I need you to understand something about me and virtual pets. When the original Tamagotchi arrived in the late nineties, I was already a grown woman with a career and everything, and I still managed to kill three of them in the first week because I couldn't stop feeding them. My granddaughter Jess still teases me about it. So when I first heard about the Bitzee Aquarium, I thought, okay, another nostalgia play for parents who remember those days. I was wrong about that.

The Bitzee Aquarium, from Spin Master, takes the virtual pet concept and does something I've never seen before in a toy like this. It uses an old optical illusion technique to create a tiny creature that appears to exist inside a small dome. You can actually poke at it. It responds to touch. To me it feels like it has real volume, like something you could hold in your hand.

And it genuinely works. From what I could see, the creatures inside the dome look like they're swimming, floating, breathing. You tap the dome and they react. They get happy, they get hungry, they need attention. All the things you remember from Tamagotchi, except now the pet actually looks like it's there.

The Aquarium version expands on the original Bitzee launch with an underwater theme. You raise fish and aquatic creatures instead of the little elf-like characters from the first round. New characters reveal themselves as you care for the ones you already have, and you raise them from baby to adult, which gives you a reason to keep coming back rather than just admiring the trick once and putting it on a shelf. My inner completionist is already twitching.

What I appreciate most is that Spin Master didn't just rely on the wow factor of the illusion. The care mechanics are simple enough for kids but have enough going on to keep you interested. You nurture your pet through its life stages and unlock new ones along the way.

Decades after Tamagotchi taught us that a pixel blob on a keychain could make us feel genuine guilt for neglecting it, the Bitzee Aquarium shows there's still room to make this concept feel fresh. I've always said technology should work for you, and if a little plastic dome with a fish inside makes you smile when you tap it... that counts.

I have a feeling Jess is going to want one.