Focusing Tamagotchi

After looking at all the Tamagotchi devices that Bandai has created it seems like they never stuck to the core of what Tamagotchi was at the beginning. I want to give my take on what Tamagotchi could be if we stuck with just the relationship aspect of Tamagotchi.

1. First cycle of life after the Egg is Baby. The baby should Poop, Eat, Sleep, and Play. This shouldn't be easy either. Hungry & Happy should empty in 5 minute cycles. They should poop every 5 minutes. The game should be simple to increase Happy (guess which way). Progress after 1 hour.
   
2. Second cycle of life after Baby is Toddler. The toddler should be all about exploration, potty training, and playing. The toddler if left unattended should disappear from the screen and you have to find them in the house. Toddler is the only time you can potty train and there should be a training meter for potty training. Good games are Tea and TV found on V5, note while the baby game still works it shouldn't provide as good of happiness as Toddler game. Preschool might be an option too.
   
3. Third cycle of life after Toddler is Teen. The teen should be all about learning in both school and non-school environments. You should be able to build a personality with personality meters (musical, intellectual, athletic). School classes to learn personality. Other activities (concerts, sports games, other) to learn personality. Game needs to be harder for teen and older games don't provide as much happiness.
   
4. Fourth cycle of life after Teen is Adult. The adult should be all about Work, Dating to Marriage, and Children. Work is just about money; however it will be based on your personality. There should be a dating or relationship meter for your dates. Personality should play a part on who you can date and how successful you will be. Some dates will be needier and want things that you will need to purchase to keep them happy. After successfully wooing a spouse you need to maintain the spouse with a marriage meter. Same neediness applies when married. If successful you get an egg.
   
5. Fifth cycle of life after Adult is Senior (if you didn't already get an egg). The senior is all about relaxation and getting a child. Matchmaker will come and match you with girls, but not many good choices. Shorter dating cycle. Shorter marriage cycle. Last ditch effort to have a child.
   

I guess that's what I feel as Tamagotchi should be. Each stage should have its difficulties and be just as challenging as the previous stage. While baby is the most demanding of time it is also the shortest and less complicated. It should also have the highest success rate vs. adult where wooing a spouse could put the person in ruin. I can't think of a reason for a Teen to die unless they just get kicked out of the house because they didn't complete enough personality points in the time allotted. Only thing passed on to generations is money, so after a few generations you might have enough money to woo a needier spouse. I think there should be 4 types of dates based on the personality meters musicians with high music personality, intellects with high intellectual, athletes with high athletics, and average Joe with all 3 personalities even. There could be special characters for generations of one personality or even 4 generations of different personalities.

Let me know what you think.

Other

I don't understand what you mean with: They never stuck to the core that Tamagotchi was at the beginning. The first Tama's were the p1/p2.

I have a p2 and it cannot be potty trained, cannot get a job, go to school, get married or anything.

But this would be a nice idea for a new Tamagotchi, I agree.

What I mean is that to me the features in connection series of Tamagotchis have a bunch of add-ons that don't really enhance the game play.

1. Having to purchase food doesn't really enhance the game play, just gives a place to spend gotchi points. To me there isn't a good enough reason to purchase items and food. I think food, or higher levels of food should come as the game progresses.
    
   
2. The mailbox and getting mail from the king doesn't seem to add much to the gameplay either. Doesn't make the game harder or more complex. It is just another "thing" that was added.
    
   
3. Some of the training features don't really add to the complexity of the gameplay either. They might add to the "fun" factor of gameplay, but what are the negative effects?
   

I guess in reality everything has been added in progression from the P1/P2 series. The V1 added Generations and Marriage. V2 added gotchi points and market. V4 added school and jobs. From there we go to V5 which added family, but removed school and jobs. V6 modified school and jobs to a music theme. Not making things harder or better, just different. Tama-Go added potty training and removed lots of other stuff. Most posts I notice people liking the older tamagotchis better than the newer connection series of tamagotchis. It seams like the differences between the P1/P2, Ocean, Angel, Devil, etc. make the devices unique enough and challenging enough to want to play them.

I would want to strip the fluff and add more gameplay that makes the game challenging. Making it so that you have to complete tasks each step of the way to keep your pet happy. Happiness for an Adult could be just dating and as you do that it increases your happiness. Forget about doing games as an adult. Teens could be the same where going to parties, movies, etc. could be their happiness. Forget about games for teens. I guess I feel as though there is a lull in the game after you spent a bunch of time keeping the baby happy.

Other

EDIT: Sorry, I'm typically long winded, but usually detailed. One more thing about Adults after married your happiness is based on your spouse happiness, so doing things together or buying things for them will keep you happy.

I think they were never really added in because those can be too complex, remember that the Connection series are aimed at young children who wanted nothing more than a simple virtual pet to take care of minus the micro-management.

I think the different varieties of Tamagotchi are good. I agree that they should make more modern simple ones (maybe a colour version of the P1 or P2?) but without the Connections and colours being introduced we would have missed out on the anime and lots of characters. If they start veering towards a certain market, particularly when they already have existing and eager fans, then that's not good either because everyone else misses out. Nowadays BanDai America is trying to sell to young children (and failing because of parents' attitudes to electronics for their kids) and BanDai Japan is going for girls a bit younger than me.

A lot of vintage fans feel, for whatever reason, that vintages should be the only Tamas out there. But a lot of us disagree, including me. It's like the mobile phone - I like the modern ones with apps and good graphics, but my mum prefers simple and old-fashioned phones. And that's okay. As long as a product has something worth buying and well priced for all its fans, it's a good product.

My 11 year old finds the P1 to be too easy, however she forgets it all the time. I think the Tamagotchi is a good way to teach kids responsibility, however yes I wouldn't add all the other features for the younger ones. V1-V3 is about as high as I would give for someone between 8 and 10 years old even though they might not use the gotchi points. However V4 or higher is good for older than 10 until teen. Teens would be better off with the more complex ones as I mentioned above or even the iD L, however I don't see the iD L features as adding complexity to the game just more stuff.

I guess really this is the failure of Bandai America. They defined a target market that is unsupportable and even if they maintain that market once the child moves from that target they no longer have devices that will be the next better stage. To maintain the momentum you really need to keep a few segements of the market engaged.

Sorry... Double Post... I clicked post and it didn't refresh the page, so I clicked twice.

I don't like the idea of the hungry and happiness of the baby being empty every 5 minutes and pooping every 5 minutes

tamafan325 said:

I don't like the idea of the hungry and happiness of the baby being empty every 5 minutes and pooping every 5 minutes

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Isn't that normal? I seam to remember having to feed every minute.

It is normal for the babies to be very needy -- after all, they are babies.

I think all the micro-management thingy has been somewhat implemented into the V6 although not as comprehensive as the one you have previously mentioned. In the V6, activities differ depending on the growth stage of the character. Nurseries go to preschool and play, teens do band practice, while adults make gigs and do part-time jobs. All these activities affect the skills of the character as it grows up.

Originally the Tamagotchi was never made to be a "game" so the vintage ones don't have anything other than taking care of them which I love.

So adding all that kind of stuff would defeat the purpose of what it was designed for.

The idea of a Tamagotchi was a little portable pet for adults who didn't have time or couldn't keep real pets.

I do understand the music portion of the V6, however what I don't understand are the consequences or the fear of death due to not performing well. The extra details I put in are specific for the fear of death or fear of not being able to procreate a family. I'm only taking portions of what was introduced in V4 (school & work) and expanding them to include stair stepping effect of the final goal of having a child (which differs from the P1) and maybe even the goal of being able to get a special character after 4 or 5 generations.

This is definitely a change from the P1 versions since they were unsexed creatures that live their lives and then died. I guess regardless of how good or bad you were at taking care of them the final outcome was the same and the only goal was to see if you can get the different types of "pets". The only problem, I feel, is that once you progress past a certain level the needs of the "pet" gets mundane and extremely simplistic which is probably what Bandai thought and is why they added the extra features in the newer releases. However I don't see these features fully integrated into the complexity of the "pets" life (IE. negative effects).

The idea of a Tamagotchi was a little portable pet for adults who didn't have time or couldn't keep real pets.

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BTW. I would have to dispute that since the Tamagotchi was marketed for 8 year olds.

othercents said:

BTW. I would have to dispute that since the Tamagotchi was marketed for 8 year olds.

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She's actually right. The first Japanese Tamagotchis (the 1997-era) were originally targeted to adults who are unable to take care of a real pet (people who are allergic or live in places where pets are forbidden). Only when it reached the peak of popularity they were then modified to suit the lower-age demographics and focused on it since then.

If you are that into pro-creation and death, Bandai Japan has released Tamagotchi versions that focus exactly on that - namely the Osu-Mesu pairs and the Tamagochu. While the latter is more of a decorative than a functional Tamagotchi, these releases focused more on raising a pet capable of "reproduction" --- and yes, they die from poor care.

Other releases were meant for a younger audience.

Was actually thinking procreate like the sense of the connect series where you have generations instead of a matched pair for reproduction.

othercents said:

Was actually thinking procreate like the sense of the connect series where you have generations instead of a matched pair for reproduction.

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Oops, sorry 'bout that.

Do you mean to say you'd fancy a feature wherein the way you take care of your Tama will reflect its growth pattern and will continue to take effect in the next generations?

No that actually already happens with V5, however I like that portion of V5 where you can build on successive generations and unlock special characters by doing so. This keeps people playing past the first generation and expands the goal from having a baby to having the super secret generation 1000. However, this would only be one portion of the full "game", but in reality through each phase of life (baby, toddler, teen, adult, senior) there should be fear of death beyond the normal aspect of keeping them feed and happy. These should also stairstep into more complex needs and build on each other until the final outcome of having a baby and advancing to the next generation.

othercents said:

No that actually already happens with V5, however I like that portion of V5 where you can build on successive generations and unlock special characters by doing so. This keeps people playing past the first generation and expands the goal from having a baby to having the super secret generation 1000. However, this would only be one portion of the full "game", but in reality through each phase of life (baby, toddler, teen, adult, senior) there should be fear of death beyond the normal aspect of keeping them feed and happy. These should also stairstep into more complex needs and build on each other until the final outcome of having a baby and advancing to the next generation.

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Long-term unlockables? It was implemented (however lightly) in the iD L with the destinations and stuff, but once all were unlocked, I agree it's not that much interesting anymore.

Bandai America is the one mostly responsible for "sugar-coating" the concept of death. In the earlier Japanese releases, death is inevitable for a tamagotchi, and the catch is how long will one manage to keep it alive and happy despite the inevitable.

However as the newer releases came out, they have added the "running away" concept. In the modern Japanese releases (+Color, iD, iD L), death is still present in the earlier growth stages, however when the character dies, there are no other negative repercussions other than the generation counter being reset and some items to be wiped (in some versions).

Markets do change.. I believe that Tamagotchi would not have survived if it remained at the state it was like in 1996-1998. The problem with those earlier years was that it was a fad.. Even in Japan, you can call it a fad, since that it died out in 1998 just like over here.

With BanDai Japan's current market.. The IDs and other colors are much more simple then the Connection toys in terms of care(Hopefully the P's will change that). Heck, tamagotchi has evolved from just being a toy to a whole series ranging from a anime, arcade games, and other strange toys. So, you can say that Tamagotchi has went far away from its original purpose.

However, without the anime or the revival, I will say that I might have never gotten into tamagotchi.. I really love the world tamagotchi takes place in, I love the anime series.. So, that's how I got into the series, because of the stuff that came from the change in markets. If that never happened, I wouldn't have cared.

Another thing that may be preventing Bandai (or at least, making them think twice) from implementing advanced growth features is that these features could be so complex, the effects of which could depict that taking care of a Tamagotchi would be very similar to humans (eg. going to school, jobs, etc) and they wanted to retain the "virtual pet" concept.

The Tamagotchi has already moved away from being a simple pet. The only features that I'm suggesting that is not already available is the dating and marriage meters which is not much different than school is or potty training is. I'm just suggesting combining features in such a way to make a cohesive experience that provides both the fear of loss and the feeling of accomplishment. However the way I suggest it would no longer be a kids game.