How Tamagotchi Paradise Is Making Food Fun

This is a deep dive into all the things you can do with food on the Tamagotchi Paradise device.

The original virtual pet, Tamagotchi, needs food too, just like us.

Being woken up in the middle of the night because your Tama is about to die of hunger is a nerve-wracking experience, but there’s a lot of fun to be had when it comes to food as well!

But first, a brief history of Tamagotchi

Tamagotchi is a Japanese brand of virtual pets that began in the late 90s.

In a device small enough to fit in your hand, people care for and raise a pixelated pet, including feeding it, playing games with it and picking up its waste.

How you treat your pet, called a Tama, determined how it would evolve and of course, whether or not it survived.

This year, Tamagotchi is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a second U.S. road trip and a recently announced new device, the Tamagotchi Ring.

The pre-orders for the Tamagotchi Ring will open for Japanese customers soon but the latest device you can get your hands on is the Tamagotchi Paradise.

Tamagotchi has expanded from their standard devices to video games across several handhelds and consoles, such as:

• the Tamagotchi Cornershop series on the Nintendo DS
• Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom in Apple’s App Store
• and Tamagotchi Plaza on the Nintendo Switch

Food is in the name

Continuing with what’s supposed to be a brief history, let’s break down the name.

‘Tamago’ in Japanese means egg.

And the outside part of every device is called a ‘shell.’

The shells range in color and design, with some devices having as few as 5 or 6 shells like the Paradise or as many as 30 shells (and counting) like the Connection.

Feed your Tama or else!

One of your most important jobs is keeping your Tama fed.

And for many devices, especially the Paradise, the types of food you give your Tama and how often you feed them determine the type of adult you get.

Each Paradise biome (Jade Forest, Orange Tropics, Pink Land, White Glacier, Blue Water and Purple Sky) has a different variation of characters your Tama can turn into.

Only milk for the baby stage

The egg will hatch, revealing Babymarutchi (べびまるっち), and luckily, you only need to feed it milk.

And thank goodness milk is free.

But the tradeoff is that you’ll be glued to the device because you have to feed your Tama in this stage often.

This is more stressful than it is fun, but it’s a good opportunity to bond with your new Tama.

Shortly after, maybe within a few hours, it will evolve to the Young stage.

Now it’s time for real food

Milk is no longer an option and you’ll need to provide your Tama in the Young stage with actual food.

For the White Glacier Paradise device, there are four food categories that influence your Tama’s development:

• Seafood
• Frozen Meat
• Berries
• Mixture of the other three types

The majority of the pictures in this article include a variation of Okojotchi, which your Tama can evolve to after eating predominantly food in the Frozen Meat category.

So, where does the food come from?

Aside from having an infinite amount of free milk and pellets there are several ways you or your Tama can get food.

Some of these methods are free while others require Gotchi Points (ごっちポイント).

Gotchi Points, or GP, is the currency used in a Tamagotchi device to purchase meals, snacks, decor for a room or a planet and more.

You don’t spend real life money on them.

Instead, you earn GP by playing games and reaching new levels on the Paradise device.

I’m going to highlight the two most interesting ways to obtain food.

1. Go on a daily egg hunt on Tamagotchi Paradise

Select up to three Tamas to hunt for eggs at either the Volcano or the Spring (on the Paradise device) that will hatch into food.

Using a wagon, the selected Tamas will bring the food home from their mission.

The Volcano is likely to give you Frozen Meat and Canned Meat while the Spring usually gives out Salmon Roe and Northern Seafood.

Early on, the egg hunt is only available once a day, but after reaching a higher level (at least Level 10) and raising several Tamas, they should be able to go on an egg hunt several times per day.

The folks on Reddit, more than a year since the device’s release, are still strategizing how to successfully get the maximum amount of eggs from the hunt.

And they’re right. At least some of the time.

I followed some Reddit advice by cleaning, feeding and playing with my Tama before the hunt, and after a month of being on the Paradise device, my Tama was finally rewarded with the coveted Golden Peach, known to significantly increase happiness and remove a care mistake.

2. Request a trained (?) chef to cook a meal

If you have the right ingredients, the chef will not only prepare a delicious meal on the spot, but they’ll set a table for your Tama as well.

The meal preparation even comes with its own themed music.

Think of it as dining with a side of entertainment for your Tama.

Decorate your Tamagotchi Paradise Planet with food

Typically, you can decorate your Tama and their room.

However, on the Tamagotchi Paradise device, only your Planet and fields (where your Tama lives) can be decorated.

I wasn’t expecting the range of food-related items for adorning your Planet, such as the Apple Hat, Bento Beret or Crepe Hat.

Some of these items can be purchased from the Shop while others are gifts from planets your Tamas can travel to, fueled by the waste you collect from them.

So far, I’ve been to the Foodie and Sweet planets and my Tamas were gifted with the Bento Beret and Crepe Hat.

Apparently, adorning your Planet with certain item will attract specific Tamas, but I haven’t experimented with this yet.

Play with food to earn Gotchi Points

There are a total of seven Mini Games to play to earn Gotchi Points.

Of course I spend the majority of my time playing the food-related ones: Feeding Baby Milk and Fruit Gathering.

Feed the babies milk, quickly!

Because keeping one baby happy isn’t enough, you need to take care of six of them. At the same time.

The game seems simple enough – when or right before a baby starts crying, give the baby its bottle.

But you’re on a timer.

And the baby might stop crying abruptly, which means, if you try to feed it, then you automatically lose the game.

The worst part isn’t losing.

It’s knowing that you upset six baby Tamas that believed in you.

And no one wants that.

Gather fruit to create a special piña colada

I still don’t know the full context of this game but from what I understand, a Shirotama is sent on a mission to gather bananas, coconut and pineapples on a tropical island.

You have to collect a certain amount of fruit before the Shirotama crosses the finish line in order to successfully build a piña colada.

The pace starts pretty slow, but then the Shirotama picks up speed, which means you have to be more accurate with where you position it.

This and the baby milk game are my favorites and are fairly easy for racking up Gotchi Points.

Why you should get a Tamagotchi Paradise if your budget allows for it

For the 90s kids or anyone who wants to explore this as a hobby, get the Tamagotchi Paradise.

It’s probably the least needy device and doesn’t have too much of a learning curve.

The screen is also in full color unlike much older devices that are completely pixelated.

While older devices cost double or even triple their original prices (well over $100 USD used), the Paradise costs $45 USD.

You can order online for retail price or in-store at some Barnes and Noble locations.

I bought Tamagotchi earrings at this Raleigh gaming expo

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