This is just a random thought that crossed my mind. I thought it was odd that plushies can't be played with by pets. Given how rare some of them are I can understand plushies and beanbags being classified as non-toy items. But then there's the various musical instriments that can't be played with either. But there's things like bookmarks which can. Does anyone else find this a bit odd? Are there any items you think pets should be able to play with? I'd love for them to be able to play with furniture. I'd love for them to be able to make up a blanket tent. Or at least get them to play with blankets, chairs and pillows and think they're making a blanket tent.

I definitely agree that the inconsistency is weird and annoying. But I'm not sure how they could best handle this. For one thing, I kind of don't think anything should be able to be played with until they make it an official collection or at least provide a page that keeps track of all the toys your pet has played with. It's just so pointless the way it is now, and this is coming from someone who really does love their pixel pets, I assure you. But without any record being kept, you might as well not have given it to them at all. You can give them a minion instead and they'll be just as happy. As it is now, it just gets deleted, and that "play with pet" link on expensive items freaks me out worrying that I might accidentally click it.

So, ideally, I'd like to see toys become an official collection, complete with achievements. Like a "toybox" that they would go into. I would love to spoil my pets with all the toys and actually be able to see what I've given them. That would raise a new concern with items like plushies though, like you mentioned. Yeah, logically they should be toys, but nobody wants to buy a whole second set of those things for another collection. So I think those and anything else that is already part of another collection should remain excluded even though that is a little unfortunate.

I guess another idea would be to make it so that toys just don't disappear when your pet plays with them. They don't go into any sort of collection or record or anything, they're just for fun, so why do they get consumed? If that was the case, and there was no official collection for them, plushies could go ahead and be toys so you could have all the fun of playing with your pet before adding those expensive items to their appropriate collection. In fact, why not make it possible to play with every item? Is there anything that can't be a toy? Pets will bat at and chew on anything. Who cares if it's safe or appropriate as a toy? Just look at the edible items; we can already feed our pets cyanide and toxic waste with no repercussions...why not let them play with explosives too? lol I don't like this option as well as an official collection but it's a thought. Like if there's no record kept, and playing with items has no consequences, it might as well just be a free-for-all. Then you could do the blanket fort thing you were talking about or whatever makes you happy.

Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but this is quite a helpful thread in Suggestions > Item Make this item a Book/Food/Minion/Toy

The thread covers some existing guidelines for what makes items a certain category, I do think that it makes sense that items don't cross-collections, so if hypothetically, toys are considered a "collection", you wouldn't want collectible plushies and beanbags also to be toys.

I don't mind that they get consumed as toys do get broken when they are played with and it's kind of like that. But your idea for collections is an interesting one. If I know anything about programming I'd make the Toybox like the current treasure box. So, you would have about 10 slots to put items in that your pet can play with. These are used slowly over time. So if a toy stays in the box for, say, 5-7 days, it will be consumed. But, like the Treasure Box system, you can remove them before that happens. This means even if you were to accidentally place a rare plushie or item in there you could get it back before it's consumed. You'd need to top up the toy box every now and then with new items as these keep your pet happy. A minion only slows the loss of happiness. So you would need to keep them fed, have minions and at least one item in the toy box to keep them at max happiness. I have no idea if that would work with the current site but if it did, would you be happy with that?

Thanks for reminding me of that. I'll have to have a look and see if anyone else has asked this question. I can see what you mean about the cross collection problem. It is a tricky one.

way back in the olden days, plushies could be played with! Beanbags? I can't remember if those were ever playable.

Then staff agreed there should be a toy achievement, just like gourmand for food. At that point they decided that plushies (and likely beanbags) should no longer be toys, since that would mean creating a duplicate collection. So they changed all the plushies into not toys anymore. They cleaned up a few more toy issues, but never actually completed the project so we don't have a toy collection achievement, but plushies (and maybe beanbags) are no longer toys.

As for weird toys - I have a toy gallery and one category is You call that a toy? that you can browse to see the weird and wacky stuff Subeta thinks would make a fine toy!

Some of my favorite WTF toys are these:

Oh I like that gallery section !

Ah, that explains it. Thanks for that. I have to admit that is a bonkers selection of toys though I know kids and pets play with all kinds of things. But the radioactive foot and the used litter tray and toilet paper are definetly the strangest I've seen! :D

Thanks! LOL it started out by accident as I was categorizing other toys and would come across these things....that didn't seem very toy like to me!

Yeah, probably some of the things I think of as not-toys are appropriate for pets (I know pets love to unroll toilet paper, for example), but as I was putting the gallery together, I thought more about human appropriate toys!