{"id":3752,"date":"2024-03-01T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3752"},"modified":"2024-01-03T21:23:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T04:23:35","slug":"video-game-virtuacreature-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/01\/video-game-virtuacreature-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO GAME: VirtuaCreature (2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com\/steam\/apps\/1394240\/header.jpg?t=1703180057\" alt=\"VirtuaCreature\" width=\"460\" height=\"215\">VirtuaCreature<br>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2021<br>\nRating: E<br>\nTime Played: 41.3 hours<\/p>\n<p>Back in the \u201890s, the digital pet craze led by the <em>Tamagotchi<\/em> toys taught kids how to take care of a pixelated animal. These pets needed basic things like food, entertainment, and attention or their mood would deteriorate. They could even \u201cdie,\u201d which was a threat that kept kids playing with them regularly throughout the day. While this fad has since faded away, there are still remnants of these digital pets around today. One such example is the game <em>VirtuaCreature<\/em>\u2014a hybrid between <em>Tamagotchi<\/em> and <em>Pok\u00e9mon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The simple graphics of <em>VirtuaCreature<\/em> brought the vibe of <em>Tamagotchi<\/em> to my computer and Steam Deck. There is also the option to battle these creatures in a rock-paper-scissors style battle that pulls at least a limited influence from Pok\u00e9mon. These creatures evolve given enough experience through training and battling, but they also have a mood that can sour if you let them get too hungry\/full or lose too many battles. It can be difficult to improve the creature\u2019s mood, but knowing what helps and what doesn\u2019t (which isn\u2019t clearly explained) makes it easy enough to train the creature to the maximum level.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest problem I have with this game is the \u201ccountdown timer\u201d mechanic that you usually see in plenty of free-to-play games. Sure, this game was free, but it\u2019s designed to keep you coming back and continuing to play. Since the creatures\u2019 stomachs empty in real-time (much like <em>Tamagotchi<\/em> did), I needed to check in with them a few times a day to make sure they were well fed. After a while, this game became a chore, and I hadn\u2019t even realized until I sunk a ton of time into it. So, if you want to recreate the stress of keeping a digital pet alive, then this is the game for you.<\/p>\n<p>A digital pet game that might be a bit too addicting, I give <em>VirtuaCreature<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\"><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VirtuaCreature Year: 2021 Rating: E Time Played: 41.3 hours Back in the \u201890s, the digital pet craze led by the Tamagotchi toys taught kids how to take care of a pixelated animal. These pets needed basic things like food, entertainment, and attention or their mood would deteriorate. They could even \u201cdie,\u201d which was a threat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,3353,1900],"tags":[2715,3630,3631,1867,8,3629,906,3628],"class_list":["post-3752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-free-to-play","category-video-game","tag-2715","tag-digimon","tag-digital-pet","tag-pokemon","tag-review","tag-tamagotchi","tag-video-game","tag-virtuacreature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3760,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions\/3760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}