EJMOM, to answer your questions:
1. How do you get your children to bond? My percentage level is always 0
You can get your children to bond by using bonding items, playing Shoe Match or Golf Putt (only on second gen or higher), connection games or giving training when needed.
2. How do you gain points (other than the two games and the initial 1000 pts from this thread)
Do you mean Gotchi Points? You can gain Gotchi Points from TamaEXPO (
tamatown.com). The other two games will give out Gotchi Points as well, but you must be on second generation or higher to unlock them.
3. When do the parents come?
When one of your Tamagotchi have mated, your Tamagotchi and its partner will evolve into their parental forms. These are the parents and their children are, well, the children.
4. So they don't die - they just hop on a spaceship and leave?
Yes, on the v5 at least. Actually, I've decided to believe that for all of the versions they "return to the Tamagotchi World to seek better care." On the v5's Japanese equivalent, the Famitama, a newer gravestone (what I mean is, newer than any other gravestones shown on Tamagotchi in the past) is shown for the end screen. For all the other Japanese Tamagotchi Plus, a gravestone and Obaketchi is shown.
5. How do you marry them? One at a time or all at once? No matchmaker? This is so weird!!
There is a matchmaker- the Dating Channel accessed from the Gotchi TV icon. The family members are eligible for mating about 2 days into the adulthood stage. You only choose one family member to mate.
Anyway, one thing I'm annoyed at is: The Japanese get detailed instruction booklets while we just get the simple sheets of paper that only explain the basics and are sometimes incorrect! This wasn't too bad for v1, because there wasn't much to explain, but I find the same questions over and over again for the v4, v4.5 and v5. Nothing wrong with people asking questions for the v5, but I'm talking about over and over again. I've seen at least five topics on bonding percentage and another five on how to pause!