Tamagotchi!

It’s such a strange word, and yet it rolls off the tongue like sweet wine, or dark beer if that’s your foray. Most of us know exactly what the word means. Some of you less fortunate folks, however, have never had the pleasure of playing with a Tamagotchi.

Right away, the name brings forth nostalgic memories of feeding, entertaining, and often mourning a pixelated pet.

If you have never heard of a Tamagotchi, it is a children’s toy that became so much more than a device when it was activated. A Tamagotchi was a living, breathing virtual pet that you had to take care of and protect. Your many duties included playing with the pet, feeding the pet, cleaning it, and training it. Over time, the Tamagotchi would evolve through different stages just like a Pokemon.

The ultimate goal was to raise the Tamagotchi successfully to an adult stage and then keep it alive for as long as possible.

The classic Tamagotchis are long gone by now, but thanks to the widespread use of mobile devices like tablets and smartphones plenty of clones have hit the market!

Some of the better Tamagotchi clones include MyClassicPet, Pet Tamagotchi, and Furdiburb. We’ve come across one in particular that we thoroughly adore, it’s called Hatchi! It brings us right back to the days of the first Tamagotchi pets, with a few new features added in for good measure! Hatchi also includes a widget so you can show off your virtual pet right on one of your Android home screens!

Of course, Hatchi is also available for iOS without the nifty widget, obviously because iOS does not support widgets.

Hatchi, The Retro Virtual Pet For Mobile

When you first start up Hatchi, you are greeted with an egg, but before you can hatch it, you have to name your new pet. Then, after you’ve named your new digital companion, you must hatch the egg by tapping on the screen. Lo’ and behold you then meet your new friend, a large oval, blob constantly bouncing around with eyes and a mouth! It’s cute, in a strange pixelated kind of way.

Actually, if you remember the first Tamagotchis, the baby Hatchi looks remarkably similar.

Across the top of the screen, are a series of essential meters, which show your Hatchis current stats. This is what you need to pay attention to during your time with your new companion. The meters will tell you when your Hatchi is hungry, tired or bored.

Hatchi Controls & Interactions

Across the bottom of the screen, are your controls. Everything is fairly straightforward in Hatchi, and keeping your pet content is not a difficult task. That is what drives the app and makes it so incredible, the sheer simplicity of it.

From left to right, the controls include feeding options, bathing, interactions, put to sleep/wake up, medicate, Store and information. Each button has its own sub-menu with additional interactions you can do.

• Feed: This button opens to exhibit different types of food you can give to your pet. Some of the food items include a burger, piece of cake, ice cream cone, and drumstick.
• Clean: This control has no sub-menu, when you press the button it washes the world. This is used when your pet needs a bath, and when it has gone to the bathroom.
• Interactions:This control opens a sub-menu with various options that allow you to interact with the Hatchi. Through this menu, you can play ball with your pet, train your pet (increasing smarts), or play games with your pet.
  • Games: There are four different mini games you can play, all accessed through the interactions menu. You earn coins for participating, which you can use to purchase items through the in-game store.
    • Hatchi Squares: Tic-Tac-Toe
    • Roshambo: Rock, Paper, Scissors only with Hatchis
    • Hatchi Catchi: Catch as much food as possible before the time runs out
    • Whack-A-Hatchi: Like Whack-A-Mole, with Hatchis
• Sleep/Wake-up: This obviously puts your Hatchi to sleep when it is tired and wakes it up, as well.
• Medicate: When your Hatchi is sick, this button will deliver the necessary medication.
• Store:This tab has several options that involve items and provisions.
  • Consumable Items: You can purchase items to use with your Hatchi, from all the coins you’ve collected while playing games.
  • Inventory: With this you can see your inventory and use items within it.
  • Adoption Agency: You can adopt an already evolved Hatchi. New Hatchis arrive every 12 hours.
  • Coin Store: You can buy more coins with real money, or you can make some by promoting the app on your social media profiles.
• Information:This tab has different menus where you can get information about your Hatchi and more.
  • Visit the Hatchi Forest Sanctuary (Released Hatchis) and the Hatchi Graveyard (dead Hatchis)
  • Individual Hatchi Statistics
  • Log-into your Scoreloop account, or register for it (integrated social app, like Openfeint)
  • Post updates to Facebook
  • Post updates to Twitter
  • Hatchi help
  • Settings

As you can see, even for a simple app, there is quite a bit that you can do with your Hatchi.

Eventually, your Hatchi will evolve depending upon how you raise it. There are approximately fourteen different growth stages, all of which are directly affected by how you raise your pet. Allishinca, at Deviantart, created a stunning evolution table that you can use for reference when raising your pet.

Hatchi is Available Now

If you have an Android device, you can pick up Hatchi in the Google Play market for $0.99. If you have an iPhone, or an iPad, you can pick up Hatchi via iTunes for $0.99, as well.

Either way, you are getting an excellent Tamagotchi clone for your mobile device, that is actually much better than the original pet. No, seriously, it is way better thanks to the improvements. Even better, there are more features yet to come in future updates. The developers will be adding more to the app over time, which means that the price may increase, so get it now for the low price while you still can!

Now we sound like car salesmen. Really, we’re only trying to help you savor the epic awesomeness that is Hatchi. Who cares if that’s not a word, we just used it.

Have you tried out Hatchi? Do you already own it? Have you raised your Hatchi to an adult? Let us know what you think in the comments below!