In 1997 I begged my parents to buy me a tamagotchi until they caved. I got one..though I don't believe it to be a Bandai product. I was hoping that someone might be able to help me identify exactly what it was.
It was bought for $30 as a specialty electronics store (none of this $5 - $10 homebrand stuff) and basically looked liked the regular white egg shell with yellow buttons. The jagged trim around the screen was printed on and was red. The background was a some random design of pink, blue and yellow.
I can't remember much about the packaging that it came in but it didn't tell you what characters you were likely to get or how many options there were or anything like that.
It seemed to be based on pre-existing species. Before it broke, I got a stegasaurus, T-rex, rhino and snake. It evolved based on what it was going to be when it finally became an adult (rather than the random characters of development that you see in Bandai tamas).
The tama had the following components (not necessarily in the right order):
1. Stats - Your tamas age, weight, happiness and hunger. (You couldn't name it).
2. Food - If I remember rightly you could feed it either fruit (strawberry), meat or bottled water and it would eat until it refused to eat anymore.
3. Game - The games was such that you had to guess if he/she was going to finish looking right or left. If you got it wrong the first time then you would lose the game overall. If you got it righ the first time then you would win. I think it was best of five. Playing games did not affect your tamas weight.
4. Medicine - The icon looked like a needle and you always had to jab them twice.
5. Weather - When it snowed you could give a scarf, when the sun came out it got a hat and when it rained you could give an umbrella.
6. Toilet - Unlike Bandai tamas where a wave washes across the screen, this tama would be characterised by an actual broom sweeping across the screen.
7. Discipline - As a baby and toddler the character would cry and as a teen and older it would get stormy... this is when it would get a smack.
8. Light - To be turned off when your tama went to bed.
Other details that I remember:
* There was no set bed or waking up time. It was completely random and never exactly on the hour.
* The baby form would sleep on the screen. The toddler would sleep in a little bath tub and the adult would sleep in a bed.
* When your character died (they would last around 13 days), you would see an angel with wings and a halo on the screen.
* As an adult, you could leave the tama at home for 8 or 9 hours while at home and it would have done four poos (one on top of each other on the screen) and be sick three times and still survive without shortening of life span.
* The sun that used to appear for weather and when the tama was happy was a little more detailed than the one we have now. It had four straight lines emitted at diagonals and then four smaller dots in between each of those lines.
* As far as I remember a baby was a baby until the next day when it would evolve into a toddler.
If I remember anything else I will throw it in later.
This would still have to my favourite tamagotchi of all time and was quite well sofisticated for its time. When the buttons broke I went to buy another but they didn't stock them anymore. I kept it for a long time.. should have held on to it a bit longer. Oh well.
Over to you guys... an ideas??
It was bought for $30 as a specialty electronics store (none of this $5 - $10 homebrand stuff) and basically looked liked the regular white egg shell with yellow buttons. The jagged trim around the screen was printed on and was red. The background was a some random design of pink, blue and yellow.
I can't remember much about the packaging that it came in but it didn't tell you what characters you were likely to get or how many options there were or anything like that.
It seemed to be based on pre-existing species. Before it broke, I got a stegasaurus, T-rex, rhino and snake. It evolved based on what it was going to be when it finally became an adult (rather than the random characters of development that you see in Bandai tamas).
The tama had the following components (not necessarily in the right order):
1. Stats - Your tamas age, weight, happiness and hunger. (You couldn't name it).
2. Food - If I remember rightly you could feed it either fruit (strawberry), meat or bottled water and it would eat until it refused to eat anymore.
3. Game - The games was such that you had to guess if he/she was going to finish looking right or left. If you got it wrong the first time then you would lose the game overall. If you got it righ the first time then you would win. I think it was best of five. Playing games did not affect your tamas weight.
4. Medicine - The icon looked like a needle and you always had to jab them twice.
5. Weather - When it snowed you could give a scarf, when the sun came out it got a hat and when it rained you could give an umbrella.
6. Toilet - Unlike Bandai tamas where a wave washes across the screen, this tama would be characterised by an actual broom sweeping across the screen.
7. Discipline - As a baby and toddler the character would cry and as a teen and older it would get stormy... this is when it would get a smack.
8. Light - To be turned off when your tama went to bed.
Other details that I remember:
* There was no set bed or waking up time. It was completely random and never exactly on the hour.
* The baby form would sleep on the screen. The toddler would sleep in a little bath tub and the adult would sleep in a bed.
* When your character died (they would last around 13 days), you would see an angel with wings and a halo on the screen.
* As an adult, you could leave the tama at home for 8 or 9 hours while at home and it would have done four poos (one on top of each other on the screen) and be sick three times and still survive without shortening of life span.
* The sun that used to appear for weather and when the tama was happy was a little more detailed than the one we have now. It had four straight lines emitted at diagonals and then four smaller dots in between each of those lines.
* As far as I remember a baby was a baby until the next day when it would evolve into a toddler.
If I remember anything else I will throw it in later.
This would still have to my favourite tamagotchi of all time and was quite well sofisticated for its time. When the buttons broke I went to buy another but they didn't stock them anymore. I kept it for a long time.. should have held on to it a bit longer. Oh well. Over to you guys... an ideas??
