Did you have a tamagotchi as a kid? I did, and yes, I too let it die. I am thankful that the handheld LCD graphics of the era did not allow me to witness my companion blob’s amiable decline into shit-caked starvation. I am also thankful that my tamagotchi did not itself have a tamagotchi, because the only life principle I ever taught my tamagotchi was neglect. This is also the reason I may never play the reportedly pretty decent virtual pet game Yoke Heroes: A Long Tamago, whose developers 14 Hours Productions are defying God and Man by developing another virtual pet sim inside it.
Before I peel back the metafictional layers I guess I should tell you briefly about Yolk Heroes itself, which featured in one of Alice0’s (RPS in peace) screenshot round-ups, many moons ago. The gist: some Dark Lord is causing a nuisance. The Fairy Queen has tasked you with hatching out and nurturing an Elf hero to take the villain down. I’m not as familiar with elf reproduction as I should be but I’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 and I’m 75% sure elves don’t come from eggs. Still, I like the looks of the game’s “idle RPG” malarkey. It sounds like I’ll have plenty of time to get the laundry done while my chickelf is busy grinding level-1 rats.
“Part digital pet game, part RPG adventure, and part casual idle game, Yolk Heroes is a charming blend of many different elements,” the Steam page explains. “Quest and grind to protect the citizens of the realm, or simply enjoy your digital friend!” Here be tray-tray to wash that down. Game Boy Color-flavoured art direction = good.
Hearty, innocent fun, you might think. The user reviews certainly paint a rosy picture. But now for the horrifying twist: the devs are making another virtual pet game called Poke Place, rendered in simpler monochrome pixelart. It fits snugly inside Yolk Heroes, “so your Virtual Pet can have Virtual Pets”.
“You know you’ve always wanted this!” explains a new Steam post, with an air of jovial malice so concentrated I can feel my skin exfoliating as I read. “Poke place is pronounced to rhyme with yolk. Poke being slang for little buddy and all that. It won’t have any plot importance, but it will have the importance of getting to raise a little fairy thing! Also, some of the best pixel art we did for the project but ended up being cut from the main game is being re-used to give it some real pizzazz!”
While games-within-the-game aren’t unusual – even Call Of Duty likes to Nolan it up now and then – the disturbing element here is that Poke Place is billed as a game for your Virtual Pet, not you. Will your chickelf treat the “little fairy thing” as they themselves were treated? Is this where our fond technological ambitions have led us, to a place where tamagotchis are smart enough to let their own tamagotchis perish in a cascade of doleful emojis and poop?
Ah, but perhaps the tamagotchis will learn different lessons from our colossal frivolity and apathy. Perhaps your chickelf will strive to be a better custodian and mentor for their fairy sprog than you ever were for them. Honestly, this sounds worse: your virtual pet is going to make you feel bad about yourself. It’s a facet of the AI utopia/dystopia debate I hadn’t considered.
It’s not clear when Poke Place will be added to Yolk Heroes, but 14 Hours Productions are hoping to release the update later this year. No guarantees, though, because “the lead developer on it also has a full time job NOT working on cute games like this, so it’s a bit slow going! Bills are hard!” Fair play. I will end this with the thought that while I’ve played many a game-within-the-game, I’ve yet to play a game-within-the-game-within-the-game. I suspect this idea has probably occurred to 14 Hours Productions. I hope they give that “little fairy thing” a virtual pet game too, so that my chickelf can experience the terrible vertigo I’m feeling right now.
If all this is too Inception-y for you, or you disagree profoundly with the concept of elf eggs, there’s always Mushroom Musume.