Dogz - Game Boy Color

Remember the Tamagotchi? This was the original Virtual Pet system that allowed you or your children to take on the responsibility of owning a pet, but without the responsibility, if you know what we mean. Tamagotchi’s spawned a race of clones, and the latest edition to this race is “Dogz.”

While inspired by Tamagotchi’s, Dogz has a level of interactiveness not seen before in a handheld format. With the help of Nintendo’s hardware, a dog looks like a dog, and behaves like a dog. You can also change the environment surrounding the dog, or even the features of the dog itself.

As with other virtual pets, you have the standard plethora of statistics such as hunger, health, affection and age, but Dogz doesn’t function itself for you to raise just one of them. Once you have successfully raised a dog, options are opened up for you to adopt other dogs, and eventually, rarer dogs. The rarer the dog, the harder it is to raise. With the option to own three dogs at a time, you may have a challenge on your hands if you don’t want them to run away.

The most sociable option of Dogz is the capability to trade the dogs you have raised with other trader’s dogs via a link cable.

All these functions combined create a great learning experience for children. more