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Comment by AndrewHart | Hacker News Reader

I made a modern virtual pet, for iOS and Apple Watch. Apple Watch seems like the perfect modern form factor for one of these.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/raise-emoji/id1045353760

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This got me thinking, a virtual pet could be a great way of gameifying positive activities. Maybe you could exercise your pet by going for a run yourself, or make it more intelligent by doing a language tutorial. You could connect any fitness or learning app that provides an API. Every pet would end up being unique because of the unique combination of activities done by the owner.

Right now I can't figure out if that's a good idea or a really terrible one. Do I really want a virtual dog looking at me angrily all day because I didn't take him for his morning walk?

My Pebble Time came with an application on it that is literally exactly this.

https://developer.getpebble.com/blog/2015/05/17/timeline-cha...

Nintendo released one of these back during the original tamagatchi craze. It had a pedometer built in, so you needed to exercise to feed your Pokemon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Pikachu

Hey, Andrew! It'd be great if you can add more features to it? Something like, different activities as the emoji grows, giving it a name when it is born, difference in gender, dating with other emojis, etc. I grew my emoji till 32 years old and I noticed there was nothing new in it.

I started making my own wifi/internet enabled "tamagotchi" – I posted two videos on my progress.

https://vine.co/v/iamKLtvD5dp

https://vine.co/v/iamezw1ZnMI

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