Neopets games are coming to your phone—here are 5 we want to play ASAP

If you were on the Internet during the early ’00s, you know what Neopets is. The virtual, pet-based community brought us such gems as Faerie Quests, the daily free omelette, and novelty paintbrushes, and also taught us such useful skills as stock forecasting and HTML (who else learned how to code from Neopets?). However, the Neopets user base has arguably stagnated in its current online form, and an earlier mobile version failed to connect with users. But Neopets is trying again for the smartphone market through arguably its most appealing feature: its games.

Oh, Neopets games. Even though you were huge, sometimes glitchy Flash animation files that brought our early desktops to a standstill and tested our dial-up connections, we were all addicted to the simplicity (and of course, the Neopoints). With the news that Neopets has released its first mobile game, the so-Neopets-it-hurts Ghoul Catchers, and is planning on developing more, we’re rounding up the top five classic games that deserve a second life for the smartphone generation:

5. Extreme Herder

It’s a simple premise: Collect the petpets (your pets’ pets, naturally) before they get eaten. The layout of the original game is hilarious in hindsight; it’s “shot from above,” so all you really see are round blobs running around, but it was, and is still, enough to keep us entranced for hours.

4. Faerie Cloud Racers

First of all, the faeries were one of the coolest features of Neopia, even though every random item quest would send us into a cold sweat. Faerie Cloud Racers was by far the best racing game on the site, and even though it never quite lived up to its site art (what, no custom element-based ships?), it was still a blast to play.

3. Hasee Bounce

Just looking at those Doughnutfruit fills me with rage — like any game based on a combination of simple skills and luck, Hasee Bounce was utterly frustrating. Sure, it’s technically “easy” to maneuver your see-sawing characters, but as games like Flappy Bird proved, just because it’s easy to play, doesn’t mean it’s easy to do well.

2. Hannah and the Pirate Caves

Real talk, Hannah was one of the coolest characters in the Neopets game universe. There are plenty of great pirate-themed games on the site, and plenty of Hannah-centric games, but the two together was, to borrow from another Hannah, the best of both worlds.

But the game we most want to play on our phones is…

1. Meerca Chase

Was there any game better than Meerca Chase? Trick question: The answer is Meerca Chase II, but no matter the version (and despite obviously being a Snake rip-off), Meerca Chase is the game to play when you wanted to rack up Neopoints and maybe lose a day. Those candy-colored Neggs still haunt our dreams to this day…

Honorable mention: Potato Counter. You’re literally counting potatoes and yet, the anticipation you’d feel before the final reveal was so real.

(Images via.)