A Boopets Review

[vanillaeclair]

If you think this review is unfair in anyway, feel free to respond!

Beginner's Appeal

The front page looks unique and screams 'Join Us!'. The slideshow at the top of the page is cool to watch as it advertises the features that the site can offer. Testimonies from various users are also flashed below, some are well-known people I know from VirtualPetList.com, so it persuaded me all the more to join. However, for those who don't know these users, might just be turned off by the more older and mature players for it's kiddy-ish looks.

There's a bunch of things a player could do, but for a newbie they'll have to look for them well. There's candies to collect and feed your pet so you can get a place at the Hall of Boo. There's also collections a user themselves could complete. Then there's some quests a user can do, but there's only one quest game so far on the website. At first I didn't even know what to do other than treat my pet well, gain money and interact with the community. I wish there was some sort of page like a guide for a newbie to read so they know the things they can do on the site.

Getting around


Neat drop-down menus~

The layout of Boopets is fairly simple and it's easy enough to navigate around. There's even some tabs below at the bottom of the screen that act as quick links to the shops and even a chatroom. It felt a bit like Facebook, but in a good way that is convinient. The logo however, at the top, could look a bit more exciting. The pinetrees and the fog nearby almost feels more like Christmas than Halloween actually, because the fog strongly resembles of snow!

Rating: 9/10

Pets

Let's start off with the pets. One can choose from the five different pets Boopets can offer. It's limited, but at least they're not all based on one species of animal. There's even a unique cyclops like pet for those who are looking for something out of the ordinary.


aksldfja;kf AWWWW

There are three things your pet needs to be satisfied with: Hunger, Mood and Hygeine. All start off at a perfect 100% when you create one. I know a lot people out there who don't like to actually 'take care' of their pet, like the users of Subeta or Paladore. However, Boopets brings back the original focus of a virtual pet simulation nicely.



The only downside to this is that it takes a long time to get them happy again if their numbers deplete to zero. Every food/toy/cleaning item will only recover 5 points, and for a fully bloated/happy/clean pet, you have to reach until 100 points for each trait. I find this very slow and annoying.

EDIT: Turns out the 5 points for every item thing only applies to Common items. The number of points gets higher if you feed your pet rarer items! Thanks Drea for the input!

For coloring your pet, they come in a lot of basic colors available in the rainbow, as well as Boopet's own exclusive colors such as Superhero, Ghostly and Were. However, the exclusive colors are only available for those who pay real money to the site, but I suppose it's a reasonable way for a new site to make money.

The pets at the Pound are crazy expensive for a newbie too! The prices for each pet there range from 35k to 40k from what I've seen. Sometimes, users like me would rather pick up someone's unwanted pet at the pound instead of just creating a new pet, and seeing prices like these are an absolute scare. Some of these pets aren't even exclusively colored!

Rating: 8/10

Games

Earning Boobills is a bit too easy in Boopets. Bat Bob provides a steady amount of free Boobills for the user, but it sometimes feels too easy. I wish there was more of a challenge to earn money. Roll the Bones is at least a tiny bit more challenging, but it gets repetitive to play. I also find it troublesome that I have to go back to the game's frontpage instead of just rolling again automatically after rolling.


What shall we play today?

Doing Quests at the Carve-O-Quest is another good challenge to earn Boobills, but sometimes, like most quests I try to do on other petsites, I usually get paid less than what I paid to purchase an item. This usually happens if I can't find the item I need from the NPC shops and have to resort to buying from usershops. Like what most users do, they sometimes double the value of an item.

After playing Boopets for a while, I'm very cautious when playing Clairvoyant. It's basically a freebie feature on Boopets that acts like a double-edged sword. There's no guarantee if you get a good freebie (Free boobills, items) or a bad freebie (drop boobills, get items stolen). I seem to get bad freebies most of the time. At one point, I even lost 5k which I think was a bit too much.

Rating: 7/10

Art

While the art for the pets is undoubtly cute (I've got no complains here), some of the items look like they need a revamp, especially the clothes for the human avatar. Try comparing the Dapper Yellow Sleeveless Shirt with a Carrot Seed Packet. Obviously the packet of carrot seeds look much more appealing. There's good shading, highlights, and looks like it's been done by a professional. The shirt looks nothing like that, but just a flat yellow vest with unbearably thick lines. Another item, the Epic Purple Short Socks, don't even match the same shade of purple when worn on the human avatar! I know there's a preview, but at least make the item have the same shade.


That's pretty darn handsome for a packet of carrot seeds

Other than most of the clothing items, everything else is fine.

Rating: 7/10

Community

From where I am, not a lot of people go online on the site. The biggest number of people online while I'm online is 7. To a newbie, this might give mixed messages. Either the place is super new to the point that not a lot of people know about it, or it's just plain deserted.

However, when you do get to meet the other people who play Boopets, everyone is suprisingly friendly and pleasant to each other. Even the staff is friendly and wouldn't mind to have a chat. I don't think I had a hard time mingling with all the different users.

Rating: 10/10

Overall

Taking care of the pets here is challenging, but feeding your pet is rewarding if you'd like a spot at the Hall of Boo. Making money is easy, but can get boring quite easily and the community is great. Not the best website, but it's not bad either. There's still plenty of time for Boopets.com to grow!

Rating: 8/10

[myrianna]

how do you come up with the ratings? Like from your review, you say the games are too easy, and repetitive, quests don't give rewards that are worth more than it costs to complete them etc. yet you give it 7/10...going from what you said it sounds lower than that :/

[vanillaeclair]

@myrianna - Because in the end, you get money anyway. The quest thing also applies to almost every pet game I've played, so I thought that shouldn't really pull down the rating of the games too much. Plus there's the weekly giveaway that I didn't mention that gives out free quite-rare items every week, which is cool. The tombola is also very nice too - the items you get to pull out have like semi-rare to godly-rare rarities. The games deserves a 7/10 because of that.

EDIT: The reason why I'm mentioning mostly negative points in the review is because @paul_sonny asked me for crits before hand. I felt like I mentioning my dissatisfactions was more important at this time if I wanted the site to grow. The next day, he gave me to go sign to post the review I gave him here.

EDITx2: *trying to ping paul_sonny - I thought he has an account here? D: *

[kami]

@PaulSonny

No underscore

It's a good review, thanks for helping Boopets out

[Drea]

Thanks so much for the review, vanilla. : ) I think you make many good points. There is one thing that I noticed is incorrect, and that is that only "extremely common" items give +5 for feeding/grooming/playing with. The bonuses increase as rarities do. : )

I think you make a great point about there needing to be a guide or a tutorial, and I also agree that the pound prices are a little expensive. As far as the Clairvoyance game goes, it is a bit of a double-edged sword, and 5k getting lost in one go may be a bit much for users. Perhaps these can be taken into consideration and adjusted.

Overall I hope that Paul and the other staffies at BooPets can all discuss what you've mentioned in your review so that it can be made an even more fun place to be. I know that Paul has many new features, revamps, and upgrades planned (as well as several that are currently in the works!) and I'm sure that your review will help make it a better site.

(Also, thank you for the compliment on the carrot seed packet <3)

[Joy]

Thank you for this review. <33

[vanillaeclair]

@Drea Ahh so I've been feeding my pet common food all along! XD Thank you for mentioning that. I'll edit my review in a bit.. Once I get ahold my laptop after school!

[Lolly]

Just to add.. The top image of the moon/trees is meant to be a lot lower.. Coz you can see where I drew the grass and stuff.. That would be why it currently might resemble snow.. ><

Edit: Ref: http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/3273/layoutfb.png

[vanillaeclair]

@Lolly - Perhaps a semi transparent white would look more like a fog?

[chinclub]

Great review and a great site. I joined it yesterday and am still learning my way around. I second the idea for a tutorial. My poor avatar was cold and naked for quite awhile before I figured out how to get clothes from my inventory into my wardrobe and then onto its body! LOL Of course I am very new to virtual pet sites so it is probably easier for new members who are used to those sorts of games.