Apr 22, 2015

Virtual pets and why you should check them out

First there was the tamagochi, then there were all kinds of virtual pet sites popping up online.

My first experience with one such site was back in 2003-04, i believe.

There was this site called Neopets that offered you all kinds of virtual pets and then you could play games to collect points, and then you could use those points to buy stuff like food and accessories for your pet. The whole idea was to upgrade it to a level where you could complete vs other players in the pets arena. The really interesting part was how every pet had a story and there was an underlying lore of the pets that just tickled your fancy and you wanted to know more. Each pet came with its own sets of powers, like the pokemon, but this was on a much larger level.

I remember playing on that website for long long hours, cuz even though the concept seems cartoonish, some of the games on there were hard as hell and really required concentration and rapid twitch trigger fingers to really get through the levels.

As time passed, life got busy and I forgot about neopets, and last i remembered that site was when i tried to log in and realized that the email i had signed up with had expired. Yup, it's that long ago.

But why am i talking about all this?

I am talking about all this because one my buddies online runs a forum about virtual pets, virtual pet games, and SIM games. Basically, instead of hunting for your next fix of a virtual pet or a sim game,  you go to the forum, check out the directory that has 67 virtual pet sites listed there or if you're in mood to create some SIMs and play a cruel god to their lives, there are 72 SIM games featured on the website. Looking for role playing games? They've got those too.

Moreover, there are users with their own virtual pets blog on the website and it's great to read how involved some people are with their hobby of raising their own virtual pet.

The forum is pretty active too as there are daily posts and people are discussing the games in ample detail. Heck, i am going to make an account and hang out there for a bit myself, maybe I can find some way to re-scratch that old neopets itch again.

Check out www.virtualpetlist.com here

Next post, I'm going to talk some about my book.