I spent my impressionable years growing up in Southern California, which meant that I have always had a great love for the Pacific Ocean and all that lived under her waves.  I spent my summers on the beach, I was a certified open water SCUBA diver at age 12, my first real job was at Marineland of the Pacific, I was accepted into an honors program in oceanography at a Northern California college, I received a scholarship in Marine Biology and I almost made it my life’s career.  

And now I live in Chicago, Illinois, about as far as you can get from any ocean.  But lucky for me, we have the Shedd Aquarium, which does a decent job at keeping my feet wet, so to speak.  However, the best part about the Shedd is that is satiates Nikolai’s and Caleb’s fascination for aquatic life.  My boys could spend hours staring into a fish tank.  Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Nikolai and Caleb are also into Webkinz, the stuffed animals that live a second life in a web-based world, so when Russ Berrie’s Applause Brand announced the Seapals, which are a new line of web-interactive marine life plushes, I thought this could only further their interests in the sea.  So we took the plunge.

Catch of the Day

At present, there are 10 different Seapals: Reef Shark, Manta Ray, Clown Fish, Sea Horse, Banner Fish, Dwarf Flame Angel, Pink Anemone Fish, Purple Tang, Blue Lobster, and Sea Turtle.  Coming soon to the ocean are Sting Ray, Dolphin, Puffer Fish, Powder Blue Tang, Octopus, and Star Fish (Uh huh, see which ones you can spot from Finding Nemo).  Each Seapal comes with a secret code (located on the packaging under the silver scratch off) that allows you to log on to www.seapalsworld.com and enter the Seapals Underwater World.  We received the Dwarf Flame Angel fish and what surprised me the most was how small the plush is.  Mind you it was colorful and well constructed, however it instantly made me think of the one that must have got away.  The plush is about the size of a Beanie Baby or the small size plush you can win at a carnival, which is an okay size; I was just expecting something a little more huggable.  The plush also acts as a finger puppet for out-of-water adventures.  

The Fish Tank

After logging into the Seapals World, your first stop is your virtual fish tank.  Here is where your fish hangs out and where you take care of him or her.  You are responsible for feeding your fish, checking the water temperature, and levels of salt, light, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, algae, and pollution.  You can also personalize your tank with plants, coral, sunken treasures, sunken ships, and other fish tank accoutrements.  If you purchase additional Seapals, they will be added to this tank.  Finally, the virtual fish tank can act as a screen saver when run in full screen mode.

The Open Sea

The virtual fish tank is a nice place to hang out, but who wants to spend the day swimming around a virtual tank when the Ocean is just a click away.  Your first stop in the virtual ocean is your Seapad, a room that you can outfit with everything your fish may need, like a lounge chair, lamps, rugs, dresser, and bed in the shape of a pirate ship. Mind you, your fish will make use of none of these items, rather he or she will swim lazily about them. That said, you can invite friends that you meet in the undersea world over to your Seapad where they can check out your stuff and marvel at your abilities at interior design.

But who wants to just hang out in the Seapad? So from there you can go to the Tubestation and travel to other parts of the ocean where you can explore the undersea world, play games, chat with other fish, and purchase new stuff for both your virtual fish tank and your Seapad.  To purchase items you use Pearlpoints, which you receive by winning and completing games.  As an added bonus, when you first log in with your secret code, you get to spin a wheel for a one-time chance to win up to 10,000 Pearlpoints.  

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

When Nikolai and I first tried out the web-based Seapals World, we used our family computer, which is an iMac G5 running OS 10.5, with a DSL connection and running the latest versions of Safari and Flash.  Unfortunately, our game play was a little frustrating.  For example, during one game the count down clock moved really slowly while game play moved at a normal speed, which meant that I was able to finish a one-minute puzzle in 3 seconds.  While in another game, the clock count down at a normal rate however game play was slow so it was impossible to complete the task before time ran out.  

So we tried logging in on Tonya’s computer, which is a MacBook Pro running OS 10.4, using same DSL connection, Safari and Flash and there the games ran smooth as silk.  

Game play on my computer, which is a PowerBook G4 running OS 10.5, again with the latest Safari, Flash, and the same DSL connection, fell somewhere between the other two computers.  This all means that depending on your computer, your game play experience may vary greatly.

Just Keep Swimming

Right now, because the pool has only recently been opened for swimming, parts of the Seapals Underwater World are still under construction.  As an example, we came upon one game that had the instruction for playing the game state “insert instructions text here.” In addition, Applause will be expanding the undersea world, and has designated two new areas to explore as “coming soon.” I only hope that these two new areas include some of the promised educational aspects of the Seapals World. I mean I think it would be great if we could learn a little bit about the different forms of marine life, which are represented by our Seapals.

Finally, other fish you may meet and interact with are right now few, which should change as more people purchase their Seapals.  In the mean time, you do have the ability to ‘limited text’ chat with them, using prewritten and approved phrases for chatting.  So you can let you child play somewhat secure in the knowledge that won’t find themselves in dangerous chat situations.

Overall Impression

After giving it some serious thought, which took all of three seconds, Nik has decided to give Seapals World 90 Thumbs-Up out of his patented 100 while the Dwarf Flame Angel fish plush received 100 Thumbs-Up… What can I say, he’s an easy catch.  Unfortunately, I have to be a little more critical and say that for the Amazon Price Tag of $14.99 either the plush needs to be a little bigger or Seapals World has to go deeper into expanded adventures.  In the meantime, I’m giving both of them 4 out of 8 Dancing Elephants.

Parting Thoughts

To support the preservation of marine environments, RUSS has announced that they will ‘Seas the Day’ by making a donation to local aquariums to help raise awareness about the importance of oceanic conservation. I applaud them for their effort, however in the past I have found that altruistic statements like this by other companies should be taken with a grain of sea salt. Hopefully, they can prove my cynisism to be unfounded.