In this review, we’ll take a closer look at Virtual Kitty. This is yet another pet simulation game where you need to take care of your kitties, feeding them, play with them and take care of all their needs.
To be honest, I wasn’t that excited to play yet another AR pet simulator. I tried quite a few of them in the past, including AR Dino Pet, Miaow, Fiete Cats AR, AR Dragon, Follow Me Dragon, Cattery, and others. I found only a few of them to be entertaining.
The reason I’ve decided to review it is that it looks more expansive than the other ones so I thought I’ll give it a go.
Playing Virtual Kitty
Virtual Kitty stars very nice. You have a selection of kitties which you can unlock. you need to make other kitties happy and obtain a coin in order to be able to unlock the other cats.
When the game start you are able to unlock one random cat by selecting one of several gift packages. Once you select it, the kitty appears and you can tp and drag him out of the box and place it on a surface outside the box. It’s fun and original start for sure, I liked it.
The goal of the game is to collect all nine kitties and how course enjoys taking care of them. You can only play with a single cat at a time, and you can switch between them anytime through the main menu.
As I mentioned earlier, to be able to achieve coins you’ll need to make sure your cat is happy. To do that, you’ll need to make sure that your kitty is well fed, it’s not thirsty or getting bored and make sure you clean it up so it stays clean and healthy.
You can fulfill all those missions by accessing the main menu and selecting the appropriate tab that is related to the specific action you want to take, each one corresponds to different needs: Hunger, Thirst, Boredom, and Care. Each one holds different items. Some of these items are active like the laser pointer which requires the user to control it, others are more passive and just require that you put them on the floor and let the kitty do its thing.
The thing that was really missing for me was those fun interactive games like the play ball activity in AR Dragon.
Furthermore, all of those kittens look lifeless. I mean, compare it to AR Dragon and see what I mean. This is not because this is a dragon and the other one is a kitten. Yu Boyang, the developer who developed the virtual pet simulator app “Meow! – AR Cat & Your Mini Pet” did an amazing job. The cat looks so adorable and cute and very hard to resist. This is what I expect from virtual pet simulators. Without it, it’s difficult to create a strong bond with the characters, it just looks like an image. I expect the pet to have random animations, so it can look alive even if I am not interacting with it.
It kinds of reminded me of Miaow: Your Exclusive AR Pet in its first build, but even less lifeless. You can tap anywhere and the kitty will follow, but it doesn’t even respond to petting, which is the bare minimum to do, don’t you think?
On the positive side, I really liked the ability to drag him and move it around or putting him in a bucket when I need to watch it. I mean, this interaction is nice and original but still, it lacked charm.
You see, putting more interactions should never come instead of good character design and animations. The most important thing is that the character and the animations are designed in that way to create an emotional imprint on the user who plays the game and to create that special friendship bond with the virtual character. The idea is that you would feel that same feeling of empathy, affinity, and love towards the virtual pet as you feel towards a real kitty. If the app is designed well, it should deliver those emotions, at least to some degree close to the real experience, who knows, maybe even more for some people.
Unfortunately, Virtual Kitty doesn’t deliver in that respect. Having said that, it offers a decent amount of fun interactions, which could be amplified ten times more with a more attractive and better-animated character.
I remember on virtual pet simulator app that I’ve reviewed. I recommended the developer to change the cat 3D design and improve the animation. It did that and released a second new version of it, and it was so much better than the original. I know that maybe the better pre-animated 3D models might be more expensive, but I think for this type of app it’s well worth it. People can add even ten times more interactions, but it the game will still feel less exciting because it’s all about the cat’s behavior, not the props themselves. The cats in Virtual Kitty don’t even do Miaow, not even a single sound, I mean come on, how can you not add at least that?
The UI and the on-screen guide make it very easy to understand what to do. I liked the unlockable cats as it encouraged the user to take care of his current pet if he or she wants to unlock all the other cats.
Conclusion
Virtual Kitty is quite an expansive virtual pet simulator game, featuring 16 different type of interactions and 9 different cats. The interactions and the experience of unlocking new kitties are fun and satisfying.
I did bother downloading Meow! and AR Dragon again just to get to feel how it is like playing those games and get a reference point so I can judge Virtual Kitty better. It won’t be fair to the developer or the kitties.
Once I’ve loaded “Meow! AR Cat & Your Mini Pet” and AR Dragon it immediately reminded me why I liked them so much and I could clearly see, hear and feel the differences between those games and Virtual Kitty.
I think there are some good augmented reality pet simulators that do a very good job, and if I were a developer, I would at least play them to get some inspiration.
Virtual Kitty is not a bad virtual pet AR simulator but there are several areas that definitely need some work in order to make the experience more entertaining and fun for users. The game does offer some cool interactions and how can you say no to unlocking new kitties. Overal, good AR pet simulator, but with if the developer can improve on those points that I’ve mentioned, in my opinion, it could be so much better.
Download Virtual Kitty for iOS from the App Store here.