Hoshi de Hakken!! Tamagoneko

**Hoshi de Hakken!! Tamagoneko** (*星で発見!!たまごっち Hoshi de Hakken!! Tamagoneko*) is the only Tamagoneko video game for the Sony PlayStation. It was released by Bandai Japan in 1998. The game was never translated into English for sale outside of Japan. The main objective of the game is to collect all of the Tamagoneko that roam around the area. There are 94 Tamagoneko in total to collect and find.

## Story

You play as Mikachu, assistant to Professor Banzo, after the two decide to travel to the Tamagoneko Planet to further study the species but end up marooning themselves after their spacecraft crashlands. Distraught at first, the duo are quickly excited by a new research prospect when they encounter a Jugneko and Pumpneko breeding to produce an egg.

## Gameplay

As a scientist, you have to wander around the area trying to find different breed of Tamagoneko. There are two areas; a smaller Eastern area and a larger Western area. The majority of the Tamagoneko can be found in the larger Western area. There are also three times of day; Morning, Sundown and Night. Different Tamagoneko come out at different points in the day, so always be on the look for for different Tamagoneko!

When you find a Tamagoneko, you will be instructed to chose one for four commands; Triangle, Square, Circle and X. Each different command will allow Mikachu to try a different persuasive dance, song, kiss, or magic trick respectively in hopes of alluring the Tamagoneko. Each Tamagoneko is allured by two of the commands, while the other two will fail to attract it - one of these will be met with indifference or upset the Tamagoneko, and the other will anger it.

Once you have a Tamagoneko, you can take it back to your UFO and take a picture of it to put in your record book. You will keep information on all of the Tamagoneko you find in the record book, if you take a picture of them. You can house a maximum of four Tamagoneko at once in your UFO, but you can say "Bye Bye" to them to get new ones.

Angel Tamagoneko and Sakananeko are present within the game, and while they cannot be raised it is possible to obtain a camera through the lottery in order to register them in your record book by taking photos of them. The Angel Tamagoneko are located near bodies of water like fountains at night, but the Sakananeko are only found underwater. Once you register 20 Tamagoneko in the records book and obtain a camera, you will gain access to a submarine which you can use to explore the sea and encounter the Sakananeko to photograph them.

Once you have two adult Tamagoneko, a male and a female, you can try to breed them. You can hatch the eggs you breed and they will grow in your UFO just like a regular Tamagoneko, being capable of storing up to eight eggs at a time. In your record book, you will see that some Tamagoneko are connected. This is because there are distinct growth charts in this game, a total of six different evolutionary paths in addition to one secret one. Aiming for new characters that you haven't achieved yet by breeding is another great way to do this, and possibly the only way for some characters.

The game contains all of the same parameters as the Game Boy games, in addition to TMP which is determined by the Tamagoneko's age and how high its stats are. Intelligence and strength cannot be increased at home - the player must take their Tamagoneko to the carnival in order to play the games that raise these stats. Babies and toddlers cannot be taken back outside once brought to the UFO base, and therefore cannot participate in these games.

Upon registering all 94 species, the game will end the next time the UFO is accessed - the only way to continue to play is to register 93 at most. Even if most of the Tamagoneko have been collected and all the items obtained, the player can simply just play the game by raising a certain character (or four!) in your UFO, playing games, meeting new characters and such. There are plenty of Tamagoneko characters in this version that do not appear on any other Tamagoneko releases to date.

## Overworld Controls

### Bicycle

This is the topmost option - it allows Mikachu to get on and off her bicycle. Mikachu can travel faster than she does on foot when she is riding the bike, but she cannot interact with Tamagoneko while doing so. When riding the bike, pushing any of the L or R buttons will ring the bell, and any Tamagoneko accompaning you will sit in the front basket.

### Warp Machine

This is the second-highest option - when used in the eastern sector, Mikachu and any Tamagoneko with her will be warped back to the base, and when used in the western sector she will be warped back to the gate between the two parts of the overworld.

### Say Goodbye

This is the second-lowest option - it allows you to release the Tamagoneko accompaning Mikachu.

### Close

This is the lowest option - it is automatically highlighed when opening the overworld menu with the triangle button. Selecting this just closes the menu like you can do with the cross button.

### Field Map

Pressing the square button opens up a map of the overworld that shows Mikachu's current location.

## Home Controls

The Home Controls are similar to the functions available on most vintage Tamagoneko Virtual Pets.

### Check Meter

This allows the checking of a Tamagoneko's current stats - its name, breed, age, gender, discipline, intelligence, strength, hunger, happiness and TMP percentage. A Tamagoneko's TMP depends on how high its other stats currently are. Pressing the left, right, L or R buttons cycles between Tamagoneko, and the one that is currently highlighted will be the one shown when exiting the menu. Intelligence and strength can decrease upon evolution, and in varying amounts even when they are equal.

### Food

This allows a Tamagoneko to be fed meals or snacks to fill its hunger and happiness hearts. While the food that appears when a type is chosen is random, the possible options depend on the Tamagoneko's growth stage - for example, babies and children have milk as their only meal. Too many snacks in a short period of time - about three snacks in the span of six or seven hours, will make a Tamagoneko sick.

### Games

This allows a Tamagoneko to play one of the games from the original release. As usual, winning three or four rounds in a single game increases a single happiness heart, and winning all five rounds rewards two hearts.

### Toilet

This allows the active room to be flushed and remove any poop lying around.

### Medicine

This allows remedies to be administered to an ill Tamagoneko, although it may require multiple doses to recover. Certain breeds need to be given needles, while others need to be given pills - a Tamagoneko will be angered if given the wrong medicine.

### Discipline

This is used to punish a misbehaving Tamagoneko - when it refuses to eat food despite its hunger meter being partially empty, or calling out despite having no empty meters or not being ill. If the Tamagoneko is making a false call, it will be accompanied by a unique speech bubble. When done correctly, it fills one half of a discipline heart. Unlike on the main virtual pets, a Tamagoneko is not guaranteed to have an opportunity to discipline it during a single stage of growth.

### Lights

This turns the lights on the current room on or off. When a Tamagoneko's sleeping time hits, the attention icon will light up and stay on for several seconds before it falls asleep - it is best to shut off the lights at this time. A Tamagoneko taken outside while asleep will need its lights turned off again after returning home.

### Egg Room

This room can contain up to eight eggs laid when breeding Tamagoneko together, and only selected when there is an unoccupied room. There are a number of different colours and patterns - solid, checkered, hearts etc., but they are not exclusive to a single type of baby Tamagoneko in this game. The E Group, F Group and secret charater lines can only be obtained through hatched Tamagoneko eggs.

### Records

The first option in the records section allows you to register the highlighted Tamagoneko if it already hasn't been registered in the records book.

The second option allows you to scroll through the list of Tamagoneko in the game. When highlighting a Tamagoneko, the first option brings you to its biography, the second option will show any unlocked breeding combination charts using that Tamagoneko, and the third shows that Tamagoneko's location on its group's growth chart.

While the stages are arranged from baby to adult as usual, the order of healthiness goes from the healthiest adult on the right to the unhealthiest on the left hand side, and it is not possible to further explore which teenagers evolve into which adults and under what circumstances. A teenager can become one of four adults - two from good care and two from bad care, further determined by how high their strength is compared to their intelligence.

### Breeding

This icon can only be selected if there is at least one male and one female adult Tamagoneko who are available for breeding. After selecting a pair, pressing start will begin the breeding attempt. If they breed successfully, you will be given an egg - which egg they produce depends on which breeds they are, and while most combinations result in an egg containing the baby of one of the parents groups or the one for the next group, certain combinations may produce eggs from groups E or F - the ones for the P1 or P2 characters.

The rate of success depends on how high the Tamagoneko's TMPs are and the difference between them - if they are too different both Tamagoneko will reject each other or one will reject the other's advances, and certain pairings may produce different results than usual if both parties' TMPs exceed 80%. A Tamagoneko may only be bred once in its lifetime, and characters from groups E and F are genderless and cannot breed as a result.

### Say Goodbye

When selected, a list of your Tamagoneko will be brought up in order to choose which one to release. After selecting a Tamagoneko, you will be prompted to confirm that you really want to release it.

### Wallpaper

This allows the current room's wallpaper to be changed to one of eight styles.

### Time Configuration

Selecting this allows you to change the speed at which time passes. The topmost option is fast, the middle option is normal and the bottom option is slow. While faster options will mean that time will pass more quickly they also mean that a Tamagoneko's stats will deplete faster and there will be less time to react to alerts such as discipline and sleep calls, and vice versa.

### Professor Banzo

Selecting this allows the player to read the in-game instructions provided by Banzo, or press the triangle button to save the game. A memory card can only hold two Hoshi de Hakken save files.

### Head Outside

Selecting this sends the player back into the overworld. The top option sends Mikachu out on her own, while the bottom option brings up a list of your Tamagoneko that she can take with her to do things like go to the Carnival or the Stadium. Babies and children cannot be taken outside. Time will still pass even when travelling outside and thus Tamagoneko will continue to live like they would in the UFO base, potentially causing problems if the player leaves awake Tamagoneko on their own for extended periods of time.

### Attention

As usual this icon cannot be selected and starts blinking when a Tamagoneko is in need of something, along with the icon of their room. It will either light up due to a Tamagoneko's hunger/happiness emptying completely, falling ill, making a false call and provide a disciplinary opportunity, preparing to fall asleep, or being on the verge of evolution.

## Facilities

There are a number of facilities Mikachu can visit or take a Tamagoneko to in the eastern sector. Most of these facilities are closed during the day or can only be accessed if Mikachu has a named Tamagoneko with her. Most of the facilities are labelled with their names written in Tamagonekomoji.

### Carnival

The Carnival allows a Tamagoneko to play three difficult games to raise their intelligence and strength - Shuffle Game, Timing Game and Balloon Catching Game. The Carnival cannot be accessed at night.

#### Shuffle Game

This game consists of five rounds and at least three must be won to increase intelligence, and losing the game decreases intelligence. A ball is deposited into one of four bins, which are then swapped with each other or spun around very quickly, and the goal is to guess which bin the ball is in. Pressing left or right changes which bin is highlighted and the circle button selects the current bin.

#### Timing Game

This game, resembling a test-your-strength machine, consists of five rounds and at least three of one kind of result must be gained in a single game to increase or decrease intelligence or strength. There are eight possible results - four nothing slots (coloured red), two decreasing slots (coloured purple) and two increasing slots (coloured yellow). A meter on the left side of the screen quickly rises and falls - when the circle button is pressed and the Tamagoneko slams the hammer down onto the button, the player must take into account that there is a delay from the start of the animation to the actual hit of the button and therefore the meter's position will change in that time period. Too much power will result in the indicator bouncing off the top of the machine and landing on the second-highest result.

#### Balloon Catching Game

30 points must be obtained when the game ends to increase strength, and losing the game decreases strength. The Tamagoneko can be moved left or right on a platform to catch balloons, but cannot move all the way across the screen. Red balloons take away two points, yellow balloons add one point and green balloons add two points. The balloons rise at varying speeds, but the player must be on high alert for sudden appearances as they all move faster than the Tamagoneko.

### Stadium

The Stadium allows for a Tamagoneko to participate in several contests - racing, relay racing, math tests or beauty contests, which rely on strength, intelligence and discipline respectively. Contests are divided into categories for age - teenager or adult, and may consist of multiple rounds. The Stadium cannot be accessed at night.

### Lottery

The Lottery allows the player to spend the blue gems they collect on the overworld for various prizes. The first option is the actual lottery, where pressing the circle button allows for the player to spend two gems to spin the drum and see which ball comes out, while the second option details the available prizes. In order from most common to rarest they are red balls - nothing, white balls - a gem (which is still a loss for the player given the price), green balls - film for the cameras, blue balls - the blue camera, and yellow balls - the red camera.

The blue camera must be won before the player can win the red camera - which has unlimited film, and winning a camera unlocks the submarine provided the player has at least 20 Tamagoneko registered in their records. Once the red camera is won, there is no point to playing the lottery again as they will not need to restock their film.

### Memorial Center

If a Tamagoneko had their records saved after their death, the player may view them here.

## Trivia

* This is the only video game in the Tamagoneko franchise that has ever released on a PlayStation platform. Excluding Sega Saturn de Hakken!! Tamagoneko Park, all the others were released exclusively on Nintendo platforms.