Penguin-keeper's Zoo

[Penguin-keeper]

Dinkie Penguin: Dinkie Penguin is still growing!

The banded-penguin form gets increasingly derpy-looking as it gets older. It's a cute derpy look, mind you, but it's derpy-looking nonetheless.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Mametchi is still alive and kicking. However, I know that I racked up too many care-mistakes before, so there's just no way that I'm going to get Bill, here.

Tamagotchi P1: Marutchi became sick shortly before bedtime. Given this, I presume that he will evolve soon.

Chuppi: Chuppi is still 1, all these days on!

I know that weird aging is normal for a Chuppi. However, I don't know whether the fact that I pause the clock when I'm busy is somehow making this worse.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

A new addition to my little electronic zoo has arrived with me today - Penguin Watch! (Also known as "Pocket Penguin".)

It has a glittery background-image, can stand up on its feet, and the casing has eyes that light up when the pet beeps for attention. When it hatches they both flash at the same time, but when it calls for attention the flashing alternates between each eye - in either case, it looks a bit freaky.

As a result of this virtual pet having lights included, the display goes into sleep-mode after a while when you leave the virtual pet idle, in order to conserve battery-life. I found this slightly disappointing, as I like my virtual pets to adhere to the "always-on" standard. However, if it needs something, the display will come back on when the eyes light up and the pet beeps, so it's not like the program itself is paused, as is the case with the automatic sleep-mode on the Cyber Pet 168-in-1 and its kin.

The buttons are ridiculously tough to push and are very unresponsive, which led me to take it apart in order to apply some extra carbon to the carbon-pads on the underside of the buttons, even though this particular unit is brand-new. It didn't help it - there's nothing actually wrong with it, it's just that the buttons are difficult-to-use. Their layout is also very odd - the first button is the Sound On/Off button (which has a very slightly lower profile than the rest), the second one is the Cancel button, the third one is the Confirm button, and the fourth one is the Select button.

Anyway, on with today's update!

Dinkie Penguin: Nothing to report, but I actually think that Dinkie Penguin's batteries really will last until the end of this run, amazingly enough.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Mametchi is still here, but I can't remember how old he is, at this point. I do wish that the Mini at least had a way to check the status - that would be useful.

Tamagotchi P1: This guy's still a Marutchi right now. I'm sure he'll change soon.

Chuppi: Chuppi's age finally advanced to 2 today, and he evolved into this scary, angry-looking thing!

Yikes!

Penguin Watch: This little guy is cute! Upon hatching, he looks very similar to Babytchi, but without a mouth and with his eyes lower-down his face. He bounces around the screen, and when he bumps into the sides, he squashes momentarily, before bouncing off of them again!

Amusingly, when you clean up poop (which he seems to do a lot of), the Shower icon floods the screen from bottom-to-top, rather than the water clearing out the screen from one side as the Tamagotchi line established, and as numerous other virtual pets also did as a result.

When you feed him, you get an absolutely adorable animation of the food (either a fish, or a sweet in a wrapper) being dropped into a penguin chick's mouth, as if its parent is feeding it;

As a penguin enthusiast, I absolutely love this.

As noted above, the buttons on this virtual pet are difficult-to-push and unresponsive, so it's a little bit frustrating to use. However, thankfully, its game doesn't require any precision - you just have to guess where a fish is going to fall, and you have to place the penguin chick's head in one of three positions using the Select button so that it can catch the fish with its beak, before pressing the Confirm button to cause the fish to fall and see whether or not you got it right.

Aside from the terrible buttons, my first impressions of this virtual pet are quite good - it's cute, and it's got lots of nice little touches to the animations that I've seen so far, too.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

I've only got updates about a couple of the gang, today;

Tamagotchi P1: A couple of hours before bedtime last night, Marutchi evolved into...

Tamatchi!

Hopefully I'm on-track to get Maskutchi, as I'm aiming for.

Penguin Watch: Well, this was unexpected... I was just about to take a photograph of the less-needy form that the hatchling evolved into a few hours after it hatched. However, when I woke the display up...

... I found that he'd randomly died, without any warning whatsoever. He'd been fine only half-an-hour before, when I'd last checked on him!

This is a bit frustrating, and it's negated my good first impressions of this virtual pet.

I've put the tab back in this one, for now, as it's obviously a very needy virtual pet that won't even tell you when something's wrong, and I don't want to run it alongside others that are better-designed.

I will give it another shot at some point, but I'll only run it on its own, so that I can give it more attention.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Chuppi: Chuppi turned 3 last night, in line with the strange aging that this virtual pet seems to have.

Also in line with Chuppi's strange programming, he randomly died at that point, which I gather is normal for this virtual pet.

He made no calls or warning-sounds whatsoever, and yet he had two sickness icons on-screen below the grave scene. Chuppi usually calls when he ages and evolves, so he must've died at the same time as he aged.

I'm now taking Chuppi out of the rotation. I might run him again at some point, but I suspect that the outcome will be the same, if the information that I've found about Chuppi is anything to go by.

This leaves me running my Dinkie Penguin, 20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini, and Tamagotchi P1, while I await the arrival of my Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2, yellow version 1 Digimon, and Penpy. Each of the currently-running virtual pets will leave the current rotation as those runs end, in order to make room for the newbies.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Today, I got an unexpected new addition to the zoo!

This is a Virtual PETs, by Funtime Gifts. These are multi-pets that were first released a few years back, and exist in both 32-in-1 and 49-in-1 versions, which look identical, barring the number listed on the packaging. This is the 32-in-1 version.

In response to the success of the 20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini, and even the cheap Cyber Pet 168-in-1 virtual pets, in the UK in recent times, Virtual PETs are now being carried by Hawkin's Bazaar, a UK gift-shop chain, both in-store, and on their website here. The website states that they're selling the 49-in-1 version, but what's being carried in-store is the 32-in-1 kind.

As you might've guessed already, this multi-pet includes a penguin, so naturally I couldn't resist it!

Dinkie Penguin: It's Dinkie Penguin's last day with me, today. Tomorrow will be day 11, and with a Dinkie pet, that's the day when you can no longer interact with them, and you see the final result of your efforts, before they pass on at the dawn of day 12.

I know that the fish/pizza growth-path has the penguin turn into some sort of devil on the final day, and that the apple/watermelon growth-path shows him as a big, strong, happy penguin, instead. I'm curious to see what happens at the end of the noodles growth-path, and tomorrow I'll know.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Mametchi's still alive and kicking! And I'm still finding the lack of being able to check the Tamagotchi's age to be a bit disappointing.

I suppose it's a good thing that I've been logging here, this time, because it means that I can still get a good idea of how long Mametchi's been around. My first log posting was on January 5th, and I know that I hatched this virtual pet the night before, so Mametchi is currently 19 days old.

Tamagotchi P1: Tamatchi beeped for no reason earlier, and because I'm going for Maskutchi, I had to deliberately ignore it!

Virtual PETs: The way that this virtual pet plays seems to be inspired by multiple virtual pets from the 1990s - primarily the Tamagotchi and the Dinkie pets (the icons are even at the sides, like a Dinkie pet). I don't know how it will turn out in the long-run, though, as, in the time since I've hatched this virtual pet, the clock has been gaining quite a lot of minutes! It's already four or five minutes ahead of real-time after less than an hour of play.

There are four buttons on the Virtual PETs - A is Confirm/Clock, B goes forward through the icons and menus, C goes backwards through the icons and menus, and D is Cancel.

This virtual pet has four different meters - hunger, health, happiness, and intelligence.

Bizarrely, you can keep choosing the medical icon - complete with an animation featuring an ambulance and siren sounds - when this pet is not sick, and this fills the health meter. That seems a bit weird.

It beeps when it poops.

There doesn't seem to be a game to play in order to raise the animal's happiness-level - instead, you select the icon for what you would expect to be a game (it's a ball), and it shows an animation of an arm doing some weightlifting, accompanied by some jaunty music. This lowers the hunger and happiness meters by a little bit, and causes the pet to lose a little bit of weight. Happiness seems to be raised by snacks alone, here - or maybe you can't play anything until your chosen animal is a little bit older. I don't know yet.

Naturally, I picked the penguin from the list that appeared upon starting the virtual pet up, and, after setting the time, I was presented with this little blob. There was no hatching animation (which I suppose isn't practical if you're trying to save on ROM space for a multi-pet), but from the looks of it we might get to see some growth take place, here, since the pet-selection screen showed a fully-grown penguin that looked nothing like this.

I'll finish up this entry with an updated photograph of my virtual pet collection;

As you can see, there have been plenty of new additions since I started logging! I've also replaced the ballchains on my Tamagotchi Connexion V2 and V4 (which were eBay buys that had them missing) with a couple of split-ring keyrings that I had handy.

This should give some idea of the size and scale of some of the lesser-known virtual pets in my collection, too.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Dinkie Penguin: Finally, the moment of truth is here! The final result of Dinkie Penguin's banded-penguin growth-path is...

... A big, strong, happy penguin!

Virtual PETs: Well, that was short-lived! With no way to pause this virtual pet, combined with a clock that advances at quite a speed, by the time I was able to attend to this one again the clock was several hours ahead of real-time, and it had already died;

It's certainly strange seeing a very Japanese-style ghost on a virtual pet made for the British market, I must say.

I really don't recommend that anyone picks up either revision of this virtual pet (32-in-1 or 49-in-1). Not only are they very difficult to take care of due to their useless timekeeping, but mine evolved and started calling for attention at midnight, and I couldn't possibly take care of it because it was asleep while it was calling! It's a real shame, as the second evolution, which looked like a small penguin, was very cute, and this virtual pet seems like it'd be a lot of fun if only there was some way around the bizarre clock problems that it has.

The other problem is that, with how the time advances, eventually it will be awake during the night, instead of during the day, so you'd have to barely ever sleep in order to see one of these through to adulthood!

I only recommend this one if you want a ridiculous challenge.

 

[Hoky]

I lol'd at Buff Penguin there. XD

 

[Penguin-keeper]

I lol'd at Buff Penguin there. XD

You can't see it there, but he's basically flexing for the entirety of the last day.

You can get an idea of how it looks from the growth-chart that I posted about on the first page here, since that shows both animation-frames.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Dinkie Penguin: The final day of the banded-penguin growth-path was yesterday, which means that, today, it's time to say goodbye.

Farewell, Dinkie Penguin.

The penguin's passing also means that Dinkie Penguin is out of the rotation as of now. I've been running this one non-stop since early December, so it's time for a change.

I highly recommend the Dinkie Pets to anyone who's after an easy-going virtual pet that presents a different experience to the norm - and with their food-based growth-paths, and features like showering and temperature-changes, as well as the petting function, they've got that in spades.

My only quibble is that the Dinkie growth-paths are a bit too limited, even by the standards of their time - the standard Dinkie pets only have three each, and the rarer 4-in-1 and 8-in-1 Dinkie multi-pets apparently cut these down to one per animal, according to what I've learned about them (I don't know how much of this, if any, applies to Smarty Time or Hana Hana Mi, though).

Regardless of this, they're great fun, though, and, as noted above, they're a pretty different experience to other virtual pets. I'd even go so far as to say that owning a Dinkie of some sort is essential if you collect and enjoy virtual pets by companies other than Bandai.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

I don't usually post two log entries in one day, but after posting about Dinkie Penguin's passing, above, I had a busy day and went on to make an uncharacteristic mistake with my virtual pets...

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: I was busy enough today that I forgot to pause both my Mini and my P1! When I eventually got to them, I thought that things were going to be much worse than they really were...

... But there sure were a lot of poops!

I was able to clean up after Mametchi, but...

Tamagotchi P1: ... Unfortunately, it was too late to clean up after Tamatchi, as he'd already fallen asleep!

I'll have to deal with this when he wakes up in the morning!

 

[Penguin-keeper]

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Earlier, I heard a Tamagotchi evolution noise. Thinking that it was Tamatchi evolving, I picked up my P1, only to find that it wasn't my P1 making the sound at all - it was my Mini!

Unbelievably, I got Bill, in spite of having racked up several care-mistakes after getting Mametchi!

This is my first time getting Bill on any device, though I do know how he looked on the original, and can see that he looks very indistinct, here.

Still, I got Bill!

Tamagotchi P1: About half-an-hour after Mametchi evolved into Bill on my Mini, my P1 made the evolution sound, too!

Tamatchi evolved into Tarakotchi!

I had been aiming for Maskutchi, but ended up with some care-mistakes, which doubtless influenced this outcome. I've never gotten Tarakotchi before, either, so it's all good!

I really like his personality - he's clearly got some attitude, and it shows in his animations and expressions.

He also kind of looks like a duck wearing a toupee.

It's a real shame that he'll only be with me for a few days. I really like him.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Tamagotchi P1: I must say, I've found myself instantly charmed by Tarakotchi. So much so that, in just one day, he's become my favourite Tamagotchi character, knocking Mametchi off of the top-spot that he's occupied for more than 20 years!

Tarakotchi maybe selfish and needy, and a bit ugly, but he's just got so much personality! His Hungry and Happy hearts sure do seem to empty quickly, though...

 

[Hoky]

I really like Tarokotchi, and those pics totally make me wish that I hadn't traded away my P1. Prolly time to get a 20th anniversary one....

 

[Penguin-keeper]

I really like Tarokotchi, and those pics totally make me wish that I hadn't traded away my P1. Prolly time to get a 20th anniversary one....

I really wish that I could find my original P1. It should still be somewhere around here, so hopefully I will at some point! The one I'm currently using is a beaten-up eBay purchase.

My Anniversary P2 should be arriving tomorrow, and my version 1 Digimon might be, too, so those'll shake the log up a little bit once they get here!

Good luck with the Anniversary P1 if you get one - it sounds from what psychotama has said about the Shuku 20 Shunen units that they shake things up in a good way.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Penguin-keeper's zoo now has a new exhibit: A Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2!

Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2: First off, I'd just like to say that it feels absolutely surreal to be holding a brand-new classic-style Tamagotchi that has 2017 copyright-markings on the back!

Secondly, I just want to say how great that is.

Here's a picture that I snapped just after pulling out the battery-tab.

And here's a picture of my Anniversary P2 with my 1990s P1 and 20th Anniversary Mini (of which I'm surprised that they haven't made a version with P2 characters and shells, come to think of it). By the time I took this, a wonky-eyed little Shirobabytchi had hatched, and joined Tarakotchi and Bill, as you can see.

Quality-wise, the Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchis are indistinguishable from the originals.

I did notice that the tune for the game, and the beeps used for that, seem to be quicker and a little bit higher-pitched than those of my P1, but having never owned a P2 back in the day, I don't know if that's something that the originals did, or something that's unique to this anniversary replica version. The alert-calls are the same as the P1 and the Mini.

I was quite amused when Shirobabytchi stopped in the middle of a game to poop! And the game didn't resume, either - I had to restart it manually. That's not something that I've ever seen from any Tamagotchi version before! It was a funny moment.

Anyway, these replicas are great, and it's great to see proper, newly-made replicas of the originals being offered for sale again. Hopefully these will make it outside of Japan, too, as I'm sure that they'd do well if the 20th Anniversary Mini's reception is anything to go by.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

My Super Gyaoppi 9 in 1 arrived today!

And that means that it's time for a penguin to be included in my log again!

Today's update is the biggest one that I've written up in a little while, now that this newcomer's joined the zoo!

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Bill is still around, and, honestly, I'm finding him a bit boring.

It probably doesn't help that the lower-resolution screen of the Mini means that Bill's sprites are very difficult to see, which also means that he's less expressive than I imagine he is on a P1. Bill did not survive the downscaling to the Mini anywhere near as well as Oyajitchi did.

The Mini has grown on me, of late, because, as I've seen others note, it's a really nice, low-maintenance Tamagotchi to run alongside other virtual pets. Indeed, I've found myself thinking that if they made a P2-based Mini, I would probably buy one. However, after this run is over, I'll be taking it out of the rotation for a little while, as I feel like I'm bordering on running too many virtual pets at the moment.

Tamagotchi P1: Tarakotchi is still Tarakotchi!

Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2: A little while after he hatched yesterday, Shirobabytchi evolved into everybody's favourite toothy onion, Tonmarutchi!

Today, Tonmarutchi woke up feeling unwell, so I had to give him a couple of shots so that he could recover.

He's also misbehaved a couple of times, today.

I was really surprised by just how incredibly needy the baby stage is on this one. I also really appreciate how pooping, misbehaviour, and getting sick feel nowhere near as scripted as they did on the originals. He's reasonable to look after, but he's keeping me on my toes because I don't know what to expect!

Super Gyaoppi 9 in 1: The hatching animation for the penguin on this multi-pet is adorable;

First, we see an egg with little legs sticking out of it moving from side to side. Then, after a few minutes, air-puff effects appear, showing that the creature inside is tired-out, but they haven't yet broken the eggshell.

After that...

... The penguin egg hatches into this odd little creature with one tooth!

According to my research on the Super Gyaoppi 9 in 1, each animal's hatching animation is unique, so it'll be fun to see how the others look, when I get to those.

Speaking of animations, the penguin's happy animation is really, really cute.

I really like this one so far - it feels well-made, the animations are cute, and it isn't too demanding.

If you'd like to learn more about the Super Gyaoppi 9 in 1, I highly recommend watching

//www.tamatalk.com/IB/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png YouTube video. It's a really nice virtual pet.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

I have my very first (and, admittedly, probably only) Digimon, now!

It's a yellow version 1 one. I never owned one back in the day, though I knew people who did, and it's really great to finally have one for my own collection.

These have one of my favourite virtual pet casings of all time - I've always really liked how the theme of the case went so well with the virtual pet inside, with the brick-wall and broken bars suggesting that a monster has been unleashed.

I never got into the later iterations that were based on the anime series, though, and outside of the fact that they were usually cased in replicas of the TV show's Digivices, they didn't appeal to me. As much fun as the anime series was (and the dub was quite good, especially for its time, to be fair to it), I always found it a bit weird how it changed the original virtual pet's evolutionary-lines into individual characters, so I could never really reconcile them as being the same thing, or even especially related - it felt like the anime was very loosely based on the source-material, and then the source-material was changed to suit the anime, to me.

Anyway, on with the log!

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: It feels like Bill is overstaying his welcome, now. And, the more that I've thought about it, t's also a little frustrating that, in spite of how many care-mistakes I made with Mametchi, I still got Bill - it feels like I shouldn't have been able to, because at the end of the day, I didn't get things right. It feels a bit like the Mini is sometimes a bit too forgiving... Though I suppose that's a part of its charm, really.

Tamagotchi P1: Yesterday evening, a couple of hours or so after I'd written up my log-entry here, Tarakotchi passed on.

Unfortunately, the photo I took didn't turn out very well, but you can just about see him as an angel, here. Farewell, Tarakotchi.

The P1 is now out of the rotation for a while.

Super Gyaoppi 9 in 1: I just want to say how cute the penguin's lights-out animation is!

Obviously, a still photograph can't show the animation-frames, but the trees and the "Z" bob up and down.

Digimon: Hatching a Digimon isn't too different to hatching a Tamagotchi, unsurprisingly.

First we have an egg...

... And then out hatches Botamon!

He was really cute, I liked him.

Botamon was nowhere near as needy as Shirobabytchi on the Anniversary P2, I must say, though I did notice that the Digimon's calls go on for a lot longer than those of a vintage Tamagotchi (about twice as long, I would guess).

I really liked the game that I played with him, as well - it's basically just a high/low guessing-game in another form, where you have to try to aim your attack where your opponent isn't blocking. It's fun.

After a while, of course, he evolved into Koromon.

Here's a picture of him sleeping. How cute!

 

[Penguin-keeper]

DISASTER!

I picked up my Digimon to check on it, and it spontaneously reset itself!

I realised what the problem was likely to be, so I opened up the back, and, sure enough, the contacts were pretty flat. I really should've taken notice of that when I first put the batteries in - more fool me that I didn't!

I used a small flat-head screwdriver and bent them all up a bit, and it seems that everything is fine now. Needless to say, I've had to start over!

Remember, guys, make sure to closely inspect and fix the contacts on second-hand virtual pets before you get started, even if their condition is almost like brand-new, as was the case with this one.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: I'm really not sure how much more of Bill I can take! When is he going to go away?! The lifespans of Tamagotchis on the Mini are ridiculously long compared to the effort that you have to put in and the interactivity that's on offer.

Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2: After the fuss with my Digimon spontaneously resetting itself before, I forgot to mention that Tonmarutchi misbehaved, even though his Discipline bar is already completely full! How unusual.

Super Gyaoppi: The penguin hatchling evolved this morning!

And it evolved into something REALLY WEIRD!

This thing does have feet, much the same as those of the form before it, but since it bobs around the screen I wasn't able to catch them on camera - I was more focussed on showing that it now has two teeth!

When its mouth is shut, it has a weird beak-like structure in its place, so I assume that this bizarre creature is meant to resemble some sort of crested penguin. Some extra shading would've gone a long way towards making these early forms look more penguin-like.

Digimon: After the earlier disaster, things are back on track again.

I must say that I really like how Koromon gnaws at the outside edges of his enclosure - it serves to give him more of a monstrous personality than him simply bouncing around the screen would.

 

[Penguin-keeper]

Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2: Tonmarutchi evolved into Tongaritchi today!

So now my onion has lost his teeth and has grown stubby little legs instead!

Digimon: This morning, Koromon evolved into Agumon!

How cute is he?

Like Koromon, and I presume like all of the possible evolutions, Agumon also gnaws at the edges of his enclosure every so often.