Digital pets (of the hardware kind)

[zj]

Oh my god I LOVE these things!! Apart from my dear lil tamagotchis, I have a LPS digipet (term i just made up lol) and omg the nostalgia is INTENSE. Here's a pic of the kind I have (released in 2005, photo snagged from the net cause I cant be rsed to take a pic rn lol



Maan upon searching the net for that pic I just found soo many other cool ones!! There are so many funky shapes and colors ahhh

I may have just found my next obsession XD

Did any of you guys have one of these?

And speaking of tamagotchis.. A boy my after-school daycare (school-run, fritids in swedish? not sure how to translate) had the same tamagotchi model as me :D we would play sooo many minigames together!! It was soo much fun and I wish I could have done more multiplayer on the LPS :')

[TheFrugalGamer]

@zj, I picked one of those up a while ago, but had never played them in my childhood. They are very cute! The one I got (the turtle) doesn't seem to have any pet-like functions, but it does have a very extensive map that spans multiple screens and contains an absolute ton of minigames. I've been meaning to do a write up in my pet database or via my blog at some point.

[zj]

@zj, I picked one of those up a while ago, but had never played them in my childhood. They are very cute! The one I got (the turtle) doesn't seem to have any pet-like functions, but it does have a very extensive map that spans multiple screens and contains an absolute ton of minigames. I've been meaning to do a write up in my pet database or via my blog at some point.

Yeah mine's map is also quite extensive, and there are so many minigames I loved going on adventures on mine :3

That's a cool idea!! Will make sure to check it out if you do make one :)

[Memory]

I had a picture of all 3 of my Tamagotchis together but uh, I guess I deleted it? welp.
here's a picture of my Pac-Man nano...


I have a nano, a regular, and a ON. I love the ON but it feels like it runs through batteries way too fast. even with rechargeable... gah. I was juggling taking care of all 3 of them but eventually it got overwhelming and I gave up. I also bought one of the Digimon ones but haven't even pulled the tab out of it. unboxed it and then it just sat around. one day

[devils]

I used to be really into virtual pets like these as a kid, but exchanged them for browser-based ones later... however, I recently bought an original (well, the 2018 re-release, but still) Tamagotchi and I fell in love with these things all over again!

I actually bought Tamagotchi Uni yesterday, I'm really excited to get it! I wonder if my old LPS v-pet and Pixel Chix are stored somewhere in the basement of my dad's house...

[Onio]

I want to make my own digipet someday!

Like purchase components (screen, board (esp32 or pi), speaker, etc,) design a shell and buttons to 3d print, and create the game myself using something like Godot.

It would be such a cool project to make your own! 

[wetnoodle]

This is my flipper, it's a handy lil multi tool for tech stuff, I have my TV and audio reciever remotes saved in it and all the amiibo nfc codes are saved in it and it can emulate them for switch games. It does a ton of other stuff but those are my favorite features, other than it being a cute lil dolphin tamagotchiesque device!

[pinkvampyr]

Here's the two tama's I currently have, the Pix Party and the Uni! I've decided I'm going to start collecting vpets so I'm def gonna look into the ones on this thread :D

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Ooooh, I like getting a hardware digital pet from time to time  Most recently, a Bitzee, which is gonna be the protagonist of this post.

Those things blew my mind when I first saw them, they're essentially holographic pets you can touch!  I got lucky to find one at a good price, and I'm very surprised at how interactible they are!  Not only you can "pet" them, you can also move the little machine in different ways to make them react.

They also have a lot of features - in fact, everytime I felt they could use something, it turns out they had. My version is the "fantastical animals" one, that has 20 collectable critters that go thru two evolutionary stages: some of them have "split" evolutions! Each fully grown version unlocks a minigame: simple ones, yeah, but I'm surprised I can even play Frogger or Snake or an endless runner in this kind of technology (more on that later). It has a "rotary" system in which the pets you already collected will call you to help them with something (they need food, they need you to clean their poop, another creature has messed them up and you need to solve their problems via magic, or they just need a good pat on the head). If you make three "care mistakes", the pet will go away (tho you can always bring them back and raise them from baby again); but I found this was a good way to make you go thru your already collected pets. Sometimes get a bit annoying when I want to focus on raising one, but eh, can live with that  Hell, when it comes to features, you can even win potions on some of the minigames to change the pets' colours! Yes, they have alternate color schemes! 

What surprises me the most is the technology used to achieve this. The "holograms" are made out of a little thing I call a "flappy screen": when you open the toy, it mechanically flaps, and the LED strip on top creates the image for your pet. Given how this kind of technology works, I cannot recommend this digital pet to those who experience seizures or have frequent problems with eyestrain.  I play it for short periods of time when my eyes are not tired, which is fine by me, lets me spread the game.

Okay, but the illusion creates this tiny pixellated screen, and the way the whole thing works fascinates me a lot because I see it as both high and low technology. High tech because, let me remind you, THIS IS A HOLOGRAM TAMAGOTCHI YOU CAN PET. Low because all of this effort produces a tiny-ass screen with notable limitations, to the point this thing immediately teleports you to the era where you couldn't quite figure what the pixel art meant and you had to make up for it with your imagination (seriously, I still don't know what some of the obstacles on the endless runner game are  )

Overall? I love this thing. It's fascinating, engaging, and adorable. I read mediocre-to-bad reviews of this game over Reddit but that was from people who are die-hard Tamagotchi fans (no offense, I like Tamas too, I'm just in a Bitzee phase right now) who finished the whole game in two hours. And to those people I say, relaaax, it's best to savour games little by little 

"Spoilers for a digital pet device"

I got one of the "split evolution" pets, an unicorn, and she gave me the item that would let me raise another unicorn. I bet this is intended so you can have both versions!

[close]

[serenefork]

I currently have 4 digital pet toys, though only 1 is currently working. I have 3 Tamagotchis, the Nano Hatsune Miku, Party Pix, and Uni. (I used to have 4, but my Gen 1 remake was lost at my mother's house during a holiday a few years ago.) I also have one of a brand unknown to me that is dinosaur themed. My Uni is the one currently working, since the rest need new batteries. I have also been eyeing getting the Tamagotchi Paradise (specifically either the Jade Forest or Blue Water versions).

[Adam]

I didn't see either mentioned yet, but my childhood digital pets were a Pocket Pikachu GS and something called an "octopet."
The octopet is long gone (I left it in a car and it died, and I couldn't bring myself to start over), but the Pikachu still works, despite it's battle scars. The Pikachu was definitely my preferred style of digital pet. Interaction only affected its affection; it wouldn't die from neglect, it would just stop talking to you. The best part of it was that if it liked you, it could actually give you gifts by trading with it through the pokemon gameboy color games.  It was a magical time.