is how some Pokemon games would let you scan QR codes for Pokedex entries.

[Necrosia]

@Alexandriarch

oooo I didn't know those existed!  I have a mighty need now

[TheFrugalGamer]

This is awesome!  Thank you all for this wonderful thread!


As far as websites go, for years I used to just type "free multiplayer game" in Yahoo or Altavista or whatevs & hope for new results.  There was always this game listed first on alphabetical lists called "Alien Adoption Agency."  The game looked really interesting, but the site was always down.  FOR YEARS.  Well, I remembered it again recently & looked it up on the Wayback Machine only to find that the game is actually functional now! Here it is!I haven't had time to explore too much, but the whole feel of it is like a time capsule for early 2000's browser games.
Hearing from everyone on the internet about their virtual pets just brings me such joy.  Thank you for making me feel less alone!

Alien Adoption is one I hadn't heard of, and it looks so much fun! It also seems, from what I can tell, to be a one-person operation, which I like. I've added it to my big personal list of pet games to check out.

I think I might have heard of the bar-code scanner based pet!! I wonder if anyone's ever tried to do something similar with QR codes... Closest I can think of is how some Pokemon games would let you scan QR codes for Pokedex entries.

The Tamagotchi Pix uses QR codes to send items and visits to other players, since it's equipped with a camera, and there are a few other pets that used QR codes to unlock special items. But as far as I know, nobody's done a full-on Skannerz type pet where you can scan any QR code and get monsters or something. It's kind of surprising how they're not used more! Qr codes are easy to generate, and it'd offer some additional functionality and gameplay without too much extra work.

[Badgersaurus]

One that I'm aware of that people on this forum might like is pixpet.net. It's like Dragon Cave (clickable adoptables that grow) meets Pokemon (the main goal is to fill out your database of pixpets) meets one of those gacha games (your pet goes out on journeys to find items) meets Animal Crossing (you have a house you decorate with said items). It's been ages since I touched it, years before I made my web site even, but it was super-fun from what I remember and the community was nice. If anyone here decides to play, let me know, and I might pick it up again and we could be buddies!

[Ninaiso]

Holy hecc!! I love this topic!! I'm cher8shing everyone's fantastic responses here!!! If it wasn't late and I had more energy I'd be quoting and responding to all of you aaaaaaa!!

Oh man, I played marapets rather than neopets back then, and dragoncave, and wajas... I also had my tamagotchi and played the hecc out of Nintendogs! I love pet sims and virtual pets in general aaaaaa such joy they bring!! I feel guilty that I'm so busy nowadays!

All of the links you guys shared have been fantastic!! Thank you all for exposing me to more amazing pet sites! I need to adopt more dragon cave dragons...


Oh!! My favorite virtual pet thing I've had/done, was actually creating my own petsite way way back on vpetsite, and then also browsing others sites!! It was basically neocities, but for virtual petsites specifically. I miss it so so much and absolutely adored being able yo see the amazing art and creativity from the community. There was nothing more heartwarming than seeing these passion projects both solo and in small teams. The openness of the community to volunteer their talents on the forums to create pet sites together was so heartwarming as well!! Man, such a wonderful time that was.

EDIT: oh also!! I'm gonna click on all virtual pets I can on this thread!! May they thrive!

[PainterFight]

I'm bad at taking care of my Neopets, but I do have a Flight Rising account (Painterish). Oh, and I guess a Chicken Smoothie one too - if it also counts as a "pet site".

[Alexandriarch]

The new Tamagotchi just dropped, & mine just arrived!

It looks like the same sort of software as the Smart, but with lots of improvements.  I like the buttons much more than the touch screen.  Menus are more streamlined.  The watch strap actually works, unlike the Smart's snap-back band that will fall off your wrist at inopportune times.
The size, the design, the material (clear plastic!) is all tops to me.  I'm so psyched for this generation of Tama-tech! 


If anyone wants to explore the Wireless Fidelity connectivity capabilities in the future, let me know!

[Luminescent]

Oh man, I really loved Dragon Cave and Dragon Adopters (RIP)! And I liked (and still like to get on occasionally) Chicken Smoothie as well. I went through a phase where I really loved browser pets, so even though all I can remember off the top of my head are those three, I'm sure I was on a lot more sites.

As for physical ones, I had a Tamagotchi... for about a day. I got bored pretty easily as a kid, so after I had taken care of everything that my Tamagotchi needed, I got bored and looked for the switch to turn it off. When I realized I couldn't, it freaked me out, so I had my mom take the batteries out, and I never played with it again. I had a Furby too at one point (if that counts?) but Furby just scared me in general, so I didn't play with it much. Then at some point I think I wanted a Poo-Chi, but alas, that dream was never fulfilled.

[MrsMoe]

I'm surprised no one's brought up Lioden or Wolvden. I guess they're not necessarily pet games as much as they are animal sims, but they share a lot of the same mechanics. I actually enjoyed playing Lionden a lot more than any other game as a kid because I liked the idea of being an animal and dealing with survival much more than being a human who takes care of one.

Yeah, I was one of "those" animal kids.

I'd love to return to it or Flight Rising or Neopets someday, but I always end up forgetting about them eventually. Its sad tbh, because I really do think they're fun.

[Grimlock]

i mentioned it in my intro thread but leviathan myth is another site where you take care of virtual dragons! starting out is pretty slow if you don't get lucky with a wild dragon catch and the site's pretty small but it has some unique stuff going on even if the gameplay's a bit tedious

[serenefork]

I play a lot of pet sim sites and I've recently joined eggcave and wajas this week. Pet sites are so fun to play and I'm very interested in both collecting and breeding aspects of these games.
When it comes to other pet sim games I really like Tamagotchi and Wobbledogs.

Finally, one of the most unique browser pet games is Pixel Cat's End. It's lore-heavy and the gameplay is based on TTRPGs!

Also Pixel Cat's End is opening registration again August 11-13, 2023.

[zanarkand]

i just joined moderneopets and i'm really enjoying it! i think they're doing a great job of recapturing what i loved about neopets and i like that the community is so active and friendly. my name on there is zanarkand as well if anyone wants to add me as a neofriend!