👾 tamaR - Play Tamagotchi anytime, anywhere - Shiny Contest Submission

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tamaR - Play Tamagotchi anytime, anywhere

Authors: Almarch

Abstract:
Finally an app for xeno-biologists to study the most friendly invasive species !

Who said a real-time video game cannot run on R-Shiny ? This project integrates Tamalib E0C6S46 Epson MCU emulator as a web app using R-Shiny framework. It may be used to emulate a Tamagotchi.

Once the app hosts a living Tamagotchi:

  • It can be reached anywhere, from a computer or a smartphone
  • As for the original toy, it keeps a consistent timeline even if its owner is not actively playing with it.

The Tamagotchi won the 1997 Economics Ig Nobel prize for "diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets". As the goal of this package is not to cause the next economic crash, it comes with a kind bot that will care for your virtual pet as you focus on analysing your data with POSIT solutions.

The ROM is not provided: connect as admin (admin / qwerty) and load the ROM. The author do not endorse game piracy: check your local regulation concerning retro games emulation.

Full Description:

Check out the main documentation: GitHub - Almarch/tamaR: An R app to play the original Tamagotchi online
Check out the documentation for the demo instance: GitHub - Almarch/tamaR at posit

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Long story short, in the demo instance:

  • Connect as admin with the default credentials: admin, password: qwerty.
  • Change the passwords.
  • Enable the automatic care bot if you wish the player to use it.
  • From the "aesthetics" panel, load a working Tamagotchi ROM e.g. tama.b, rom.bin, rom.h or rom_12b.h.
  • Finally, don't forget to launch the emulation using the START button before leaving the admin board.
  • You may now connect as player and meet your new best friend !

Shiny app: https://almarch.shinyapps.io/tamaR
Repo: GitHub - Almarch/tamaR at posit

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As the demo instance requires a bit of parameterization & shuts down after a certain time of inactivity, here is a much simpler version of the app.

https://creature.ovh/

It runs on a VPS that, unlike shinyapps.io, does not shut down when not in use. Therefore, the pet keeps a consistent timeline (it has been set to UTC+2).

It runs with the argument light = T from the app launcher so that there is no need for credentials. Be careful, this is not intended to be a multi-player game. If someone else is interacting with the pet, please wait a few minutes or you may turn it crazy :face_with_spiral_eyes:.

The automatic care feature and the sprites switch are not available on this demo version.

Generally speaking, using light = F and setting-up robust credentials would be a safer option in order to avoid sharing the pet custody with the world wide web.