Penguin-keeper's Zoo

After getting back into the hobby via the 20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini, I have a small collection of virtual pets right now;



They are;

Tamagotchi P1

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini

Tamagotchi Connexion V2

Tamagotchi Connexion V4

Dinkie Penguin

Cyber Pet 168-in-1

The P1 is not my original from back in the day - it's just one that I picked up on eBay recently, because my original is unfortunately missing (the V2 and V4 were eBay buys, too, because I couldn't find my original V4, either). I'm sure that I kept it, along with all of my other virtual pets from back then (including a Nano Puppy, and a watch which I think was named My Virtual Pet Puppy in the UK, which was sometimes known in North America as "Poochie Puppy"), though, and I hope to find them all again at some point. If I do, I'll add them to this log. I also have a Chuppi (a Gyaoppi chicken virtual pet) on the way from Japan, which will also be added to this log when it arrives.

I decided that I may as well start logging, though updates might not always be super-frequent, and there might not be many photographs.

Right now, I'm running the Dinkie Penguin, the Cyber Pet 168-in-1, and the 20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini. So, I'll get started with a look at their current progress;

Dinkie Penguin: After completing a run of the fish/pizza growth-path, immediately followed by one of the apple growth-path, today I've hatched another penguin and will be taking the watermelon/ice cream/noodles growth-path. He's still just a hatchling right now, though. Today, he's been fed several times, and has taken a shower when he got his feathers dirty. I must be honest, though I find this feature cute when Dinkie Penguin gets older, I find it a little weird when he's just hatched, since penguin hatchlings are covered in non-waterproof down, and getting wet isn't a great thing for them. I know that this is because the Dinkie Penguin shares the same program and features as the Dinkie Dino, but I still find it a little odd nonetheless. In the end, I'm just happy to have a penguin virtual pet, though! (I only wish that I could find more.)

Cyber Pet 168-in-1: This virtual pet, which cost me just £3.25, is less of a virtual pet simulation, and more of a simulation of a virtual pet. I've been running it since December 23rd 2017, and the virtual pet promptly forgot the time shortly after I started it up. It puts itself into an automatic sleep-mode every now and then in order to save on battery-power, during which time it does nothing. When I bring it out of this state (by pressing the cancel button), all it does is poop. A lot. It's currently home to a penguin named Bob (as chosen from the tiny list of names that the unit presents you with after you've chosen a pet), who is quite a boring creature. He spends his days sliding around the screen, completely unanimated, and transforming into a rotund chicken when he's expressing happiness or sadness, or changing into a Babytchi when he's pooped. He stopped aging a long time ago - he's still 4, and probably always will be. I've been raising his weight to the maximum to see if it'll actually cause anything to happen, but it didn't, and he still keeps eating afterwards, with no further effect on his weight.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: After giving it a break for a month or so in order to focus more on Dinkie Penguin, I hatched a little guy on this virtual pet just after hatching another penguin on Dinkie Penguin again. He's currently a Marutchi, and isn't currently doing much. I'm going to try to get a Mametchi last time, after having gotten Nyorotchi and Kuchipatchi on my previous runs.

As you can probably guess from the above, it's my preference to only run one or two virtual pets at a time (this is the opposite of what I did when I was younger, when I would run a lot of them at once), with one of them being a regular type of virtual pet, and the other (or, right now, others) being an undemanding type.

my 168 in one is very delicate, unlike yours, and the screen will go blank if I set it down too hard. im thinking about cutting the reset button to avid accidental euthanization of my pet tank, frank, he's super dank. nah his name is bob too. the games are fun, and there is no result for how to get the key and unlock the chest. my tank is a defiant little shunt and doesn't ever wanna play games so hes just full and doesn't lose weight. I am unsure whether the pac man button does anything for the pet itself.

koolaidman said:

my 168 in one is very delicate, unlike yours, and the screen will go blank if I set it down too hard. im thinking about cutting the reset button to avid accidental euthanization of my pet tank, frank, he's super dank. nah his name is bob too. the games are fun, and there is no result for how to get the key and unlock the chest. my tank is a defiant little shunt and doesn't ever wanna play games so hes just full and doesn't lose weight. I am unsure whether the pac man button does anything for the pet itself.

Click to expand...

I think that the "Pac-Man button" (I love that name ) is meant to mimic the Study option on the Dinkie pets, since it shows that little animation with what looks like a teacher and a blackboard. Unlike on the Dinkie pets, which use it to affect your pet's intelligence, it doesn't seem to do anything here, though, you're right.

The icon looks like it does on the 168-in-1 because it directly lifts the Discipline icon from the Tamagotchi line - it looks like someone yelling because you would normally use that to teach your pet when it's being bad (sometimes they'll beep without needing anything, and later Tamagotchi models also use this option to allow you to praise them when they've started to feel sad for no reason).

Bob the penguin never loses weight either, incidentally. Early on, he seemed to occasionally lose weight when pooping, but chances are that that was some sort of glitch, knowing this particular pet!

Cutting the reset-button doesn't sound like a bad idea, and I'm going to do that with my own one at some point. However, I've seen it suggested by another user here (it was Knighttchi's Ballad, here) that the issue with many of these 168-in-1 pets resetting themselves when being set down could be due to the battery-door not fitting tightly enough. If it happens again (at the expense of poor Frank/Bob ), it may be worth sticking a small, thin piece of craft-foam, or some folded paper, in there to see if it helps.

Last of all, I wonder whether it's really even possible to unlock the chest? The option to input codes doesn't seem to do anything at all, no matter what you do!

also do you have instagram, we could keep in contact maybe. im spyro_tek and I cant be on as of late due to my device ceasing to work. im using school computer at the immediate time

also do you have instagram, we could keep in contact maybe. im spyro_tek and I cant be on as of late due to my device ceasing to work. im using school computer at the immediate time

also do you have instagram, we could keep in contact maybe. im spyro_tek and I cant be on as of late due to my device ceasing to work. im using school computer at the immediate time

also do you have instagram, we could keep in contact maybe. im spyro_tek and I cant be on as of late due to my device ceasing to work. im using school computer at the immediate time

koolaidman said:

also do you have instagram, we could keep in contact maybe.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid that I don't use anything like that - sorry. I'm only here.

By the way, I saw you mention in another thread that you're new here and want to pick up a legitimate virtual pet after being stung by the 168-in-1 in the counterfeit Tamagotchi Connection shell (I didn't realise that when you replied to my review of it). You should post a hello in the Introductions section - I'm sure that people here, of all places, will welcome you and maybe be able to give some tips about buying virtual pets online whilst avoiding the problem ones!

It's time for a quick update!

Dinkie Penguin: Today, Dinkie has grown into his second form. This is the same regardless of the growth-path that you're going for, so I'll wait until he changes again before I post a picture of how he's doing. I learned today that he can eat ice cream endlessly, and it doesn't fill any of his Hunger-meter! Watermelon and noodles do fill it, however.

Cyber Pet 168-in-1: It's time to introduce everyone to what Bob the penguin spends most of his time doing!



That being, transforming into a Babytchi, and shouting about how he's pooped.

I've now also cut the top of the reset-button off, so that there's no chance of it accidentally being pressed.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: This little guy is still a Marutchi. All he's doing right now is jumping around the screen cheerfully. I think that that's a nice way to be.

There's not much going on with my running trio right now, with the exception of Dinkie Penguin, where something weird has happened.

Dinkie Penguin: I was following a growth-chart that I found here for my previous Dinkie Penguin runs;



Today, Dinkie Penguin has changed into exactly the same form that I got from feeding him only apples - the "perfect" form at the bottom of the chart, which supposedly only comes from feeding him watermelon, ice cream, and noodles. According to the chart, I shouldn't have been able to get that from the apples - I should've gotten the form at the top during that run.

I'm now wondering if there's an error on the chart. Since I want to do at least one run with all of the different growth-paths, that means that I'll be doing another run of the Dinkie Penguin once this one's over. I guess I need to focus on the noodles next time!

Cyber Pet 168-in-1: There's nothing to report with Bob the penguin, today! I do think that it's a nice touch that these 168-in-1 virtual pets have different sounds for when your creature is eating, though; These pets have bread or cake as their food options, and it makes a low-pitched beep for each bite of the bread, and a higher-pitched one for each bite of the cake.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: This little guy is still a Marutchi. He's still hopping around the screen cheerfully. It'd be boring to log one of these on its own, I think.

Here are today's happenings with my virtual pets.

Dinkie Penguin: After much consideration, I decided to reset my Dinkie Penguin so that I can re-attempt going for the banded-penguin growth-path, so now he's back at the hatchling stage. There might end up being some trial-and-error until I can get this one right. I realised that the only food that I haven't fed him exclusively is pizza, so I'm focussing on that this time.

Cyber Pet 168-in-1: I accidentally left Bob the penguin with a poop on his screen overnight. Nothing happened.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Today, my 20th Anniversary Mini evolved into Mametchi! Mametchi was the first ever Tamagotchi that I raised back in 1997, which I found to be pretty easy to do, and I got one the last time I ran my pink P1, too. It's nice to see one yet again! I feel that Mametchi's animations on the 20th Anniversary Mini are a bit strange, though - half the time, it looks like he desperately needs to find a bathroom!

Dinkie Penguin: I've now gotten Dinkie Penguin to his second transformation again. I'm exclusively feeding him pizza now - tomorrow or the next day should reveal whether this is the correct course of action to get the banded-penguin growth-path.

Cyber Pet 168-in-1: Late last night, I played around with the transformation mechanic that koolaidman informed me about in the thread for my review of this virtual pet. I discovered that all three of the items in the shop, which you use from a Yin-Yang symbol found in what would be the Connect menu on a Tamagotchi Connexion unit, do exactly the same thing - they all transform your pet into a random other creature (all taken from from the list that you choose from when you first start up the machine). These were what I got;


A butterfly.


A shrimp.


A beaver.


Whatever this is.

There seems to be no way to turn your pet back into what it was before, after they've been transformed like this.

I also noticed that, by using the Computer option, which seems to mimic the jobs on the Tamagotchi Connexion V4, you will always get Gold (it's the quickest way to farm it) and will sometimes receive letters (these will explode upon opening, and will either give you 88 Gold, or cause your pet to poop). Your pet seems to randomly age as a result of one or both of these processes. Bob the penguin-butterfly-shrimp-beaver-block aged from 4 to about 17 or so throughout my experimentation with this feature. This was also probably how he aged to 4 in the first place, as I did play with these two features briefly on the first day that I got this virtual pet.

There doesn't seem to be a lot else left for me to discover about the 168-in-1 pet, right now - the only thing left is to try to input a working three-digit code in order to open a treasure chest, but I really don't feel very inclined to do so, as I don't expect that the reward would be worthwhile anyway. I've had my fun with it now, and I've gotten way more than my £3.25's worth, so after this, I took the batteries out and put them in my pink-and-green Tamagotchi P1.

Goodbye, Bob.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: Now that I have a Mametchi on the Mini, I've decided to try to get Bill on this one, too, because I've never gotten him before on any Tamagotchi iteration.

Tamagotchi P1: I hatched this guy late last night, and he's currently a Marutchi.



I'm going to try to get Maskutchi, and then Bill, on here this time - I've never gotten either of them before.

Dinkie Penguin: Dinkie Penguin has been reset again while I continue my trial-and-error to get the growth-path that I want. Pizza gets the same result as fish. I'm now focussing on noodles alone.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: I accidentally let Mametchi fall asleep with a poop next to him last night! Oops! I hope that that doesn't affect my chances of getting Bill!

Tamagotchi P1: He's still a Marutchi. That's not going to change for a while. I like the fact that, never having tried to get Maskutchi before, I literally have no idea what I'm doing here - it might not even turn out as I expect, and I can't wait to see what happens!

There's nothing to report today with Dinkie Penguin, the 20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini, or the Tamagotchi P1. However, I did take delivery of Chuppi, today, so it's time to introduce the newcomer!



Chuppi: This is a Gyaoppi chicken virtual pet, and the first chicken virtual pet I've ever owned. I hatched him a couple of hours ago, then fed him and tried out the two games. I prefer the traditional left/right game, because I found the card guessing-game to be a bit boring.

He isn't a very loud virtual pet, so I guess I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on him than on the others.

I put him to bed when the time was right. As far as I could tell, he wasn't going to do so on his own, which seemed to be in line with what I've read about some Gyaoppi virtual pets. I need to look up some Gyaoppi instructions in order to make sure that I'm getting it right, though.



As an aside, I absolutely love the night-time scene that's displayed when you turn the lights off.

Actually, I love the graphics from most virtual pets from that era, particularly those originally intended for the Japanese market, as they all tend to share an aesthetic, charm, and creatures that wouldn't have been out-of-place in a Nintendo Game Boy game. Indeed, many of the techniques used for graphics on these virtual pets are pretty similar to graphics in Game Boy games, since in both cases the designers had to get the maximum amount of detail (including implied detail) and expression out of a minimal amount of pixels, with no colour available. It led to designs that were nice, clear, and pretty universally-understandable, and I feel like that's not something that you often see in virtual pets today.

That Chuppi looks kinda cool! What are the evolution paths like? I never really branched out much from Digimon. I had a Rancor Gigapet and helped raise my classmates' T-rex and baby Giga pets, and I remember someone having one of those Roku Roku Dino Kun things, but I didn't realize there was more out there besides the knockoff Tamas! Keep posting the obscure stuff!

Hoky said:

That Chuppi looks kinda cool! What are the evolution paths like? I never really branched out much from Digimon. I had a Rancor Gigapet and helped raise my classmates' T-rex and baby Giga pets, and I remember someone having one of those Roku Roku Dino Kun things, but I didn't realize there was more out there besides the knockoff Tamas! Keep posting the obscure stuff!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, and thankyou so much for reading!

The less well-known virtual pets are where a lot of my interest seems to end up*, so I will indeed keep posting about them! I'm really hoping that my old ones from back in the day are still around here somewhere and that I can find them at some point, as I'd love to add them to this log, too. I've still got two more on the way right now, too - a Penguin Watch, and a Shuku 20 Shunen Tamagotchi P2 (I've posted about those in another thread, including pictures).

*This is probably because part of the appeal of virtual pets for me is that they allow you to raise creatures that you otherwise couldn't for whatever reason - be that because they're fantasy creatures like the pets of the Tamagotchi and Digimon lines, wild animals, or even extinct, or because certain animals would simply be impractical to keep. For this reason, I also don't tend to favour the ones featuring human characters, such as the Nano Baby (the Nano Pals line was Playmates Toys' answer to the Tamagotchi; They're sometimes referred to as Nano Pets, but the original packaging said Nano Pals), Nano Fighters (Playmates Toys' answer to Digimon), and so on.

The growth-paths for the Chuppi are the same as the Gyaoppi chicken - its growth-chart can be viewed here. It's the one at the bottom-left of the page, labelled as being for the Chickenoch, Chick Pet, ChickDuck, GAAA Hippie, and Pi-Yo Bird (all of these being chicken virtual pets that use the Gyaoppi programming). This particular pet was sold in many different shells, and under many different names, as you can see. Japan You Want even has one right now, called "Pet Egg Chicken" - the packaging shows the forms of it, which gives away what it is, because they match the growth-chart.

Apparently some Gyaoppi pets (or maybe all of them, but I don't know for sure) can regress to a previous form if you don't take proper care of them - I think this is one of them, which might prove to be interesting at some point down the line.

Dinkie Penguin (or Yuki Pengin, in Japan) is basically a penguin version of Dinkie Dino - or, in Japan, RakuRaku DinoKun. So you actually already know this virtual pet, along with the Dinkie Alien/Space Creature/Tako Seijin, because they all share the same programming. There aren't many virtual pets whose growth is based on what you feed them, as far as I know - I think it's only the Dinkie line and the Hitorikko line.

Incidentally, the site that displays the Gyaoppi chicken growth-chart is called Tamenagerie. If you don't already know it, it's an incredible resource for virtual pets of all kinds. There's a wealth of information there, not just about the pets themselves, but also about common families of them, and about cases where the same pet was sold in many different formats and casings. And even with as many as are covered there, there are still many more that aren't! If you want to learn about virtual pets outside of Bandai's line-up, that should be your first stop.

Dinkie Penguin: Nothing to report, here. Soon I'll find out whether or not feeding him only noodles leads to the banded-penguin growth-path. If not, I'll try again. Once I figure it out, I may not be able to do a complete run, though - the batteries are starting to weaken, and I'm now running four virtual pets at once, which is a bit too many.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: I accidentally wound up with another care-mistake, here - I didn't turn the lights off in time after Mametchi fell asleep last night. I've now accrued two mistakes, and I'm starting to think that I won't get Bill at the end of this, now.

Tamagotchi P1: He's still a Marutchi right now.

Chuppi: I want to start off by saying that other Gyaoppi chicken virtual pets should not be judged by the standards of Chuppi. From my pre-purchase research, I went in knowing that Chuppi is unique among them because it has weird programming, and is therefore quite a

//www.tamatalk.com/IB/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png virtual pet. So, please don't take these log-entries about Chuppi as being reflective of all Gyaoppi chickens, or even other Gyaoppi pets in general - they aren't. Chuppi is not like the others.

Anyway, Chuppi's sleeping behaviour is strange. He doesn't fall asleep on his own, and you can turn out the lights, and then turn them back on again only to find that he was still dancing around in the dark the entire time. This lack of clarity about how and when he sleeps gives the false impression that you can put him to bed whenever you need to, and it fooled me into thinking that turning the lights off could be used like a virtual pause function.
I was busy today, and didn't notice that he had woken up and turned the lights back on on his own. Also, because the beeping on my particular Chuppi unit is pretty quiet, I didn't notice his calls. When I did eventually have the time to check on him, he had three poops in the status-bar at the bottom of the screen (they don't appear on-screen next to him, on this virtual pet), along with two sickness icons. I cleared up the poops - which has to be done one at a time, and you have to watch a really long and beepy animation of a dumptruck clearing it away every time - and then tended to his sickness, before checking on his stats.

To my surprise, in spite of the day of accidental neglect, he wasn't especially hungry or unhappy, and it was easy to top up the meters again. Unfortunately, this did involve a bit too much game-playing, because you can't feed Chuppi snacks to fill bars on his Happy Meter.

Since I tend to pause my other virtual pets when I'm busy (by putting the clock into set-mode on the Tamagotchis, and by putting Dinkie Penguin into clock-mode after he falls asleep at night, which is a trick that I learned here on TamaTalk before I signed up), I'm going to have to start using the old-fashioned clock-set "pause" trick on Chuppi, too, in order to avoid any more incidents like today's.

Dinkie Penguin: Confirmed: The banded-penguin growth-path comes from feeding the penguin nothing but noodles - not apples, as was suggested by the growth-chart that I found online.



I think that this form is very cute. Though I couldn't get a picture of it, when he's happy, he looks really happy, much more so than the other forms, and it's absolutely adorable.

Now that this has been confirmed, I've created a corrected version of the Dinkie Penguin/Yuki Pengin growth-chart that seems to be the only one floating around online;



Hopefully this'll be helpful to someone out there!

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: I'm definitely not getting Bill. I accidentally missed a poop before Mametchi went to sleep again.

Tamagotchi P1: Nothing to report yet, but I'm pretty sure that he's going to evolve sometime soon!

Chuppi: Chuppi is not aging normally - which I know happens to be normal for a Chuppi. He's still 0, even though he should be 2 by now.

He certainly is a very cheery little bird when I win at the games, though, which is nice, but it doesn't help his aging problem.

Dinkie Penguin: Dinkie Penguin's batteries are continuing to weaken. There's probably not much chance of me being able to complete this run, I suspect. Regardless of the outcome, I'll be taking Dinkie Penguin out of the rotation for a little while after this - I'm running too many virtual pets, and I still have some new ones on the way, which I want to add to the rotation once they arrive.

20th Anniversary Tamagotchi Mini: I missed another cleanup before Mametchi fell sleep last night. Again. I never notice poops easily on this one when my virtual pets are sitting on my desk, presumably because the screen is so much smaller and, on my unit at least, so much darker, than all of the other virtual pets that I've ever encountered.

Tamagotchi P1: Still no change.

Chuppi: Chuppi randomly evolved and aged to 1 late last night, even though he should've been 2 by then.


Here's how he's looking right now.

This virtual pet is very weird... Sometimes he even beeps on his own without needing anything, and it's not the sort of unnecessary beeping that requires discipline, either - it just happens.

Other than that, there's not a lot to report - Chuppi doesn't seem to be especially demanding, as long as you make sure to top up all of his meters every now and then, and give him plenty of water at the same time.

There's very little to report with any of my virtual pets, right now, but here's a small update about a couple of them, nonetheless!

Dinkie Penguin: At age 6, Dinkie Penguin's batteries are still holding out! I'm trying not to let myself hope that I'll actually be able to finish this run, though.

Chuppi: Chuppi is still weird, unsurprisingly. He's several days old now, but his age is still showing as "1". He's still not especially demanding, and keeping his meters topped up still seems to be pretty easy to do.