Did you used to have a Tamogotchi?
It was one of those little electronic pets that you used to have to take care of and if you didn’t they got sadder and sadder until they eventually died. I used to have one and for the first few weeks, I used to make my Mam take care of it while I was at school. After that the novelty wore off and it was relegated to the back of a drawer somewhere and must have eventually been thrown out.
Anyway, the point of my question was because last week I was trying to explain what a Tamogotchi was to the kids and they told me there was an app that their friends played with that sounded really similar called Egg Baby. I had a look at it and we downloaded it on my phone to have a play with – we called our baby Cutie Pie.
Like the Tamogotchi, the novelty of having an Egg Baby meant that they were both falling over themselves to feed it, wash it and even read to it. But then Cutie Pie started to get demanding and I would get random notifications telling me she was bored and we needed to read to it or she was dirty and needed washing. At one point we were even told to tickle her because she was sad.
At 3.23am yesterday morning my phone beeped to tell me that Cutie Pie was living on the edge and needed medicine immediately otherwise she would die. I did what any one would do when faced with an Egg Baby life or death situation – I turned back over and went to sleep again.
I woke up the next morning to find that Cutie Pie had not made it through the night and she had died.
Apparently it was only right that we say our goodbyes to Cutie Pie so we opened the app and this is what we found….
How traumatic is that?
*I am joking about it being traumatic – it’s not like we’re mentally scarred or anything. It’s just not what I would expect from an app aimed at children aged four and up!
