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What is a fanlisting?
A fanlisting is a place for all the fans of a particular topic to come together and build the biggest listing of people all around the world who are fans of that subject. ~ TFL
What is Digital Doggie?
Digital Doggie is a little toy where you raise a dog from birth until death.
Packaging and Instructions
The pet was plastic encapsulated to a "hanging card.". The instructions were on a white 8 1/2 by 11 sheet that was folded and placed between the folded over sections "hanging card." As with most pets, the card made no mention that the instructions were inside of it. Many youth and adults throw away the instructions because they do not know they are there. The package states the pet is for ages 5 and up.
The instructions were in the same font we have seen used by many other Giga Pet instructions sheets. The font has a somewhat engineering/architecture hand printed look that is very easy to read. The headings and keywords are bolded which makes it easy to find things. The graphics are large enough to be seen and understood. The various functions of the pet are presented in the instructions in exactly the same order the icons appear across the pet's display. This makes it much easier to new users. We strongly encourage other manufacturers to do the same. As mentioned below, I did have some problems with the actual icons used on the display. Some did not seem to be very logical.
Controls
Digital Doggie is a 4 button pet (Left, Mode, Enter, Right), with a nice large display that has easily viewed icons for the functions. The controls and instructions make it an "easy to run" pet. Some pets seem confusing to the new user, it is hard to figure out "what does what", but Digital Doggie is very straight forward and easy to understand. As we mention below, a little more work on selecting better icons for the pet could make it even easier to run. A reset button is provided on the back of the pet.
The "mode" button toggles you between the normal game mode and the clock mode. The sound, "bell tone", appears as a "bell" symbol when in the clock mode. The sound can be turned off and on by using the left and right buttons while in the "clock mode".
Features of the Pet
» Clock
» Sound (off/on)
» Naming the pet
» Feed
» Sleep
» Play
» Doctor
» Cleaning
» Health Meter/Score
» Training
» Discipline
» Alert (icon alerts you that your pet needs attention)
Using the Pet
When you first remove the "pull strip", you set the clock and name your pet. Many people really like being able to name the pets. The buttons are nice and large with a good "feel" to them. They are far enough apart for large fingers to easily work them.
Just looking at the screen the "feed icon" is a bit confusing. It is the first icon presented across the top. It seems somewhat logical that it is the feed icon since that is what you do very frequently, but the shape and appearance of the icon is "strange." After looking at the instructions sheet you can figure it out. I think they need a more easily understandable feed icon.
Once you do select the feed icon you see a bowl of food. If you have not read the instructions, you are not aware that you can use the left and right keys to toggle between this bowl of food and a bone. As with the other Giga Pets, Digital Doggie has a healthy food (bowl of food) and a treat (bone). Some other virtual pets display both foods at once and allow you to toggle between them. I think that is a better method.
You can feed the pet endlessly (over and over and over). Some other pets only allow you to feed them twice then you have to wait a while to feed them again. I think that method is more realistic.
The pet beeps at you when it needs attention. I noticed it gave 2 beeps when it pooped.
The "reward" is used to reward your pet when it does a trick properly. I thought the reward icon looked like a broom and kept wanting to select it to clean up the poop. Once selected and entered, it gives the dog a bone. The proper "clean" symbol was a shower head.
The health meter (heart icon) reports your pets age and weight, Health (thick round ring symbol) and happiness (smiley face symbol), hunger (food dish symbol) and discipline (I still can figure out what this symbol is supposed to be, looks like top half of a blackened in circle with a grin drawn under it). and your overall score. You have to hit the mode button to get out of the health meter. I found that a bit confusing and it is not pointed out in the instructions.
The "Play" is chasing a ball as it bounces across the screen. Many virtual pet "games" are a bit weak, but I found this one boring even by virtual pet standards.
Digital Doggie takes naps during the day.You can turn the light out when the dog goes to sleep.
Going to the doctor just puts you in an ambulance and he is visited by the doctor. Some pets allow you to select a treatment or vitamins.
Tricks/Training/Reward : if you see your pet do a neat trick and want to encourage him to do it again, you are supposed to select the training icon then the word reward appears on the display. Press enter again and your dog is given a bone. It seems like this is kind of a lengthy process, why can't it be like the clean function which cleans the pet or poop when I select it instead of making me push enter again?
When you pet needs serious attention it beeps and some black arrowheads above and below the attention icon in the lower right hand corner of the display begin to flash. While reviewing the controls today, I managed to get the attention arrowheads flashing as well as another similar pair of arrowheads in the lower left hand corner of the screen. The dog had pooped and I needed to use the clean icon. These flashing arrowheads in the lower left corner are near the clean icon which made me think I had selected it. It was not selected it was just flashing. The selector was still on the incons at the top of the display. This made it difficult for me to tell when the clean icon was selected.
On the trip, I thought I was taking good care of my doggie, but he kept dying (becoming and angel dog with wings).
Dimensions
The case was shaped sort of like a diving bell, It was about 1.915 inches wide at its widest part, about 2.275 inches tall (including the .16 inch protrusion at the top to retain the keychain), and .680 thick (the buttons stick up and make the total assembly thicker than this dimension).
The cut our for the display is about .855 inches wide by .800 tall. Icons are displayed at both the top and the bottom of the display.
Batteries
Two of the normal virtual pet button cell batteries are used by the pet. They are both inserted with their large flat side "up" (facing you when you put them in). The battery cover is only retained by one screw. This screw is somewhat larger than most other battery cover screws and it is retained by the cover itself when you loosen it (it stays with the cover and does not come out, fall to the floor, and get lost). This is a very nice feature.
Warranty and Repair
The instruction sheet provides details on their 90 day limited warranty. It says the pet will be repaired or replaced in the 90 day period if returned to Tiger or the dealer with proof of the date of purchase. If you send it back to Tiger, you are to pay the freight and insure it.
The warranty section also says that products returned without the original receipt or after the 90 day period, but within one year of purchase will be repaired or replaced for $4.00.
The Repair Center section of the intructions tells you to send them a note with the game's model number, sales slip, date of purchase, place of purchase, and price paid and "We will do our best to help."
It looks like you better keep your original instructions sheet (has model number in top left corner) and purchase ticket as well as write where you purchased it and make sure it has a date on it if you wish to get it repaired or warrantied by Tiger Electronics. In real life, chances are you are not going to keep all this stuff. Plus the pets are so economical, you will probably just try new batteries and if that doesn't work, throw it away and get another pet.
Why the fanlisting?
When I was little I had always a pet dog but my mom and I lived in an apartment that didn't allow pet dogs or cats. I was at a toy store with my mom one day and saw this toy. I bought it thinking now I can have a pet dog of my own to take care of. I could even take it with me to school. I may not have the toy anymore but I do still love it. It is my favorite Giga Pet game. I had also Compu Kitty and I stil have the Lonny Tunes one which I play with all the time. There was originally a fanlisting for this but it was removed from TFL for not updating. I had joined that fanlisting and had decided to make a new one for it.
Version 1 of Bite Size was made by me using Paint Shop Pro 7, Microsoft Paint, and Notepad. The fonts used in the layout were default with my computer and the images used was found by doing an image search at google.com
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