Furry Paws Versus Neopets: Virtual Pet Websites Explored

Amy Brantley, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Aug 28, 2006 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

I've been playing with virtual pets since my Granny bought me a Giga Pet for Christmas one year. After that, I found online virtual pets and have been playing Neopets for over 6 years now. Recently, I decided to checkout other virtual pet sites and see if any were as fun as Neopets. After 5 or 6 different places, I was disappointed to find that most sites just weren't as good. But being a dog owner I tried Furry Paws last and found that it was an okay site, no where near as fun as Neopets, but it's pretty fun if you are a dog lover.

Furry Paws is like I said a virtual pet website. Once you sign up, you will receive $75,000 worth of virtual money to buy your puppy, food, visit to the vet, shots, etc. You can choose almost any breed of dog. The object of the game is to raise a puppy and then enter you dog in dog shows once they are grown. You are able to get jobs, play games, go shopping, play with your dog, take them to the vet, etc.

I do have to say the games are very disappointing and are poorly designed. This site quickly gets boring. I played the game for probably around 15 minutes and was bored. Note that, other virtual pet websites I had tried (other than Neopets) either didn't keep my attention that long or weren't interesting enough to even register for. Furry Paws is a very cute concept, but it needs a lot of work. There should be more games, more things to do with your pet, more shops, more everything.

Neopets on the other hand gives you all of that and more. You won't receive very much virtual money when joining, so you must find other ways to find money to feed your pets. You can earn money by playing video games and there are several of them (160 to be exact) and a couple are very addictive. I've spent hours at a time playing Destruct-O-Match II, which is a game where you click on clusters of blocks that are the same color, trying to clear all the blocks off the screen. You can also get jobs at Neopets, but they are very hard to come by.

You have to be very quick once jobs are posted on the Basic job board, or shell out several thousand Neo Points for a job coupon. Once you have chosen a species of pet (and there are several) you will spend time playing with your pet, grooming them, getting them trained, feeding them, etc all to raise the level of your pet. Your pets can also battle against other pets in the Battle Dome. You can also enter your pets in beauty contests, build them a home complete with furniture, go on quests to win money and prizes, interact with other users, and so much more.

There are several more virtual pet sites out there that I haven't tried yet, but I think it will be hard to find one that is better than Neopets. Though Furry Paws will continue to draw dog lovers into their site, they just won't keep them if they don't work to add more games (they only have 2), ways to interact with your pet, and just make the site more visually appealing. Regardless, I still suggest you try Furry Paws and make a decision on your own as to whether or not it's a fun virtual pet website. And if you love this sort of thing, you really must try Neopets, it's a lot of fun, no matter how old you are.

Published by Amy Brantley - Featured Contributor in Lifestyle

A passionate writer who specializes in food-related content and has hopes of changing the way people think about cooking. Has published over a thousand pieces of food-related content. Amy is available for wr... View profile

Furry Paws Versus Neopets: Virtual Pet Websites Explored

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