With their bright colours and sweet flavourings, vapes have often been criticised for appealing too much to children.
Now, an exceptionally dark gadget dubbed the ‘Vape-o-Gotchi’ takes that to an entirely new level.
Inspired by the wildly popular Japanese toy Tamagotchi, this device links your e-cigarette to a virtual pet that dies if you stop puffing.
The creators behind this bizarre device said they decided to make it because ‘it’d be kind of funnier to be evil.’
The Vape-o-Gotchi is a standard Elf Bar e-cigarette connected to custom electronics that detects whether or not the vape is being used.
Explaining the gadget’s morbidly simple premise, the creators say: ‘It’s a vape with a Tamagotchi in it.
‘And if you do not hit the vape, the Tamagotchi will die.’
Thankfully, the vape’s creators say they don’t have plans to make it commercially available.
Dubbed the ‘Vape-o-Gotchi’ this dark gadget combines an e-cigarette with a digital pet that dies if you stop puffing
The Vape-o-Gotchi was created by Rebecca Xun and Lucia Camacho for New York University’s Stupid Hackathon.
This is a unique engineering competition in which teams compete to ‘make something stupid’.
Speaking to Futurism, Xun and Camacho say they had originally intended the device to be a tool to help vapers kick their habit.
In its original form, the Tamagotchi-style pet would actually die if its owner started to vape – hopefully urging people to vape less often.
Camacho says: ‘There’s a big trend of parental locking yourself.
‘It would be cool if you could have that for nicotine.’
However, after entering the Stupid Hackathon, the pair found their darker, pro-vaping version was better suited to the competition’s goals – and far more amusing.
In the original Tamagotchi games, players look after a virtual pet by providing it with food and training.
The Vape-o-Gotchi was created by Rebecca Xun and Lucia Camacho for New York University’s Stupid Hackathon, a competition to create the ‘something stupid’. The creators say they chose to make the pet die if users stopped vaping because ‘it’d be kind of funnier to be evil.’
The Vape-o-Gotchi, meanwhile, offers a much more simplistic ‘game’.
Xun says: ‘It only survives off the vape at the moment.’
Electronically, the device is also extremely simple in its construction.
The only additions to a store-bought vape are a screen, a small computer, and a small device that measures when the vape is being used.
The device tracks the pet’s health and the remaining charge in the vape, changing the pet’s animation depending on whether the user is vaping or not.
On social media, the device has caused a stir with some fans begging for the release of a real Vape-o-Gotchi while others call for it to be banned.
On X, formerly Twitter, one commenter wrote: ‘The tamagotchi vape is killing meee I want one so bad I’ll make sure to keep it alive’.
‘The tamagotchi vape is speaking to me in a language I didn’t know I understood,’ another joked.
Just like the original Tamagotchi game (pictured), users of the Vape-o-Gotchi have to keep their pets alive by providing for their needs. The big difference is that this virtual pet only ‘survives off vape’
On social media, the Vape-o-Gotchi proved to be divisive. While some thought that it was a bad idea, others said they loved the concept
One social media commenter said they would love a Vape-o-Gotchi of their own and would ‘make sure to keep it alive’
One social media user added simply: ‘I need the tamagotchi vape’.
Not entirely unaware of the well-reported health impacts of vaping, many commenters also embraced the device’s dark humour.
One commenter mused: ‘Cancer or dead Tamagotchi’.
While one enthusiastic fan proclaimed: ‘I WILL DIE BEFORE I LET MY TAMAGOTCHI DIE.’
However, not everyone online saw the funny side of the Vape-o-Gotchi.
‘Can we please ban this sort of thing,’ one commenter implored.
They added: ‘A tamagotchi vape is only going to get more vaping.’
While another bluntly wrote: ‘That should def be a crime.’
A few commenters embraced the dark humour of the project, musing whether it was worth getting cancer to keep their pet alive
One enthusiastic fan proclaimed they would rather be killed by the health impacts of vaping than allow their Tamagotchi to die
Other commenters were not so impressed, with one saying that the Vape-o-Gotchi should be ‘a crime’
Another commenter called for devices like this to be banned, claiming that it would only introduce more children to vaping
In the future, Xun and Camacho say they might add the original ‘good’ mode in which users have to avoid vaping to keep their pet alive.
Other improvements might include an egg-shaped enclosure to make the device more like a real Tamagotchi and a ‘cuter’ virtual pet.
The pair have considered publishing their findings with the project so that people can make their own versions of the device.
But, for now, the creators say that this remains ‘a fun project’ and not something they are looking to sell commercially.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .