Does anyone remember this freak from DenMo Pets: Collectimals?

For the uninitiated, DenMo Pets: Collectimals was an MMORPG you could play in your browser. I don't think it exists anymore, but it was pretty much just Pokemon. The premise was that you were an explorer on your way to DenMo Island to become the greatest DenMo Pet trainer in the world.

The main gameplay loop is just pet fighting to complete quests for people so you can (spoilers) kill the original founder of DenMo Island because he's planning on un-domesticating all of the island's pets and de-evolving them all into primordial monsters even though training them was his idea in the FIRST PLACE-

Anyway, in the 2.0 update in spring of 2005, the final area and end of the campaign was added. Technically, the final area of the campaign is the Originull Lab in the Hortenz Volcano at the island's center, but the final REAL area is the graveyard, Spookville, which raised some... interesting discussions. Namely because with Spookville came the aforementioned freak, more commonly known as The Nightly Visitor.

The significance of The Nightly Visitor is that there's no real way to kill a pet. When the update was teased, people thought they were gonna add some kind of survival gimmick to the game and I guess in a way, they did?

Basically what he would do is creep around after your system clock hits a certain hour. If he sees you (same five tile trigger as all NPC trainers) he starts following you, and if you do anything other than quit the game before he gets you, you're effed.

If you're gotten by The Nightly Visitor, your account is deactivated. The game gives you an opportunity to record your final words (which also appear on your tombstone that generates in Spookville) and logs your local total playtime, and that's it. You have to start the game back from one. Your gear is put up at the auction house and your pets go on the DenMo Town Bulletin as Missing. If people are nice enough, you could probably get them back from your new account (culture is for account names to add "RETAKE" at the end) but if they're not, they're not.

One of the creepiest parts about the whole thing, at least to me, are the graves. It takes actual time and resources to upkeep them, and if you let a grave sit for too long then its check text changes to "Their final words have been rendered illegible with time." Creepy.

The thing is though, there's no physical way anyone could save every gravestone. There are too many. Eventually, you, too, will have your final words scrubbed by the elements, your finite form laid bare in the endless boneyard.

 

At least, for a time.

Update 3.3 came with several changes, but the important ones here are Reverance, Ascension, and Spirit Boards.

I'll start with the least important first. Spirit Boards were a drop silently added during the Spookoween Event, but they became a permanent item. Basically, when used in combat, they would summon the Memory of a Trainer to take a free attack on your opponent, and this was significant because it meant that the DenMo Pets servers were storing all of the dead players' data.

This was important because, upon learning their data was NOT, in fact, gone forever, players petitioned the devs to get a way to get their old accounts back. The whole thing was actually turned into a fun little mini event by the devs, you could side with either the Wiccans (the in-game group advocating for the "legalization of ressurection") or the Maccans (the guys the devs made because they needed another side to this silly war.) As was typical with these World Events, the drops you got depended on the side you were on, with the really good stuff going to the group who won (I still stand by my Ball Pit Burger pocket familiar, though. They could never make me hate you, Arwin).

To make a long story short, the Wiccans won and the devs added an easier workaround to player deaths. Instead of being put up for auction or going missing, a dead player's items and pets can appear as common Quest Item drops in DenMo Town if you have the class-specific perk for it.

These can then only be used to pay Reverance to the fallen at their gravesite, which would give you extra starting Karma on your next Ascension.

(Using the items in question as Reverance returns them to that player's new account, duh)

The reason I bring up ascending is because The Nightly Visitor isn't just a base game mechanic, it's in every timeline.

In a DenMo High run, the School Spirit expells you and your picture joins the Hall of Losers in the Abandoned Campus

In a SOURCE run, the Task Manager puts your Program in the Recycle Bin

Hell, even in a Fall of the Dinosaurs run it's wearing leopard print and has a more apeish skull shape.

My question is, if it was such a big part of the game and its mechanics to the point where it caused significant enough discourse to incite a world event, why can't I find anyone else who remembers it?