Strangelings Debuts on Web and iOS: A Perfect Game For Breedables Fanatics... Just Not For Me

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

if you're a fan of Second Life "breedable" pets, this bit of casual gaming news might just make your day: Strangelings, a free fantasy pet breeding game with an impressive pedigree (har har) is now available and playable both in your browser and on iOS.

If you have any experience avidly raising virtual frogs, chickens, bunnies, cats, horses, dragons and beyond, most of what Strangelings has to offer will feel very natural to you. If not... Well, like me you might be a bit underwhelmed. Here's what I mean:

Overall it's a pretty familiar experience, and a formula that's proven to be successful in Second Life. You hatch eggs, reveal traits, breed selectively, play and give each creature attention to keep them happy...

Now there are apps out there that offer many of these features already, but none (that I'm aware of) have real money auctions to trade your rarest creatures for cold hard cash. To those removed from Second Life that sort of feature might seem a bit crazy. Who would pay real money for a virtual animal, especially one they might be able to breed themselves? The answer is that lots and lots of people would. Anyone who's had even a passing experience with the breedables industry knows how quickly rare traits and a climate of exclusivity can foster a heated auction and sales scene. It remains to be seen whether or not this will translate into the web/app take on the breedable craze, but lets be honest here. It probably will. If the success of apps like Pocket Frogs has taught us anything, it's that there's nothing inherently "Second Lifey" about breedbale frenzy.

It's a style of game that mixes the compulsive behaviour of collecting with the interactivity of a Tamagotchi -- basically a cocktail of casual gaming addictiveness.

I have to admit, however, that I found Strangelings... Well, kind of boring. The gameplay is very...  Efficient. That's good news for power breeders, but if you prefer to take things at a steady pace and sort of "bond" with your early animals you might feel rushed, or find yourself in a monotonous care/breeding routine that makes the process feel more like an animal factory than anything else. The strangelings themselves also don't look quite as good as I'd hoped in terms of their modeling and texturing, but more to the point the gameplay doesn't really represent why I kept Kittycats or Meeroos in SL in the first place. I was never really a pro breeder, that side of things never really kept my attention. At the time, I just liked having a little life in my virtual home and "living" alongside something else -- a cat napping on a chair or wandering around the room, creatures in the yard rooting around in the flower beds-- little things to make a virtual space feel a bit less soulless.

For me, the virtual pet removed from the virtual world just isn't what I'm looking for.

However I'm absolutely in the minority, there. My RL mom on the other hand has bred just about every breedable there is in SL, and I suspect she'll have a much more favorable opinion of Strangelings than I do. Because this is a standalone game there are a lot more interactions and options available for play than there would be in Second Life, as well as a much less cumbersome user-interface for scoping out all those crucial stats, so the game isn't without its advantages especially if breedables are your gaming bread and butter.

Both the app and the browser-based version of the game are completely free, so try them out for yourself. Who knows, you might just fall for these little critters.

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Damien Fate]

I wish them all the success with the venture. It's a bold idea, even if it isn't for everyone.

[Adeon Writer]

Girlfriend trying to get me into these. They're not for me either, but she's obsessed with them at the moment. So, there's that.

An avatar of the critter was/is also sold in-world, I'm not sure if it was a promo or a game component.

[Ajax Manatiso]

I wish this game great success. If all the breedable fanatics in SL left for this game, I just wonder how much the lag would be reduced in SL. Even if you ban all breedables in your sim, if they have them in the sims that share server space with you, you have their resulting lag.

[sparky]

Requires Facebook account. I guess I'll never know if I'd play it.

[Tuesday Special]

I found them very boring too as well as poorly executed. I tried to be "open" to it. Which was also hard considering the public facts about the unethical practices of some of the creators as well as the boasts of creating the breedable genre in SL.

Glad it wasn't just a biased on my part. I really found it so amature-ish in many regards.

Wanted to "like" it, didn't. Music was also very annoying.

Many more fun games out there.

Thanks Iris for always being an honest journalist in my time of reading you in SL.

[Vander Ashland]

doesn't this same anonymous person show up with the same vague accusations every time something gets posted about these guys? Seriously, let go of the green monster and find something better to do with your time.

[Lylas Marsha]

What's the name of this game and can I get it on a ipad