
Marapets is a free virtual pet site, similar to Neopets.
It started out
as a 'guild' created by 14-year-old Ian, called "Maraqua" within Neopets. When he made it, he had no intentions of creating a pet site. Soon after the guild was made, Ian created a Web site called Maraqua.com. Almost all the members of said guild joined the website, which had forums, game hints, and pet release news. However, the guild was frozen by the administrators of Neopets shortly after it was made.
Ian, now 15, and his co-founder, Laimay, (who was 19) had lost hope to bring back the Maraqua guild. Working together, they founded Marapets in 2005. Today, Ian still serves as the owner and Laimay is the artist.
The basic pet site formula that exists in Neopets is present here, too: Users create pets, raise and care for them, train them for battles, or even give them jobs. The site has many, many users who play it.
Marapets and its elements contain examples of the following tropes:
- Anyone Can Die: Unlike Neopets, Marapets can die.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes:
- Completing certain amount of an area's Goals will award you with different cosmetic items like t-shirts or wigs, which can be put into your wardrobe.
- Completing entire mission chains awards you with costumes, which you can either sell for profit or put on your pet.
- Some games can give you yarn as rewards, which works similarly to costumes, but for minipets instead.
- Battle Trophy: Players who rank having won the most battles get these trophies. They appear in your profile.
- Brain Food: You can feed your pets brain cakes, brain cookies, and even an entire brain.
- Build Like an Egyptian: The various pyramids in Kamilah Desert. As of current, there is the Kamilah Pyramid, the Slate Pyramid, the Bootleg Pyramid, the Alien Pyramid, the Wonky Pyramid, and the Puny Pyramid.
- Collection Sidequest: Different fairies give rewards based on either an individual pet's collection or the account's collection of items. These include:
- The Obese Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many gourmet foods (aka food with a rarity of 10 or higher) a pet has eaten.
- The Musical Fairy, who gives rewards based on a pet's knowledge of instruments, both in quantity and by level on each instrument.
- The Desert Fairy, Moonlight Fairy, and Homeless Fairy who gives rewards based on the amount of books, magazines, and newspapers a pet has read respectively.
- The Water Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many CDs a pet has listened to.
- The Fire Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many spells a pet has learned and the level of said spells.
- The Space Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many DVDs a pet has watched.
- The Forest Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many toys a pet has played with.
- The Seasonal Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many giftboxes an account has used.
- The Digital Fairy, who gives rewards based on how many hidden avatars an account has found.
- The Mini Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of minipet plates an account has registered.
- The Plushie Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of plushies an account has collected.
- The Wardrobe Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of items added to the wardrobe.
- The Native Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of treasure maps completed.
- The Battle Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of trading cards registered.
- The Old Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of photos registered.
- And the Glowing Fairy, who gives rewards based on the amount of Glowing Eggs collected.
- Destroyable Items: Toys can break if you let your pets play with them too much.
- Game Within a Game: Flash games can be played along with the main questing/doing missions, etc.
- Global Currency Exception: Some shops use a different form of currency than Marapoints, to wit:
- The items in the stores in Dukka Town can only be bought with Dukka Coins. The same applies to the Pirate Ship as well.
- There is also Fake Dukka Coins which are mostly used in Vortex Park.
- RP is earned by buying items in the shops, and can only be spent at Eleka's Castle.
- BP is earned by defeating opponents in the arena. BP can only be spent at Baspinar's Castle.
- Gloomy Gray: The Sad costume
. - Institutional Apparel: Most pets wearing the Prison costume
have black and white striped shirts, sometimes with a matching hat and/or a ball and chain. - Luck-Based Mission: Every Mission and Quest, with exceptions to Talon and to a lesser extent the Knutt Knight, are subject to this. There is a chance the item the Mission/Quest giver asks for will be impossible to get, either due to it being a discontinued item, and/or the item itself being far out of the player's ability to buy. Drew can be the worst of these as he can ask for clothing and/or colors that can't be gotten anymore.
- Meaningful Name: The Decedal pet has the word "Decade" as part of it's name, and true to form, they're only available every ten years on the site's anniversary, and cannot be created due to their restricted status. The only way to get them is from their
"Once in a Decadal" account upgrade pack that shows up during that time. -
Milestone Celebration: Every 10 years, starting from 2014, they celebrate with a "Once in a Decedal" pack, which features the Decedal pet, giving you the chance to get an item that turns your pet into the restricted pet, either a potion or a plushie. - Play Every Day: Doing the daily activities in the virtual world will reward you with MP (the currency) or items.
- Premium Currency: Account Credits, which can be used to buy items from the Account Upgrades shop, buy account upgrade packs, or buy giftbox items from the Giftbox shop that grant various quality of life features including auto pricing your shop and being able to do more of an activity per day. They can be rarely earned via a few meansnote , and can be transferred to other players by the Currency Exchange.
- Rare Candy: Boosters and Illegal Concoctions. The former guarantee a gain in a school, gym, or combat stat at the cost of needing to both wait some time and is pretty rare to find. The latter has more range, can do things like change the height, weight, or gender of a pet, and can be bought in it's own dedicated shop... but using them has a chance to not only not work, but also get the pet thrown into prison.
- Retraux: The Pixel costume
turns your pets into... well, pixelated versions of themselves that sort of evoke this trope. - Stylistic Suck: The Bootleg costume
, which turns all pets wearing it into doodle versions of themselves. - The Unfought: If you take part in the War, either it's Queen Eleka if you're on the Light Side, or King Baspinar if you are on the Dark Side. Though, you can get trading cards of them, which, upon use, allow users to fight them in the arena, it's not required to do so.
- Unlockable Content: Giftboxes, which can be bought with Account Upgrade credits, extend the use of dailies, or grant access to things normal users can't use.
- Wallet of Holding: Players can hold up a lot of MP (one player has more money then he knows what to do with
), without their virtual wallets exploding. - Wholesome Crossdresser: Any gender of pet can wear any costume, including male pets wearing the Princess costume (so long as the species the pet is can wear the Princess costume). The same applies to the player Virtual Paper Doll and the various dresses that can be worn.
