I use the term loosely, by the way. My Little Monster isn't exactly what you would call a Tamagotchi, though the simplicity of the gameplay here is definitely on the same level. At the beginning of every in-game day, you'll be given the opportunity to decide whether you want to purchase new hats, upgrade one of your three skills or improve various statistics. This, in turn, is accomplished by spending the currency you earn from your daily fights.

Now, before you get excited about the idea of rumbling with other leviathans, combat here isn't all too fancy either. You have no direct control over the fights themselves. For the most part, your time will be spent tapping on various words on the screen, tapping on the ability you want to use, and a fair bit of waiting. Assuming you survive, you'll then have your score tallied and the whole cycle will begin anew.

Yes, I know. It's kind of underwhelming but that doesn't make it a bad game. In an odd way, it's actually one of the reasons that My Little Monster works so well. You can play it anywhere, any time. Because so little brainpower is needed to propel the game forward, it's ideal for meetings and long, uncomfortable road trips. Of course, things would be different were the presentation any less stellar.

Group Sound really did a brilliant job (granted, they could have gone with a better choice of fonts but that's me being nit-picky) with the delivery in My Little Monster. The nostalgia-inducing visuals, the silly cut-scenes, the menagerie of eccentric enemies, the offbeat dialogue, the ludicrous plot - they all go along together like Japanese curry on rice. I mean, really? Is it even possible to dislike that little green guy and his earnest quest to grow up and destroy the world? I thought so.

Though considerably shorter than I would have liked it to be, My Little Monster is a reasonable amount of bang for your buck. If 'virtual pet simulators' weren't a thing back when you were growing up, you might not quite enjoy it as much as some. But for the rest of you, this may be a pleasant trip down memory lane.

The developers goal was to create a horse which is realistic enough for the player to form a bond with. And they've managed to successfully achieve this as the horse graphics and behavior is pretty realistic. It flicks it's tail, grazes, looks around, trots, bucks, walks backwards and neighs. There's no obvious repeated animation loops, or cartoon graphics. You're caring for a real-looking virtual horse.

After meeting and naming your beast (default name was "Beauty", but I chose "GluePot"), Dan the Stable-boy assigns you some tasks, such as "take a photo of your horse" using the in-game camera. Completing tasks or spending time with your horse earns experience (XP) points, which helps increase your overall level.

You can tap the ground to place two markers and the horse will go there, at it's own pace. If a circle appears, you can walk your horse over it to collect XP. However, most of your actions are initiated by opening your leather journal, which has separate tabs for activities, care tasks, work tasks, competing and a marketplace for shopping.

The "Activities" are interactive mini-games, based upon feeding, treating and grooming your horse and caring for the paddock. For example, to groom your horse you swipe dirt from it's body, while feeding it involves buying a recipe and measuring out the right ingredient ratios. You can also buy extra horses. There's eight breeds of horse to collect, but they are all the same generic horse frame (size, shape) with a different texture. You can't make a custom-made mean beast or Shetland pony. You can switch between your horses, but can only play one at a time.

The health and happiness of your animal decrease over time, so you have to complete care tasks to maintain your virtual pet. There's 32 different care tasks to unlock, ranging from mucking out the stall and re-fitting horse-shoes, to giving vaccinations and plaiting the mane and tail. Each task is unlocked by reaching the prerequisite level.

Once you press the button for a task, it counts down to completion, which can range from a couple of minutes to many hours, as done in games like Smurf Village [Free].  Once the countdown reaches zero, the task is completed and you receive XP, while the horse gains health and happiness points. You can use gems (acquired from IAP or from each level upgrade) to immediately complete a task without any delay.

You can assign your animal to 32 different work tasks, to earn the coins needed for care tasks and tack (horse equipment). For example, your nag can be used for riding lessons, television work, or rides at the fairground. Again, you don't actually complete these tasks on the screen, they are simply count-downs. If your horses energy-levels get too low, he won't be able to work, unless he rests or gets a yummy sugary treat.

There's a series of show jumping events to compete in, so you'll want your nag to be in good shape.  Each competition has "entry requirements" such as a certain health level and training. You can either train your horse by completing a mini-game, or pay a trainer if you're impatient. As your horse moves towards a jump, a line moves across the screen and you have to tap a button so the line stops in the right color. If you're successful, the horse clears the jump, but the more you miss the mark, the worse the jump and the lower your score. You can work your way right to the world championships.

There's a market where items like stirrups, reins, saddles and boots can be purchased using coins and/or gems. You're given a few gems (1 gem per level upgrade, 3 gems for rating the app), or you can buy gems as in-app purchases.  The problem is that many items such as the best colorful equipment can only be purchased with gems. Yet, It seems unlikely that players will earn enough gems, without paying for in-app purchases.

The game features a social component too, as you can visit your friends stables to look after their horses.  One of the early assigned tasks is to visit a friend in your friend list, which helps promote the game, but is annoying if you want to play alone. Fortunately, there's a TouchArcade Forum for people seeking My Horse friends.  Also, be warned, the + GameCenter icon doesn't invite just one friend, it adds all of your friends with My Horse from Game Center.

This universal game has two Game Center leader-boards (total XP and total coins). Unfortunately your progress doesn't sync across devices, so you can't play with your iPad horse on your iPod.

My Horse is a wonderful game for horse-lovers and is worth a free download just to check out the realistic horse.  But if you're planning on playing this game for a long time, be prepared to spend some real money on gems, or accept that you probably won't be able to buy the best looking equipment, no matter how many coins you earn.  But, I guess that's still cheaper than a real horse.

Hat tip to Clint.

In a departure from the PC and console originals, the iOS Nancy Drew mobile mystery takes the form of an interactive book that works much like one of the old Choose Your Own Adventure stories. The primary portion of the experience is reading the story presented, eight chapters full of illustrations and media-enhanced hyperlinks. The other part of the app consists of three different kinds of mini-games. The outcome of a variety of hidden object games, word games, and horse racing games determine the path of the story and bring achievements. Several sideline mimi-mysteries are also included.

Brian also showed us Mini Monster Smash! [App Store], the fruit borne of Riptide's all-night coding frenzy at November's 360iDev Game Jam. The goal of the game is to smash a cute little red monster with a flyswatter to get it to fly as far as you can. Along the way the monster will bounce off of trampolines, bombs or float in bubbles.

And, finally, we had a look at an upcoming title called My Pet Zombie, which is being developed jointly with Recharge Studios. It's one for the virtual pet fan who also has a thing for zombies. The game puts a cute little zombie in a graveyard setting on your screen for you to love and nurture. It even dances. But don't take care of it and it's one more tombstone in the graveyard. The game also features social aspects, such as freinds' zombies going on a date, etc.

Shadow Ranch and Mini Monster Smash recently went live in the App Store, and My Pet Zombie is expected in late April or early May as a freemium release.

Luckily Ngmoco realized this, and Touch Pets Dogs 2 doesn't implement any cruel restrictions that prevent you from playing with your pet, rather it more closely resembles their recently released feline-themed virtual pet game Touch Pets Cats [Free]. And when I say resemble, I mean that it's practically identical. Touch Pets Dogs 2 gives you the ability to personalize your living space with a plethora of different kinds of furniture and items. These can then be “searched” by your pet which will net you some coins that can then be used to purchase more items. Coins can also be earned by taking care of your puppy and completing other types of goals in the game.

The catch is that the frequency with which you can search furniture is time limited, with longer wait times resulting in more coins. The IAP in Touch Pets Dogs 2 comes in the form of dog bones which can be used to speed up the wait times of coin collecting. You can also feed the bones directly to your dog which will send it into a state of excitement, similar to catnip in Touch Pets Cats, that will allow him/her to collect even more coins. There are other time limited events as well, like daily goals that can be completed, which can also be sped up with the use of bones. Unfortunately, when the time limits have been reached for coin collection you'll need to act quickly otherwise they will expire.

While I'm not really a fan of games that require you to keep a constant watch in order for your rewards not to expire, there are some really nice things about Touch Pets Dogs 2. The game supports the Retina Display on newer devices and the graphics have been much improved over the original. This is a very sharp looking game, and your puppy's mannerisms and personality are just adorable. There is also a staggering amount of different items to collect in the game, such as furniture, toys, clothing, and more. It's actually pretty fun to decorate your house and upgrade to premium items as you collect enough coins to do so.

If you aren't bothered by Ngmoco's freemium model and have enough free time to keep a vigilant eye on your game's progress, then you'll find a lot to like about Touch Pets Dogs 2. Honestly, I enjoy the game a lot, but I just can't get behind the limiting factors associated with playing. At the very least it's worth a download to check out Touch Pets Dogs 2 since it's free to do so, and you can leave any comments in the discussion thread in our forums with your own thoughts on the game.

Lil' Pirates from Capcom Mobile

Lil' Pirates [free] is an isometric loot-snagging game. You play as a boat's captain, and it's your job to assemble a crew, take charge during pirate ship attacks, and upgrade your boat and crew. I can't think of a direct point of comparison for this game, but within minutes of play, I think I can see the freemium catch: you need doubloons if you don't want to wait for tasks to complete, and you'll be needing to raid ye' old Capcom store for more.

Touch Pets Cats from ngmoco

If you've played Touch Pets Dogs [free], you'll be right at home with this one. In Touch Pets Cats [free], you're a proud owner of one of five adoptable breeds of cat. And as this owner, you'll be responsible for petting, feeding, and cleaning up poop, as well as decorating your own house. Touch Pets Cats has an in-game economy like most freemium titles, and for a price, you'll be able to increase the amounts of coins you receive by purchasing catnip.

Trade Nations from Amplified Games

Trade Nations [free] is your basic simulation / town romp, with the added bonus of a cool art style. In the game, you're responsible for a village that will eventually grow to a town via your purchasing and decision-making prowess. You can buy buildings and decorations, make villagers perform jobs that make your economy roll, and you can even specialize and sell off your resources at a premium to other nations.

Gun Bros from Glu Games

Gun Bros [free] isn't new, but I thought you'd like to know that a new update is available. Version 1.1.0 adds Game Center leaderboards, supports retina display, and addresses several bugs that plagued the original release. If you ran in to any issues that made you fed up with Gun Bros, it might be worth a second chance.

Pocket Frogs is a game of raising, breeding, and trading frogs. Each of your frogs will have three specific genetic traits that they inherit from their parent frogs, which according to NimbleBit will result in "many thousand possible emergent species." There are going to be multiple customizable habitats to raise your frogs in, and players will be responsible for keeping the frogs healthy, happy, and well fed by taking them out to explore the Pocket Frog pond.

Aside from breeding frogs, players will be able to get new frogs by ordering them in-game as well as trading frogs with friends via Plus+. There are also plans to have various challenges to breed certain frogs which rotate on a weekly and monthly basis and the frog store will rotate on a daily with new frogs to buy with in-game currency. NimbleBit is still hashing out plans on exactly how they're going to monetize Pocket Frogs, but have assured me that players will be able to access absolutely everything in game for free and whatever in-app purchases they finally decide on will be intended for serious frog breeders and otherwise entirely optional.

Pocket Frogs will be a free download, available for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and will take advantage of the iPhone 4's high-resolution Retina display. The game is slated for a September 15th launch, and those who download the title in its first week will receive an exclusive frog, the 'Black Floris Tribus'.

Not simply a reissue TouchPets: Dogs -- but with cats -- the upcoming title takes a different approach to the virtual pet experience in a number of areas. Perhaps most notably, the feed-to-play mechanic of the earlier title is gone, so you need not feed your pet every time you want a few minutes of playtime. In its place is catnip, which can be used to jack your cat up in order to get it to perform certain actions, like collecting coins from the sofa cushions, in order to further the game. You can read more about what we found in our time with the game in our hands-on article.

Ngmoco has recently released a new gameplay video that should give readers a clear look at the play mechanics found in TouchPets: Cats.

TouchPets: Cats is expected to arrive in the App Store later this year.

Dragooo differs in presentation to other pet-sims in that the game world is rendered in fully navigable 3D. Your focus point is always your dragon pet, who starts out as a fledgling and grows over 3 stages to a teen-sized dragon (think more Spyro and less Smaug), with wings large enough to finally fly.

Flying is ultimately the end-goal to your dragon's growth in Dragooo, and getting there requires the usual tasks of feeding, nurturing and exercising your pet. This is quite easy done with a little exploration of the great-looking subterranean lair that is your dragon's home.

Negotiating your dragon around his lair feels natural. The camera is controlled by simply swiping on the screen, and your dragon can be moved around by tapping at the desired location. An on-screen button lets you switch between interaction and navigation mode, the former of which lets you pat your dragon and begin to teach him to fly by dragging upwards with your finger. By moving towards other objects in the lair, such as the pond or to the fireflies or fruit-bats, interaction mode is activated automatically. This enables you to feed your dragon by dragging a critter to his mouth or motioning him to drink.

After nurturing your dragon for a while (30 minutes or so) he'll have grown into a dragon able to finally lift-off. This unlocks the racing option, where your dragon enters a mini-game where he careens through one of three maps to collect as many gems as possible. In this mode, he will also need to use several abilities (such as fire breathing) to get through the track. Gems collected can then be spent on items to customize your dragon and improve his attributes and skills.

Though this sounds comprehensive on paper, in practice all the above is a very straightforward and simple affair, able to be reached in an hour or two at most. And thus we arrive at our major criticism of Dragooo-- it is far too light on content at present. Flying is all there is to do once you have raised your dragon (other than continuing to nurture him) and though it looks terrific, it's not executed particularly well; the overly sensitive tilt controls being the only real challenge to each race.

There are also no social features to be found, despite all your races being timed and seemingly ripe for a high score table. That's not to say the developers have skimped on the game entirely, as the 3D engine does look amazing (and even though it was purportedly optimized only for the 3rd gen devices, some readers have had luck installing it on their 2G devices). We just think that in its current state, it is more a foundation for future content. If this content arrives and adds to the gameplay, Dragooo could well be terrific. As it stands though, Dragooo is an entertaining but very brief distraction.

App Store Link: Dragooo, $2.99.

Pocket Creatures begins in a temple, with you choosing the name and color of your critter. Hatching its egg and proceeding with the tutorial (which continues throughout the game in the form of stone tablets you pick up) introduces you to the basic mechanics of the game. Moving your little guy and navigating the game-world is straightforward, simply requiring double taps and familiar screen gestures.

On leaving the temple your creature is introduced to a respectable-sized garden of eden, teeming with life, hidden treasures and creature comforts. The tutorial continues here, introducing a few important friends that double as the tools to bringing your garden to life; a platypus that digs holes when you shake it; an anteater that ingests large bodies of water (and anything else around it); a woodpecker that, well...pecks things; and any one of these three to double as instant fertiliser factories.

Gardening is essentially the meat of the gameplay, with other activities being largely ancillary. You'll continually be digging holes all over your garden to find hidden items (that randomly spawn) and magical seeds to plant with. These seeds then require water and fertiliser to nourish to life, and may grow into either a simply food item, or a larger plant or tree that sprouts creature-altering fruits. Many of the achievements and rewards in the initial release are tied to gardening, either as a result of what you've grown, or instead what you've found by digging.

Though gardening is fun at first, it soon becomes monotonous, as new seeds are either too slowly revealed (and we didn't come across them in our extensive play), or the really interesting ones (ie. like the one that turns you into a tiger) are just too few in number to hold your attention. Plants require frequent fertiliser and water upkeep, and so your game eventuates into one where you're mostly concentrating on your green thumb or digging holes, with not much else required of you.

That's not to say there isn't anything else here to hold your attention, but that we wished there wasn't such a focus on gardening. Certainly, we have yet to mention the star of the show, who injects his own sense of life into the environment.

Your Pocket Creature is a moody little fellow who visibly responds to your actions. You can pat him, poke him or slap him to grant him a unique ability, such as a healing rainbow, a thunder cloud or a rain cloud above his head respectively; able to be directed by your gestures to effect the game world. If a pest comes to steal your crops for instance, you can fry him with a lightning bolt after prodding your creature into an angry fit. Fruit from magical seeds can give further powers, such as transforming your creature into cupid (or a carebear), able to make creatures fall in love with each other.

How you treat your creature and how you direct him to act molds his overall countenance. If you continually have him in an angry state, frying creatures with abandon, your character will inevitably develop an evil streak; terrorising the world around him when you're not actively directing him. Alternatively, feeding creatures when your creature is around conditions him to care for them in turn, developing a a happy angelic complex instead.

Many of these actions are means to achieve a very sizeable collection of achievements and rewards. Rewards are in the form of wearable items, affording you the opportunity of personalizing your creature beyond his initial coloring. There really does seem to be an extraordinary amount of items to unlock here, though there is no real direction given in the game as to how to attain them. Trial and error is the key, and though this adds to the game's longevity, we can't but help but feel a little more instruction (indeed, there are no tooltips at all in the game, something sorely missed) would serve to keep players that much more engaged.

As far as pet games go, Pocket Creatures is unlike anything out there. It doesn't have any of the social features of the popular Touch Pets (though it does use OpenFeint to record achievements) but it does present one of the more memorable and funny creatures to play with. Unfortunately, many of the objects you find at release currently do not have a purpose in the game (the developer promising updates to come which will flesh these out), perpetuating that directionless quality we mentioned earlier. We also experienced a few crash bugs on our 3GS testing device when transitioning between the two available areas, though these were infrequent.

Pocket Creatures is a charming pet sim with a lively, sandbox world that promotes exploration and experimentation. We're not convinced it's the definitive pet-sim we hoped it would be, but it certainly has the potential to be, particularly if the developers focus on keeping players engaged and entertained. iPad users will be pleased to hear that this is a universal app with an added Hi-Definition bonus' for the bigger screen and the developers have provided an iPad gameplay video which shows the difference the bigger screen makes.

App Store Link: Pocket Creatures, $2.99.

In Nimp you start with one nymph, with a second that you can get via a free in-game purchase with more presumably available in the future either as free or paid DLC with the first being a ninja nymph coming soon. Your nymphs can interact with each other, dance to your iPod music, and do other silly little activities to raise their stats.

If you're not a virtual pet person, Nimp doesn't seem to bring anything to the table that is likely to suck you in, but seems great for what it is. If nothing else, watching the two nymphs dancing to your terrible music maybe worth the price of admission alone.

App Store Link: Nimp - Nymph In My Pocket, $2.99

Makeout Mania! from StormHatch ($0.99)

Makeout Mania! is a "chain-reaction puzzler" that puts you in the role of that love-spreading cherub, Cupid, on a mission to pierce the heart of a school full of unsuspecting students with your arrows of love, sending them on a frenzied bid to kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.

The title offers 24 levels of gameplay in Puzzle Mode, where the mission is to pierce a heart and make the perfect match (consult the yearbook to see who's nuts about who) while avoiding the teachers at all cost. There's also Mania Mode where it's a race against the clock to trigger the most kisses possible in an ever-scrolling schoolhouse, with the option to compete against your Facebook and Plus+ friends.

Free, new levels are on the way and an update has been submitted that tweaks a few areas of gameplay.

App Store Link: Makeout Mania! ($0.99)

Flower Garden from SnappyTouch ($0.99)

A big part of Valentine's Day, for those of us that don't spend all our time playing iPhone games, is flowers. And, thanks to Noel Llopis of SnappyTouch, you can have your own lovely flower garden right inside your iPhone.

As we said in our initial review of the app, Flower Garden is not really a game. It does, however, fall into the same sim / virtual pet type experience that has boosted apps such as Koi Pond, Pocket God and Touch Pets Dogs to the heights of popularity in the App Store.

There's no real goal to Flower Garden. It's something of a zen-like experience, really. Grow flowers. Unlock new seeds. Clip flowers to make bouquets. And it's the last that really puts this game under the Valentine's Day crosshairs; you can make a lovely bouquet and email it to someone special. Basically, it turns your iPhone into a digital Cupid, with email for arrows. And, to make things even sweeter, the game is currently under a 60%-off weekend-only Valentine's Day sale at $0.99.

App Store Link: Flower Garden ($0.99, sale)

Whac-a-Mole: Whacky Valentines from Mattel (Free)

Everybody's played a whack-a-mole game, in one form or another. It's a pretty simple formula: the mole pops up out of its hole and you whack it.  And, who doesn't like to bludgeon moles? Especially when the damned things are trying to ruin Valentine's Day!

Whac-a-Mole: Whacky Valentines is basically a Valentine-themed version of the iPhone original [App Store] which is, as such games go, a pretty solid take on the whack-a-mole formula. Amusingly, the digital backboard of the game provides the occasional (though highly simplistic) mini-game -- a nice touch.

I'd go into further description of the title but...it's free, so just download it and start whacking.

App Store Link: Whac-a-Mole: Whacky Valentines (Free)

Touch Pets Dogs Valentine's Goodies Pack from ngmoco ($2.99 DLC)

Virtual pet buffs need not be left out in the cold on this day of love and merriment. Ngmoco is currently offering a Valentine's Goodies Pack as paid in-game DLC ($2.99) in Touch Pets Dogs for those that want to lavish their v-pooch with as much love as can be.

App Store Link: Touch Pets Dogs (Free)

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

My Lil' Bastard is a virtual pet game with an Adult Swim spin on it. This isn't your everyday Tamogotchi that just wanders around eating and sleeping, your lil' bastard has quite an attitude and seems to really take a liking to destroying the toys you get it and burning its cardboard box down. You eventually toilet train your lil' bastard, and even send it instant messages once you get it a computer... Assuming you don't kill it before then.

Like other Adult Swim games, the flash version of My Lil' Bastard can be played for free online. The iPhone port of the game is remarkably similar, with the only major difference being using your finger instead of a mouse. Here are the first few minutes of the flash version:

If you like virtual pet games, but found ngmoco's Touch Pets Dogs [Free] to be a little too cute for your tastes, My Lil' Bastard might be right up your alley. Try the flash version first, if you find yourself enjoying your flash lil' bastard, you'll have just as much fun on your iPhone.

App Store Link: My Lil' Bastard, $2.99

My Lil' Bastard is a fairly simple virtual pet game where you raise your own lil' bastard, starting with adjusting a heat lamp to determine its sex. From there you learn how to feed it, clean it, look after it, and keep it happy. Of course, being an Adult Swim game, this isn't your average virtual pet. Your lil' bastard will inevitably have an attitude problem which will lead to lots of vomiting, thrown molotov cocktails, and even breaking the water bottle you use to discipline him or her.

Like the other Adult Swim games, My Lil' Bastard is playable for free on the Adult Swim Games site, and this is a pocket-sized carbon copy of the same game with touch controls instead of a mouse pointer.

Here is the trailer for the identical flash game:

My Lil' Bastard is set for release on the 23rd of this month, so if you find an iTunes gift card under your Christmas tree and are looking for a not-so-adorable virtual pet-- Look no further than getting your own lil' bastard.

The core gameplay has remained largely unchanged since our first looks at the game earlier. The way your dog interacts with objects along with the various animations associated with each interaction seem very refined, and at times border the edge of the canine uncanny valley, if such a thing exists. The touch gestures to interact with your virtual dogs feel very natural and the way they romp around playing with the various toys and objects can be somewhat eerie at times with how much the in-game dogs act like puppies would in real life.

Since we last saw the game, one of the big additions is the resource management aspect. Your dog obviously needs to eat, and buying food requires spending puppy bucks. Puppy bucks are earned by keeping your dog happy by petting it, teaching it tricks, and fulfilling its other needs. Puppy bucks also can be used to buy new clothes for your dog along with accessories required for the various dog career paths previously discussed in the other previews.

The negative effects your dog can experience are limited to its various happiness statistics falling and your dog whining until you make it happy again. It can never starve or die, or really be abused in any way. You will never permanently run out of food -- if you use it all you will earn more slowly over time. There will never be a point where you are unable to get more food.

The big reveal with the latest showing of TouchPets Dogs was the deep Plus+ integration in the game. We've always been told that the game was going to offer a social experience as you interact with your friends' dogs, but seeing the way the whole system works really changed my opinion on the game from "I guess it sounds kind of cool" to "I can see myself getting way too involved in this game."

Each change to your dog's statistics, personality, and equipment/accessory load out is constantly synchronized with the TouchPets Dogs servers via your Plus+ login. Keeping all of your dog's information online guarantees that even if you invest hundreds of hours in to perfecting your in-game dogs, they will never be lost if your device fails or you upgrade to a new one. In addition to this, you and your Plus+ friends will have constant access to each others dogs to go on play dates.

If my dog feels like socializing, or if I feel like getting a second dog to play with, I just tap the globe icon, look through my friends list and invite their dog in to my game. This essentially grabs a snapshot of their dog off the Plus+ servers, and brings that dog with all of its statistics and equipment at the time in to my dog's house.

For instance, I was going through the scientist career path with my dog and eventually got to a mission that required two dogs. I went online, looked through my friends' available dogs, and invited Neil from ngmoco's dog Comet to play. Comet arrived both hungry and dirty, so I gave him some food and a quick bath then we went on to complete the science mission. I played with both dogs enough that Comet went home happy and in the process became friends with my dog.

I know it sounds silly, but how this all works is so simple and the way the dogs interact with each other is so intriguing to watch that I walked away from the experience completely amazed with what had just transpired. On top of this, the next time Neil opens TouchPets Dogs to play with Comet, he will find that he's well fed and clean.

Sounds great, right? But there's a catch: TouchPets Dogs currently can only be played with an active WiFi or 3G internet connection. ngmoco has put so much emphasis on the social aspect of the game that they seemingly have designed the interaction with other dogs as one of the primary focuses of your TouchPets experience. When I asked why there wasn't an offline mode, various technical limitations and conflicts with the synchronization process were cited.

I had a great time with TouchPets Dogs, but I really have to question the logic behind this decision. If you have an iPhone, you're in the clear, but I would think that most of the younger gamers that a game like this would appeal to would be playing from an iPod Touch in the backseat of a car or other places without WiFi access. With the game so close to submission to Apple, it appears unlikely that an offline mode will be included in its initial release, though they said it remained a point of discussion that they were considering.

All in all, the time I spent with the game really changed how I felt about TouchPets Dogs. The social aspects of playing with my friends' various dogs and forming relationships with these virtual pets is an oddly captivating experience, something that I was not at all expecting from the game.