Tamagotchi
Tamagotchi is a brand of handheld digital pets marketed since 1996 by Japanese toymaker Bandai, a division of Bandai Namco Holdings. Most Tamagotchi are housed in a small egg-shaped handheld video game with an interface consisting of three buttons, with the goal of raising the pet as it goes through different life stages.
The original Tamagotchi, released locally in 1996 and worldwide in 1997, quickly became a major global toy fad for a period of time. Tamagotchi was brought back in 2004 and since then has received more new versions while Bandai has also expanded the franchise to other media and merchandise., over units have been sold worldwide. It has been a staple children's toy in Japan since its early years.
According to Bandai, the name is a portmanteau combining the two Japanese words, which means "egg", and "watch". After the original English spelling of watch, the name is sometimes romanized as Tamagotch without the "i" in Japan. Most Tamagotchi characters' names end in tchi or in Japanese, with few exceptions. "Mametchi", present since the original release, became a mascot of sorts for the series.
History
Tamagotchi was created in Japan and invented by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. They both won the tongue-in-cheek 1997 Ig Nobel Prize for economics, dubbing them the father and mother of Tamagotchi. The first Tamagotchi was released by Bandai on November 23, 1996, in Japan and in the United States on May 1, 1997. Tamagotchi is a keychain-sized virtual pet simulation game. The characters were first drawn in heta-uma, which was a popular style found in teen magazines, and were then converted to pixel art. They were worn like a wristwatch in the initial concept, hence the portmanteau name. The egg shape might have been chosen as reptiles like snakes were popular pets at that time. The characters are colorful creatures with simple designs based on animals, objects, or people. When releasing the Tamagotchi in Japan, Bandai initially marketed them exclusively to teenage girls. Bandai and WiZ would later create a masculine counterpart to the Tamagotchi, the Digital Monster, which would spawn the Digimon franchise.The original Tamagotchi sold about 40 million units worldwide during its run, including about 12 million in the US and Canada. The large success of the toy was a surprise for Bandai. But the company was also ill-prepared as it struggled to keep up with demand. At one point, Bandai employees were banned from carrying bags showing the Bandai logo in fear of theft as it was a sought after item. The Tamagotchi craze faded by 1998 and because of large overproduction of the toys that remained unsold, Bandai made a 6 billion yen financial loss.
Bandai brought back the Tamagotchi toys in 2004 with the Tamagotchi Connection, a new Tamagotchi with the ability to connect and interact with other Tamagotchi using infrared. In a bid to avoid repeating the mistakes of the original, the company released the new Tamagotchi carefully with subdued advertising. The new generation Tamagotchi became a popular toy in Japan and other regions in the mid-2000s. The brand's revival and popularity was further seen with the success of the Tamagotchi-based Nintendo DS video game Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop which sold 1 million copies in Japan by January 2006.
Bandai updated the Connection series with new models for several years and have since then expanded the Tamagotchi with further new versions with additional features to this day.
Gameplay
Tamagotchis are a small alien species that deposited an egg on Earth to see what life was like, and it is up to the player to raise the egg into an adult creature. The creature goes through several stages of growth, and will develop differently depending on the care the player provides, with better care resulting in an adult creature that is smarter, happier, and requires less attention. There are various Tamagotchi characters and the resulting character depends on how the player has cared for it during the earlier baby, child and teen stages. Gameplay can vary widely between models, and some models require little care from the player.Upon activating the pet, an egg appears on the screen. After setting the clock on the device, the egg will wiggle for several minutes, and then hatch into a small pet. In later versions, inputting the player's name and birthday is also required when setting the clock, and at birth, the player can name the pet and learn of its family group and/or gender. The player can care for the pet as much or as little as they choose, and the outcome depends on the player's actions. The first Tamagotchi units could only be paused by going to set the clock, effectively stopping the passage of time in the game, but in later models, a pause function was included.
Pets have a Hunger meter, Happy meter and a Training meter to determine how healthy and well-behaved the pet is. There is also an age and weight check function for the current age and weight of the pet. Filling up the Hunger meter can be achieved by feeding the pet a meal or a snack. Filling up the Happy meter can be achieved by playing mini-games with the pet or by feeding it a snack. Mini-games usually vary between versions. The Training meter can be filled by pressing the "scold" option when a pet calls for attention despite neither its hunger or happy meter being empty, calls for attention but refuses to play or be fed a meal and in later models, sending a prank gift to a friend. Later models added a "praise" option for when the pet sulks or performs a good deed. The pet will leave droppings around the screen from time to time and can become sick if they are not cleaned up. Before the pet goes to the bathroom, it will make a face and "stink" lines will appear around it. If the player activates the toilet icon during this animation, but before the pet has gone to the bathroom, the pet will use a toilet instead. When done repeatedly, the pet can be potty trained.
If the pet gets sick, a skull icon appears next to the pet as it sits still at the bottom of the screen, with an unhappy expression. The pet can become sick for a number of reasons, such as overfeeding of snacks or failing to clean up droppings. The pet can die if sickness is left unchecked. The pet can be cured by pressing the "Medicine" option; however, it may need to be pressed more than once. Usually, a pet will not play or accept a meal when sick.
Life cycle
The pet goes through several distinct stages of development throughout its life cycle. Each stage lasts a set amount of days, depending on the model of the toy, and when it reaches a new stage, the toy plays a jingle, and the pet's appearance changes. The pet can "die" due to poor care, old age, sickness, and in a few versions, predators. The pet's life cycle stages are Baby, Child, Teenager, Adult and Special, with some units also having a Senior stage. Usually, the pet's age will increase once it has awakened from its sleep time.Poor care can cause a pet to die, but on certain releases, it can also die of old age. If an old pet dies without producing offspring, the family line has ended. The Japanese Tamagotchi toys usually feature a ghost and headstone when the pet dies, but English language versions have been changed to show an angel at death. There is sometimes more than one death based on how well the pet was cared for prior to death. Pressing the C button shows the age at which the pet died. After the pet dies, a player can restart the game by pressing the A and C buttons at the same time.
Additional features
On top of the basic gameplay premises mentioned above, some Tamagotchis have additional features.Connectivity
Using infrared communication, two players can link their toys and the pets may form friendships, play games, exchange gifts, and even marry. Connectivity was introduced with Osutchi and Mesutchi, which used physical prongs to connect the “male” and “female” devices. The Japanese Keitai Kaitsuu Tamagotchi Plus was the first model to feature support for an online app. Since then, many subsequent models have also been able to interact with apps like Tamatown by using alphanumeric codes generated by the toy to log into the website's Flash game. After generating a code, the toy remains paused until the player either enters a logout code or cancels. The player may play minigames in the town to earn Gotchi Points, or use Gotchi Points to buy items in the town shops. To transfer points and items back to the toy, the player signs out of the Flash game and is given a code to input back into the toy. The Tamagotchi Connection series used infrared to connect devices. Newer models, such as the Tamagotchi 4U and the Tamagotchi 4U+ can connect to other Tamagotchi 4U units, as well as smartphones and tablets, using near-field communication. More new releases continued to expand on connectivity options, with the Tamagotchi Pix using QR codes, and the Tamagotchi Paradise returning to physical prongs at the top of the device for cross-device connection, harkening back to the original Osutchi and Mesutchi connecting style.Marriage and family
The Mesutchi and Osutchi Tamagotchis were the first to introduce marriages and offspring, and the feature returned in the Plus/Connection and subsequent models. Two players with a male and female pet may link their toys and allow the pets to develop a friendship and fall in love. Once the pets have raised their relationship meter sufficiently, the pets may marry. The player can also choose to have their pet marry a random pet brought in by the "Matchmaker." Once married, the female will eventually produce two eggs, keeping one and leaving one with the male. Since the parent will automatically guide the baby's life, the only care it needs from the player is medicine in the case of sickness. After 24 hours has passed or the offspring evolves into a child the parent will leave, and the player is left to care for a new generation. This can continue for as long as the player manages to care for the pets.The Chou Jinsei Enjoy Tamagotchi also introduced the idea of character "families" or "groups." These "families" are a kind of classification for characters obtainable in the game, grouped mainly by appearance, though they are also associated with certain skills. A character of one group cannot grow into an adult of a different group, and if two pets of different groups marry and have an egg, the baby will be of the female's group.
Tamagotchi Some, M!x, and On are notable in that the Tamagotchi offspring will share genetics from both of their parents. Tamagotchi Paradise also features a scaled down level of gene-mixing through breeding.