Non-lifecycle life-simulation games

[Penguin-keeper]

I wasn't sure whether this ought to go here or in Virtual Pets - General, but in the end, since lifecycles aren't involved and the games that I'm going to talk about therefore technically aren't virtual pets, I opted for Stuff We Play (if any other Guides feel that it should be moved, please feel free to do so, though! ).

So, I was just wondering if anyone else here also plays life-simulation games featuring creatures or characters that don't age or die? What were/are your favourites?

I've been playing such titles since long before the Tamagotchi existed. I actually started out with virtual life titles with a 1985 Commodore 64 game called Little Computer People, which was amusingly sold as a "House-on-a-Tape" or a "House-on-a-Disk", with the premise being that you were taking part in a research project to observe small humanoids that had been found living inside of computers, and that the house would coax them out and get them to show themselves on your monitor. Though the LCP in the tape version was not unique, the LCPs in the floppy-disk version were - many different names and looks were available, keeping up the illusion of each one being unique. After the Little Computer Person ("LCP" for short) had moved into the house, you could provide food and water for him and his dog, and interact with him in various ways, such as by asking him to use his typewriter to write a letter to you, or even to play some games like anagrams or poker. This was one of the earliest iterations of the virtual pet/life-simulation formula as we know it today, if not the earliest. I got years' worth of fun out of it, and still fondly remember it today.

In 1995, and equally fondly-remembered by me, came the first Dogz (which was followed by Catz, and later Oddballz, which led to the series as a whole being named Petz) - a digital desktop pet which could be fed, watered, and played with, that was released for Microsoft Windows by a company called P.F. Magic. The marketing for Dogz featured the first usage of the term "virtual pet". Though there was no real aging process, for a certain amount of time the dog that you'd chosen at the start would get a little bit bigger every day, which was a cute little touch. This first version of Dogz was very resource-light, and I would almost always leave it running in one corner of my screen while I was getting work done - before letting my dog out of his window (termed by the game as his "Playpen"), so that he had full run of the desktop (at which point he might try to grab your mouse-pointer if he felt like it). Unfortunately, they lost me with Dogz II, which was a bit more resource-intensive, and Dogz III which introduced more in-depth mechanics that took the series away from its simple roots and was again less resource-friendly. These early entries in the Petz series are of no relation to the similarly-named titles that were released by Ubisoft around the mid-2000s after they acquired the franchise.

Following on from that, it's only logical that I thoroughly enjoyed the Nintendo DS game Nintendogs, and its 3DS sequel, Nintendogs + Cats, too! And looping right back around to Little Computer People, it almost goes without saying that I loved the utterly bizarre Tomodachi Life for the 3DS, as well (interestingly enough, Tomodachi Life realises a concept that the planned-but-never-made sequel to Little Computer People was originally going to revolve around - an apartment filled with interactive virtual people). I'm hoping that we'll see follow-ups to both of these on the Nintendo Switch someday.

What are your favourites in this genre, guys?

 

[Ginjirotchi_lover]

In 1995, and equally fondly-remembered by me, came the first Dogz (which was followed by Catz, and later Oddballz, which led to the series as a whole being named Petz) - a digital desktop pet which could be fed, watered, and played with, that was released for Microsoft Windows by a company called P.F. Magic. The marketing for Dogz featured the first usage of the term "virtual pet". Though there was no real aging process, for a certain amount of time the dog that you'd chosen at the start would get a little bit bigger every day, which was a cute little touch. This first version of Dogz was very resource-light, and I would almost always leave it running in one corner of my screen while I was getting work done - before letting my dog out of his window (termed by the game as his "Playpen"), so that he had full run of the desktop (at which point he might try to grab your mouse-pointer if he felt like it). Unfortunately, they lost me with Dogz II, which was a bit more resource-intensive, and Dogz III which introduced more in-depth mechanics that took the series away from its simple roots and was again less resource-friendly. These early entries in the Petz series are of no relation to the similarly-named titles that were released by Ubisoft around the mid-2000s after they acquired the franchise.

i LOVED petz, i used to be part of one of the communities that would breed or hex-edit and share petz

the only thing i didn't care for in the community was how severely people would gatekeep particular hex edits they'd make and regard it as akin to art theft rather than the more open communities of other games in regards to modding, i personally didn't care whether people took my code and used it to make their own thing as long as they were being creative with it and would give me a shout out or something but some people were REAL vicious about it and there was a lot of elitism i didn't particularly like

the game itself was a good experience though, unfortunately i lost a lot of my pet files while i was moving things around awhile back but i still have a copy of Petz 4 on here somewhere and i'm sure i have backups of quite a few of my older petz on my old computer somewhere so i'm not too worried (although if not i can always remake things)

here's a few guys i've made that i'm still fairly fond of

 

[leogames2012]

Animal Crossing?