My Little Flufties
September 28th, 2023
Out of sheer boredom and a desire to spend every waking moment of my life talking about video games, I used this randomizer to pick a random retro game to write a blog post about. This is what happened next...
There aren't as many screenshots as I would like this time around, because capturing screenshots of a DS game on a modded 3DS is a bit finicky (and it even crashed the game at one point). Here's a video you can watch instead
On this episode of The Floofer Zone: Floofy plays another game meant for 5 year olds
In My Little Flufties, you select your very own Flufty, give it a name, and then watch it hatch from its egg. It is then unceremoniously plopped down into a big open field with many little points of interest scattered about, such as baskets of fruit, freshwater puddles and lakes, slides, swing sets, among (lol) other things
I bestowed upon my Flufty the default name: NutNut. He is my son
Most of the "gameplay", if you can call it that, consists of tapping the bottom screen of your DS to move your Flufty towards where you want it to go, and then watching as it waddles veeery slowly over to wherever you tapped. The speed (or lack thereof) of your Flufty's gait is my least favorite thing about this game, as it drags out the whole affair and makes it much more slower paced than it really needs to be
That being said, My Little Flufties is more of a Tamagotchi simulator than it is a game. Much like in any virtual pet toy, you have to feed your Flufty, clean it, and keep it entertained so that it can live a long and healthy life. This is where those fruit baskets and swing sets and the like come in: you've got to maneuver your Flufty over to them to interact with them and keep your little creature's meters topped up. Think of it like the Sims, except your Sim happens to look like a rejected Pokémon design
After aimlessly wandering a bit further, I discovered a place where you could play minigames with your Flufty. They're incredibly easy, and all you have to do is tap on the very obvious targets, but at least it's something to do! You also get rewarded with trophies and medals if you do well enough in the minigames, and it seems like the goal of the game might be to collect them all. I only found two minigames before I stopped playing though
It was at this point that my cynicism regarding what I was playing began to wear off, and I found myself actually enjoying My Little Flufties, even if it was just a tiny bit. Putting aside how simplistic the gameplay is, I started to appreciate how the environment your Flufty wanders around in is pleasant and colorful, and how the music gives off a very cozy vibe. It was oddly relaxing? Not something I would play for a long period of time, but there's still value in a silly little virtual pet game even if it's not the deepest thing in the world
I ended up reaching a river at the edge of the world, and then I looked at the top screen and noticed that my Flufty was starving to death. uh oh
By some miracle, even with NutNut having the walking speed of a sleep-deprived sloth, we reached the fruit basket at the starting area of the game. I pressed start, and paused to collect my thoughts
As a reviewer, my brain wanted to let NutNut die. After all, how else will I know whether your Flufty can actually die in this game? For all I know, the meters mean nothing, and thus the last thing about this game that I could describe as engaging would go away. It would be the difference between a rating of "It's okay" and a rating of "It's bad". It's my job to be as thorough as I can within my 1 hour time limit… right?
My heart said no. My heart wanted NutNut to live. And so I tapped on the fruit basket
This has been my first impressions of My Little Flufties for the DS. I didn't play for much longer after saving NutNut— I felt like I had already seen all the game has to offer. While I can't give this game an "It's good" rating, I can say that it managed to surpass my (admittedly very low) expectations. In other words, at least it was better than Attack of the Toybots :)
