I grew up loving virtual pet games, but one thing I ve been thinking about a lot while building Sensipets is what made those worlds feel special beyond just collecting pets.
Was it discovering weird hidden features? The economy? Minigames? Community? NPCs and lore? Just having a little world you could check every day?
Sensipets has grown into a pretty big interconnected world, but I m always trying to make sure it keeps that feeling of discovery (like with Bands).
What s something you miss from older virtual worlds that modern games rarely recreate?
One design question I keep running into with Sensipets: How much should the game explain to you, versus letting you stumble into things?
Sensipets has a lot of interconnected systems, and I love the feeling of discovering something unexpected. But there s obviously a point where "mysterious" becomes "I had no idea this feature existed."
A lot of AI-in-games experiments start with NPC conversations. I think the more interesting opportunity is underneath that.
While building Sensipets, I ve been using AI to help reason about interconnected game systems and code paths and all the weird edge cases that appear when those systems interact.
Adopt a pet, then discover how deep the world goes. Explore strange places, uncover new species and items, play games, trade with players, meet characters, and stumble into systems you didn't know existed. Sensipets is a free browser world that keeps expanding - with new discoveries, stories, locations and things to do.