I lied. I guess I do have enough for a dump, it’s just nothing all that substantial. Still, I have notes to write about them.
1) Kliff Warm-Up.This was something I did to warm up today. I think it’s a pretty good drawing, but it’s so boring that it isn’t worth finishing to post by itself.
2) Human!NJ. I thought I had posted this one already, but here’s another human!NJ. He has some acne scars, but they kinda just look like freckles, huh? I’ve always liked the idea that White is what NJ looked like when he was younger, so I gave him White’s ahoge too~
3) Little Fusion!Kliff. I also thought I posted this too, but here’s a mini fusion!Kliff.
4) Little Cherub from the Herpit. I promise I’ll post the text version of that documentation soon. It’s actually already written, but I wanted to get some pictures, but I think I need to replace the batteries because it’s acting kinda funky X(. Side note, I dunno if the angel has an official name, but I call them “Little Cherub”.
5) Helmet Hair 9-Volt. I, like everyone one else, HATE how 9-Volt plays in Get It Together, but 9-Volt without his helmet is just the cutest thing, and I couldn’t resist doodling him.
6-7) Android and Shapeshifter Doodles. Yes... I think these are looking better too. Decided to give Android mismatched hands. Is it relevant? Maybe. I also tried simplifying Shapeshifter a bit, because even though I liked the last iteration of him, it was terribly busy.
8-9) More Vtubersona doodles. Trying some different looks. Still dunno how serious I am about doing this, but I like some of the concepts that are coming out of it.
You can only set the clock after resetting the device using the ACL button.
Use the L button to set the hour and the R button to set the minutes. Press any button afterwards to set the time.
I know it’s there, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to set the clock as AM or PM. I don’t know if this is a malfunction with my device or if it’s a feature that was dummied out, because I’ve never seen footage of this device where AM or PM is highlighted.
Note: You will lose your high score from the Game Mode after resetting.
Test your compatibility by entering you and your partner’s birthdays and blood types.
Step 1: Enter your birthday
Your birthday should be entered as: year/month/day.
For example: January 21st 1999 would be entered as: 19990121
Note: The device will not allow you to set an “impossible” date and will beep if you select an “impossible” number.
It is also not possible to set the year before 1900 or after 2099.
Press the “Set” button after the last digit to confirm your selection.
Step 2: Enter your blood-type
Enter your blood-type by pressing the “blood” button until your blood-type is highlighted.
Options are: A, B, AB, and O (No positive or negative)
Press the “Set” button to confirm your selection.
Step 3: Enter your partner’s information
Repeat steps 1-2 with your partner’s information.
Results
When all data has been entered, an animation will play with the little cherub going around the screen, trying to get to the princess. After testing, I’ve only gotten 3 different results:
The cherub falls off the ribbon (Bad compatibility?)
The cherub makes it to the princess, 1 heart appears, and the princess disappears. (Average compatibility?)
The cherub makes it to the princess, 2 hearts appear, and the princess stays. (Good compatibility?)
I currently don’t know if there are any other possible outcomes. I suspect that there may be an outcome where 3 hearts appear and maybe an extra animation, but I have yet to get it.
See your fortune for today! Enter your birthday and then today’s date to see your fortune.
Step 1: Enter your birthday
Birthday should be entered as: year/month/day.
For example: January 21st 1999 would be entered as: 19990121
Note: The device will not allow you to set an “impossible” date and will beep if you select an “impossible” number.
It is also not possible to set the year before 1900 or after 2099.
Press the “Set” button after the last digit to confirm your selection.
Step 2: Enter today’s date.
Follow the same year/month/day format to enter today’s date.
Press the “Set” button after the last digit to confirm your selection.
Results
After entering the information, several animations will play, making different symbols light up around the screen.
These are the symbols in the order they appear, but I am unsure about what they actually symbolize. The Japanese words around the screen seem to correlate to the symbols:
Pencil (Work/School/Tests)
Starburst (Chance/Opportunity)
Running Man (Health)
Two Faces with a Heart (Google refuses to translate this one. My guess is “Relationships”)
Money Bag (Money)
Hearts (Love)
Between 0 and 3 of each symbol will appear. Presumably, the more symbols you have, the stronger that particular luck will be with 0 symbols being terrible luck.
There are 4 levels that you need to clear (each level is detailed below).
You can not backtrack to a previous level once you’ve cleared it unless you lose a life.
You get 3 lives. Losing a life at any time will make you restart at Level 1.
If you lose all of your lives, you’ll get a “Game Over” and will need to hit the Game Mode button to restart.
Your highest score will be recorded and shown when starting this mode.
I currently don’t know if there is any sort of “score milestone” that will erase misses or give you bonus points.
Level 1 (Cancer)
Move right and jump over the starbursts being thrown by Cancer. Jump on the swinging ribbon to escape.
Successfully jumping over a starburst will earn you 10 points.
If you get hit by one of the starbursts, then you’ll lose a life.
It’s really easy to rush through this level, but you don’t get any points for finishing quickly, so you might as well take your time to earn some extra points by jumping over the starbursts.
Level 2 (Ribbon)
Swing on the ribbons, and jump onto Capricorn’s balloons.
You earn 10 points for every full swing from left to right.
If you jump before the balloon is there, you’ll lose a life.
This level is highly RNG dependent, as your ability to leave this level depends entirely on if Capricorn sends up a balloon at the right time without it being popped by Sagittarius.
After 10 full swings on the ribbon, you will be forced off, which will likely lose you a life.
Level 3 (Balloons)
Avoid having your balloon popped by Taurus and Sagittarius to cross the rainbow-cloud bridge.
If you successfully jumped to a balloon, then you will descend until you reach the bottom or hop onto the “safe zone” on the right.
The safe zone is on a ledge just before Sagittarius pops the balloon, so you can camp there until Sagittarius isn’t firing and Scorpio isn’t in the way.
If you hop off when there isn’t a balloon or Sagittarius pops the balloon while you’re on it, you will lose a life.
If you stay on the balloon too long, Capricorn will pump it with air, and it will start to ascend again. If you don’t get back to the ledge, the balloon will be popped at the top by Taurus and you will lose a life.
If you hop onto the bridge when Scorpio is there, you will lose a life.
No points can be earned in this level, so try to leave as soon as possible.
Level 4 (Scorpio):
Capture the loose Scorpios on the bridge and get to the Princess!
Jump to grab Aquarius’s urn to capture Scorpio. If you don’t grab it, then you will be defenseless.
In this level, the Jump button will act as an “attack” (if you have the urn).
Every Scorpio captured will give you 10 points.
Touching Scorpio without capturing it will cause you to lose a life.
End
Reaching the Princess will give you 200 points and restart you at Level 1.
It’s a little hard to tell, but I think the game speeds up a little after every successful round.
If you were just looking for information about this device, then that’s all I have for you. The rest of this is just my personal thoughts.
Features/Gameplay
For a toy sold on its use as a love tester, that is easily the least interesting part of the Herpit. Unless you have lots of crushes or like to play matchmaker, you’d probably only use that feature a couple of times. The fortune-telling feature is a little more useful if you’re into horoscopes, so you could potentially use it once a day, but the real reason to get this is that there’s actually a pretty decent game built into it.
It isn’t anything spectacular, but it is fun. It takes some cues from the “Donkey Kong Jr.” Game and Watch in that it’s an obstacle course that you clear over and over, but it takes it a couple of steps further by essentially having 4 different micro-levels instead of one big stage, which is kind of impressive for a single screen game of this kind. It really isn’t the kind of thing that will capture you for hours, but it’s addictive when you’re on a winning streak.
It makes me wonder which came first: was this just going to be a cutesy platformer that they added fortune-telling to, or was it a fortune-telling device that a game was stapled onto to give it some longevity? Bandai was making *hundreds* of LCD games at the time, so I’m actually leaning on the former.
Aesthetics
I love that this thing is just unapologetically “cute”. It’s pink, it’s shaped like a heart, the background is full of rainbows and stars, the character design is bubbly and adorable, and it has “BLOOD” written on it in big, bold letters. It’s just cutest little handheld since the tamagotchi!
Big shoutout to the design of the little cherub. Their simple but expressive design has just totally captured my heart. Maybe it’s just a “me” thing, but I feel like when the characters are just silhouettes for these kinds of games, they’re a lot more charming and timeless. When they add too much detail (like what is often the case for Tiger handhelds), it makes it seem like they’re trying to replicate “real” games instead of just accepting what it is: a little limited handheld game. For a game so fleeting, the focus should really be on having clear and fun gameplay, not the graphics. Having a very easy to read character really helps with the “pick-up and play” nature of these games, and the Herpit achieves this fairly well.
On the negative side, something thing that really throws me off are the grayish-slate buttons, which I think would have been cuter if they were the same purple as the “star” button. This would be “fixed” in pretty much every other release of this thing, but I really feel like they should have noticed sooner that gray doesn’t really suit this design.
I also really hate the name of this thing. I get that it’s probably a portmanteau of “heart” and “cupid”, but “herpit” just sounds like such an ugly word. I know that in Japanese it would actually be pronounced closer to “harpitto”, but I honestly don’t like that much better. It could have been something like... “Chupid/Chupit”. Just anything that doesn’t sound like “herpes” or “harpy”. But, it wasn’t made with an English-speaking audience in-mind, so I won’t hold that against it.
It’s a beautiful device that could have stood toe-to-toe with Nintendo’s Game and Watch systems, and it probably did, given how many re-releases this thing has. I’m happy to have it in my collection, and I will certainly be playing it from time to time. I hope to someday get/find the manual for this thing. I’ve seen footage of it, and the art looks as cute as the device itself!
This is is a Japanese fortune-telling LCD handheld game (which explains the blood button, as blood type is used in Japanese fortune-telling, much like how star signs are used elsewhere) and it's shaped like a heart and there's a whole bunch of them and I love them all so so much!! 💖💖💖
Yes, they are called Herpits (ハーピット), which....I'm gonna assume means something nicer in Japanese than it does in English xD
They were made by Bandai in the 80s and 90s
Ugh these are so GORGEOUS
There's even some called Petit Herpits (プチハーピット), like these star and books ones :D
