I was thinking today how very little interaction we actually have with our creatu as owners. On an every-other-day basis, I'll feed my creatu to make sure they're full, but otherwise they just sit on my profile looking pretty. They never ask for anything. What if we made them a little more interactive?
Playtime:
Currently, if you play with your creatu one time, it stays delighted forever. Its mood never changes. This eternal happiness even stays with the creatu after death, as illustrated by one of the dead zennies in my graveyard:
Isn't this kind of strange? No real-life pet would be satisfied with one single play session in its entire lifetime.
I think it would be cool if we had to give them a toy once in a while to maintain their delight. Toys are so plentiful (you can get them daily from the Alphabet Soup game) it won't drive anyone into poverty. It might even promote a little business for Merchants who sell toys.
Edit 5/8/14 additional idea: It would also be cool to earn some sort of trophy after a certain intervals, say, using 50, 100, 200, etc. different toys on your creatu.
Reading:What if our creatu occasionally asked to be read a specific book? It could show up a couple times a month as an alert and be like sort of a mini-quest. The books should be ones that currently stock in NPC shops, so that no one will be stuck with trying to find a retired tome. Once we obtain the book and read it to our creatu, the quest is "complete". Again, this would drive a little business in the direction of book-buying. There could be leaderboards for the users who complete the most reading quests, or perhaps the creatu could just earn a special Reading stat point for each quest completed. I want to clarify how this is different than the current book quest, because the existing quest does not require you to read the book to your creatu, and the proposed Reading Quest would not take the book away from you (unless it accidentally breaks while reading) or give you any tu. If for some reason you don't want to participate in the Reading quest, you can just delete or ignore the Alert.
Vegeta says: "I would love to read "
Exploring Niches" please!"
Illness:We have a Pharmacy, and yet most of the items are unusable, because our creatu never get sick. What if they occasionally caught a cold and needed a specific cure?
Kakarot says: "Oops I got a booboo. Can I have a "
Happy Bandaid" please?"
If you fail to cure your pet for a long time, it should also affect their Mood, and require more playtime.
Other "illnesses":This
could be another food related illness. "Vegeta says: Ouch, this food is
making my teeth hurt! Will you buy me some
Fang Paste?"
The
Enchanted Springs could have a tiny chance of making your pet ill too:
"Kakarot says: Brr, that water was too cold! I think I'm coming down
with something. Can you get me some
Jumbo Tissues?"
or
"Blah, that water was muddy! I think I need some
Pink Soap now"
After exploring Atqueen Forest: "Kakarot is itchy! Does that forest have fleas? He needs some
Itch-Away Powder."
Swimming at the Twuntie Cay:
"Ouch! These rocks are sharp! Vegeta needs a
Red Bandaid."
Food Cravings:What if our creatu occasionally asked us for a specific food?
Litterbox says: "Man, I could really go for a "
Candy Pizza" right now!"
This could work in a similar manner to the Reading Quest suggested above.
I think something like this could make Res a little more exciting, and also promote some business in the form of selling/buying these items, some of which are currently useless.
I want to further clarify that these things should only happen to your profile creatu. Creatu in Showrooms and Ranchers would not be affected.
Other Non-Creatu Random Item Uses:Possible Function for Water Balloons:
Splash! RainofStars threw a
Blue Water Balloon at you!
Throw one back?
What do you think?