[h1][b][i]Time to go back to our childhood routine and invest the available time in taking care of blob-shaped virtual pets![/i][/b][/h1]
[h1]Design:[/h1]
Kukumushi Virtual Pet is a family-friendly game presented in pixel art graphics composed by an assortment of bright colours.
The palette is quite peppy, yet does not bother the eyesight in any way.
At the beginning of the game we do get to select an egg, from which our little virtual pet will be hatched.
There are 5 different eggs with distinct patterns and symbols to choose from. While having mixed feelings coming to the pattern resembling [i]Yoshi’s Egg[/i], I decided to pick the one in question given my attachment to the mentioned personage’s world.
We do get a personalized room where the egg will be opening up to proceed with taking care of our pet. To each egg a different room design will be assigned.
Another detail that had me feel both comfortable yet slightly concerned about is how some of the virtual pets do resemble the [i]Dango[/i] design from [i]Clannad[/i]. If the choice was intentional, I personally worry if it is actually allowed to imitate others’ designs within games. We can also notice a hanging framed picture portraying a virtual pet family, still resembling evidently the [i]Dango Family[/i] from the mentioned above title.
The overall design is really cozy and simple. Colourful enough to make a player feel entertained and simple enough for a casual game to actually result relaxing and fun.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
The gameplay consists of taking care of our pets, pretty much same as on the original Tamagotchi game.
As a time management game, the title does require the player to be patient given the pet will age, gain weight and so on. Found personally a tad long the waiting time before the egg hatching started taking place.
We do have multiple slots in a way the player can choose to take care of more than one pet solely (to a maximum amount of 3 pets at once).
As mentioned, each one will have a separate room where we will have to be careful coming to the statistics.
In order to evaluate what our pet is craving at the moment, we do have a little stats bar showing us their health, hunger, energy and mood. All of them to be taken care via assigned slots we can pick from the lower side of window.
There is a variety of options coming to how the player may choose to interact with the Kukumushi at hand, such as feed, lights off (to let them rest), cure, clean (for the toilet-related needs they may leave here and there after eating) and play. Within each, you mainly find a little menu, such as, different types of food to bring to the pet, medications to choose from, and, within the play-with-your-pet section there are two mini games that are very simple and cute! One of them consists of outrunning enemies that increase with passing time and collecting coins which will make increase the gained in-game points. This way, after facing a game over you can eventually beat your previous score. The other mini game is the classic game known as [i]Pong[/i].
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
We do play this game mainly by using point & click menus (for example when picking how to interact with the little fella), therefore with a mouse. However, the mini games are to be played with arrows or WASD keys, so there is a combination of keyboard usage and casual mouse point & click gameplay.
[h1]Featurings:[/h1]
This is a casual life sim management game, however personally I would heavily suggest adding in more content and options to choose from such as more in-game mini games to play or more possible interactions to take. To improve their mood we may perhaps choose to pat the little one or praise them, instead of using food and the gaming option only? Just dropping by some vague suggestions here that came up to my mind on the spur of moment.
As well as, a little improvement I would make is to launch an update that will fix the proportions of the game in windowed mode. Currently, in order to minimize the window we do actually have an option to toggle off full-screen, however in case we want to resize game’s window it won’t maintain the original proportions, and, if we try taking a screenshot on Steam due to uneven proportions the picture will result deformed.
This would also prevent having to wait while looking constantly at the game, as after a while it may result bothersome to be forced into awaiting the stats changing in order to make grow the pet and proceed with the game.
Personally did notice that when pausing them game the stats may abruptly change after returning to your pet, even in case solely a second passed. This doesn’t necessarily happen all the time you pause your game.
The game does get accompanied by cheerful yet comfortable enough BGM that puts the player into positive mood straight away. The BGM will change based on the screen and interaction types, so there are few tracks to explore.
The Developer also recently did add in the section where we can view which types of Kukumushis got unlocked, themselves stating they took inspiration from a certain in-game feature we all surely faced so many times before.
While I before mentioned to be concerned about so many references taken from other media, I do not necessarily find it to be a negative trait.
[h1]Overall:[/h1]
This is a very cozy game, however the title does not provide that many interactions so you may be willing to lower the window at some point to make the time pass and let your pet grow, in a way to avoid stressing over something that should result soothing instead. The issue is that in windowed mode the game does not keep its proportions if you may be willing to resize it for comfortability purpose.
[quote]Discover interesting visual novels, indie games and more on my Curator Page!
🪴 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/46144642/][b]Gyepi Nook[/b][/url] 🪴[/quote]
