If you’re old enough to remember the joy of opening a new pack of pogs, you’re also old enough to remember how amazing it was to carry around a small plastic egg with the words Tamagotchi printed on it. Now, you can experience that joy on your Apple Watch.
Bandai Namco
If you missed out on the Tamagotchi crazy let’s get you up to speed: Originally launched in 1996, Tamagotchi were small electronic toys that came in the shape of eggs. On the tiny monochrome LCD screen, a creepy little blob would hatch, grow, and die over the course of a few days, and it was up to you to feed it, play with it, and clean up after it.
Mike Wehner
In short, Tamagotchi provides the bite-sized kinds of tasks that fit perfectly on a smartwatch. Publisher Bandai Namco has added Apple Watch support to its Tamagotchi Classic app, and while it’s very clearly lacking some of the main functionality of the smartphone version—and occasionally the notifications pop up in Japanese for some reason—it’s still a great nostalgia trip.
You can perform the basic upkeep tasks to keep your Tamagotchi alive, check its health and happiness status, and get frustrated when it randomly dies, just like you remember from the ’90s.
Photo via Joi/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)
