Pet Hatchery - a hatchery for virtual pets

PetHatchery.co.uk is a fansite for virtual pet owners. It currently supports players of three free games, DragonCave, Unicreatures and Magistream, although more are planned, and other games can be discussed on the forums.

These games work by gaining views and clicks, so this fansite is a way to meet up, get clicks and find other games you might be interested in.

(If you aren't sure what virtual pet games are, there's a section at the bottom that describes them, and gives you a few links to get started).

Note: You don't have to be a player to help creatures out with views and clicks, so why not visit the hatchery and have a look around?

Time Limit: Creatures remain in the hatchery for 3 days.

Extras: Forum, RSS feed from Hatchery, regular status tweets.

The Dragon Cave Hatchery takes adults and eggs, which you can add directly from your scroll. It allows dragons to be given views and clicks without leaving the hatchery site, and adult dragons are automatically removed.

It also offers a rotator, which shows a small selection of Dragons from the hatchery, updated every ten seconds, to get extra views for the creatures.

Time Limit: Creatures remain in the hatchery for 5 days.

Extras: Forum, RSS feed from Hatchery, regular creature tweets.

The Magistream hatchery takes creatures input by users with the "Embed Mulitple" code from their keep. Adults are automatically removed. Although creatures are in for five days, if they haven't become adult there is no reason not to reinsert them.

The regular tweets are also a useful source of clicks and promotion for magistream creatures.

Time Limit: None

Additional Features: Forum

Sadly Unicreatures is likely to be removed from the site, after Unicreatures appears to have closed.

As well as the basic hatcheries, the extra features include:

• Twitter
• RSS
• Forums

 If your game isn't represented above, you can start a thread on the forum for views and clicks (and discussion).

Pet Hatchery Homepage
The Homepage for the Pet Hatchery

Pet Hatchery - Dragon Cave
The Hatchery for players playing Dragon Cave, (find the game at http://www.dragcave.net)

Pet Hatchery - Magistream
A place for players of Magistream (http://www.magistream.com) to get clicks.

Pet hatchery - Unicreatures
A place for Unicreatures (http://www.unicreatures.com) to get clicks

There are a number of free online pet games. These are games where once you sign up you get a virtual pet, usually as an egg, which only grows if you get it views and clicks from other people.

Players often post these to forums, their websites or blogs if they have them, and anywhere where other web users may find them. The aim is to grow them through all their stages to adulthood (e.g. the four stages of a Unicreatures Diamond egg are show below)

All the games work differently - some have time limits, some only let creatures grow up when they are clicked - and the artwork is usually excellent. They are also mostly free, so if a game asks you to pay to play, be wary. All the games that the hatchery supports are free to play.

Dragon Cave
A game by TJ09, this was one of the first and best hatching games. Users have eggs, which have to hatch in seven days into hatchlings, and then have a further seven days to grow up - otherwise the egg dies.

Magistream
Magistream creatures do not die, but require clicks rather than views to grow.

Unicreatures
With outstanding artwork and completely free to play, Unicreatures only grow when users click on them and then click a button on the page. Sadly it appears defunct.