{"id":19012,"date":"2019-05-15T00:01:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T00:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19012"},"modified":"2019-04-17T13:09:41","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T13:09:41","slug":"furiends-ios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/15\/furiends-ios\/","title":{"rendered":"Furiends (iOS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Take care of a lovable pup in Furiends, a free-to-play game for iOS devices (reviewed on iPad here).\u00a0 Furiends is an AR game, and AR stands for Augmented Reality.\u00a0 What this means is that the game uses the camera on your mobile device and places objects over the image so it looks like they are in your space in the real world.\u00a0 The most popular example of this is probably Pok\u00e9mon GO, but there lots of other games that use this, too. \u00a0In Furiends, they make it look like a puppy is walking around where you\u2019re at.\u00a0 You get a breed at random, I think.\u00a0 I got a German Shepherd and I named it Rush.\u00a0 It looks pretty realistic except for the \u2018too-much coffee\u2019 eyes.\u00a0 Then you get to play and take care of your new virtual pet in lots of ways.<\/p>\n

Sift through items in a menu to feed, walk, and play with your pet.\u00a0 Before you get started, though, you must have the camera on, and it\u2019ll have to scan a fairly empty spot on the ground for your pup to walk around in.\u00a0 Once that\u2019s done, the dog will appear and you can start playing.\u00a0 Click on the backpack icon to tap on items to feed, water, and bathe your pet.\u00a0 You can also flick the screen to throw a ball to play fetch.\u00a0 Select tricks and speak into the microphone to have your dog sit, roll over, and more.\u00a0 You can also dress up your dog in gear like clothes and collars.\u00a0 Click on the leash icon to take your dog for a walk, and then move around in real time to count steps. \u00a0Just don\u2019t forget to tap the screen to pick up poop!\u00a0 If this sounds a lot like Nintendogs, it pretty much is.\u00a0 Except you can\u2019t use the touch screen to pet your dog, so it loses that level of interactivity.<\/p>\n

Each day are set goals for you to accomplish with your pet.\u00a0 It may be to feed or play with your dog, or take it for a certain number of steps in a walk.\u00a0 When you do, you\u2019ll earn coins and stars which you can use to buy food, treats, clothes, and more.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t find a place where you could get different breeds of dogs, so I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s available.\u00a0 You can take pictures of your dog and share them on social media, though.<\/p>\n

There are a few problems with this game, however.\u00a0 Some minor and some major.\u00a0 Minor ones include a lack of any sounds, heck your dog barely barks.\u00a0 Some of the goals seem impossible to reach, like the number of steps you have to take while walking can be a lot.\u00a0 But the biggest problems are bugs with the AR camera and controls.\u00a0 Sometimes while feeding or playing fetch, I couldn\u2019t get the ball or food to go where I wanted it, and had to reset the game so the dog would be right in front of me.\u00a0 And many times, especially after a walk, I\u2019d lose the dog entirely.\u00a0 It was all just too frustrating for me to fully enjoy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing violent or objectionable here, other than a few poop graphics.\u00a0 I guess this would be a good teaching tool for kids on pet responsibility, but parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases and ads.\u00a0 Also, kids would need to be aware of their surrounding when taking their dog for a walk, instead of just looking at the phone the whole time.\u00a0 Reading skill is also helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take care of a lovable pup in Furiends, a free-to-play game for iOS devices (reviewed on iPad here).\u00a0 Furiends is an AR game, and AR stands for Augmented Reality.\u00a0 What this means is that the game uses the camera on your mobile device and places objects over the image so it looks like they are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19012"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19014,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19012\/revisions\/19014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}