Tamajoji is a virtual pet game I’ve made. I created it with the objective of replicating in a browser version the experience of playing the classic virtual pet game Tamagotchi. To make it work on this completely different platform I imported and adapted elements such as: controls, menus, game actions and even the idea of your pet needing you through the day and aging as time passes by outside the game. It’s a project I’m particularly proud of.
First thing I can say like about it was seeing how far it got in terms of execution. I started this project in order to learn web programming, back in 2021. It was made using only html, css and vanilla javascript, with no plugins. I started by learning details of the Tamagotchi’s game mechanics and using the tools I had to implement them one by one to my version of it.
It was totally experimental and at first I didn’t expected to get them all working. By the end of the project I had even complex things like pet evolution and auto-save management, aside from implementing every function from the original game. It was a pretty good exercise on programming and confidence as a developer.
Another thing that I really liked about it, is that I actually went through with the idea. I took a break from watching web programming tutorials and went head first on this project. I spent 3 months making it, during this time I planned how it would function, I programmed it all by myself, made all the art of the characters, menu, sounds and interface, and making sure it would work.
I also took some of this development time to optimize and polish the game. It has an auto-save, it warns you if you’re opening it in multiple tabs, it’s a very fluid and bug-free experience. It lets you customize the gameplay difficulty, reset your character, pick the colors of the menu skins, change the volume and so on. All in all I like that I could make this game complete, and not just finished.
After all the time and effort I put into developing Tamajoji, I really wanted people to play it. I put it’s web page online on itch.io and started creating posts about it on many social media sites, until weeks later it got some attention on a reddit post I’ve made. I started getting page views on the game page and people started noticing it, people even wrote some articles about it, I was very happy with the results.
Tamajoji is one of the games in my collection of games made by myself while improvising without using a game engine, it was also my first time improvising creating art and audio for a game, my first public web page and my first time going online asking people to check out my project, and the first time I felt this successful developing something. I really enjoyed working on it, and hope to come up with more soon.
Trailer I’ve made to go along with the posts showcasing the game
