Macrogatchi Is the Scaled-Up Tamagatchi You Didn't Know You Needed

Those of us currently in our 30s were prime targets for the Tamagotchi fad of the late 1990s and now we're even primer targets for Tamagotchi-related nostalgia. Many of us still have fond memories of caring for our Tamagotchi pets and cleaning up their poops. But pick up a real vintage Tamagotchi and you'll probably be surprised by the device's very rudimentary quality. For example, the screen didn't even have a backlight and that made it impossible to play with your pet during a long road trip. That's why Make It For Less is reviving the concept in the form of the Macrogatchi.

A big part of the original Tamagotchi design was its small size. "Tamagotchi" is a Japanese portmanteau that means "egg watch," which accurately describes its form factor. Bandai designed the devices to fit onto key chains and so the screens were tiny and the buttons were only suitable for little child fingers. Make It For Less wanted to take the same basic concept, but scale it up into something easier for adults to handle and with improvements that would make it more pleasant.

The biggest change is to the screen. Compared to the screen on the original Tamagotchi, this thing is massive. It is a 3.5" full-color TFT LCD with a resolution of 480×320 and it even includes touchscreen capability — though there aren't any plans to utilize that at this time. That gives plenty of real estate for nice color graphics and, of course, a backlight for playing in the dark.

That screen connects to an ESP32 development board via SPI. The ESP32 has tons of processing power, so there is room to replicate the Tamagotchi functionality and expand it. The ESP32 also has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, which could be used for Pokémon-style trading of pets.

And that's the big tama-gotcha here: this project isn't finished yet and Make It For Less is still working on fleshing out the idea. So this isn't ready for consumption and there isn't a demonstration to watch. But there is an upside: Make It For Less is taking suggestions and even looking for help with designing the graphics. So you have a chance to influence the future of this project and give us the enbiggened Tamogatchis that we crave.