The Tigren was one of several Neopets that were released in the site's early years and then later redesigned and renamed. Specifically it's the forerunner to the Acara and existed for a few months in 2000.
I'm always interested in things to add to this page. If you have any memories, fanart, missing images, pet pages, anything Tigren related, get in touch - kaliumlynx@protonmail.com
History
Tigrens were released on April 28th, 2000, and based on an entry to a Create A Pet contest run earlier (the same contest spawned several other designs that are still around). The designer was a user with the name "perdiddle" although the account listed under this name doesn't appear to be active and was registered well after the contest.
Sadly the design was short lived and in July of that year the Tigren was redesigned along with many other pets. In the case of the Tigren specifically this was because the original artist was under 18 and could not legally hand over rights to the design. A poll was held to let users vote for the new design from a pool of six different images and the winner went live on July 19th.
Tigrens are released, April 28th
Tigren becomes Acara, July 19th
I never owned a Tigren myself, but I did have an account and some of my friends at the time did own Tigrens, and... well, to say we all disliked the new Acaras would be an understatement. The first version of the Acara looked nothing like the current version, being a sort of floating head that we quickly dubbed "ugly flying baseballs". I remember one person even turning their pet's homepage into a protest page.
If all this sounds like overreacting, well, we were kids, and kids from the generation that got very attached to pixel creatures. Also there was no lab ray and no morphing potions at the time, so for all we knew our pets were stuck that way!
Fortunately after a couple more redesigns, the Acara grew a body and turned into the cute horned catlike creature it is today... though part of me still resents them for not being Tigrens. It's a silly grudge to hold for a quarter century over a pixel animal, I know. Sorry, Acaras. Don't look at me like that.
Site Images
This is everything I've managed to collect from various sources. Note I'm missing many of the emotion images, and I don't know if there's any items or misc site images that I don't have here. If you have any more, get in touch.
Original sketch - this was the original Create A Pet contest entry, and had the Tigren ever received any paintbrush colours this would have made a nice white design. One thing that stands out to me is that it appears to be sitting in snow - it's hard to tell from the low-res image, but was the pet originally intended to be a cold-climate animal?
Base colours - these were the only ones released as the Tigren wasn't around long enough to have any paintbrush colours. I really like the blue myself, it's a very pleasing shade.
Happy emotion:
Angry emotion:
Sad emotion:
Beaten emotion:
About image:
A book - this was the only Tigren based item I could find. I don't know if there were any else. I think this book is the one that was once called Terrific Tigrens and still exists on the site as Terrific Acaras.
What Could Have Been
I never got a chance to vote in the new design poll myself - either I was asleep at the time or in class, but either way as I remember it lasted only a matter of hours before being taken down. I never even got to see the options, but I found them years later on Jellyneo and it turns out we got screwed out of some nice designs! So what else could we have had? Here's my order of preference, from fave to least:
smltigrin5.jpg: The best of the lot for me, I love this scruffy little water puppy and would happily fill an account with them right away. I like how this one isn't such a drastic change, though maybe that was why it didn't win, given the change was for legal purposes maybe they wanted something a little more drastic. Still... well, I said it before. Would definitely adopt this little guy, he has a lot of scruffy appeal. Something about those fin tendrils is almost reminiscent of a deep sea fish, which is quite the contrast to the cuteness, but one I like! (Come to think of it, those huge eyes on the original Tigren wouldn't look so out of place on some creature of the abyss.)
smltigrin1.jpg: Coming in a very close second, I would also have loved this derpy little fish puppy! It's still a big change, but not an ugly one. Love the wall eyed fishy look this guy has going on. Maybe it would have been too much of a change for some people's tastes, though, but I would definitely adopt one and we were really robbed of something good here. It's not as if the winner wasn't a drastic change too, and it conveys the concept of a sea creature very nicely.
mltigrin3.jpg: I guess it's just another dog with fins, but you know, it has that late 90s/early 2000s teen creature design thing going on, like of course this is what you'd get if you asked someone from that era to design a "water dog"! And for that, I gotta like it, even if it wouldn't be my first choice. Again, would not have been sad to see this one win, it would have been one hell of a popular design!
(Also does anyone else think it looks a bit like Tramp or is it just me?)
smltigrin2.jpg: Kind of interesting seeing the different artist's styles here. I guess this one is cute too, even if it's just another cartoon dog with fins, but again, beats the one we got. It's there, I guess, but I wouldn't have minded if it won. I just find it funny a lot of these designs look so canine when the name "Tigrin" always evoked a cat for me?
Also someone I know said it looked like Scooby Doo. I like the idea that we could have had a water-Scooby.
smltigrin6.jpg: I'm not really sure if I like this one better or worse than the two water-dogs just before it. Part of me thinks it's one of those designs that's trying to be cute, but winds up creepy, and not in a cool intentional way? But... nope, I can't lie, it still beats the Baseball, and to be fair those huge shiny eyes are on the original... and I guess it's more creative than a dog with some fins. Okay, I don't hate it that much. It wouldn't get my vote, but I wouldn't have hated it if it became official, either.
smltigrin4.jpg: Well, here it is, the Ugly Baseball. I keep wanting to say I'm biased, I'm looking at this through the lens of a kid annoyed that their favourite computer pet picture changed, but nope, I still can't stand this design. But to be fair, I may as well talk about why I don't like it as a design rather than bashing it. I've never been fond of the floating head look (how does it move?) but what really creeps me out is the face. It looks like an 80s cartoon mascot that was designed to be appealing to kids but just gave them nightmares instead. You know that creepy smile and the eyes that seem to stare into your soul? Exactly.
To try to be nice, it is admittedly more creative than a dog with fins, the horns are an interesting touch, and the eventual Acara design we got turned out to look just fine. But even after the Acara got redesigned into something with a body, one thing that bugs me is that it never again looked like an aquatic pet despite the site claiming that's what they were meant to be. If you take one look at the Tigren or any of the other poll results you can instantly tell they're meant to have something to do with water. With this guy, nothing. Blah.
I can't help but wonder what the modern iteration of any of these designs would have looked like.
Tigrens in Petz
Because I'm straight out of the generation that grew up with virtual pets of all kids, I also play a lot of the Petz games. (That's the PF Magic originals, not the Nintendogs clone Ubisoft turned the franchise into. We don't talk about Ubisoft Petz.) I've created a few custom breedfiles of my own, including this Tigren:
You can download it for Petz 3, 4, or 5 on my breed downloads page.
Fanart
Note: these are all offsite links. Don't blame me if they don't work or go somewhere else. All images are SFW but I can't make any promises about the artist's other works.
- Tigren by Wreckham - a hypothetical modern design.
- Tigren redesign
- Tigren (Acara Beta) by NayanMori - cute, looks kind of like an early-mid 2000s design had it stuck around.
- Tigren by stapledslut - I love the soft colours.
- Extinct Neopets by ktchelle - a collection of pets, including the Tigren, that no longer exist. I really like the Badeek design.
Links
- CozyNeo's Vintage Pets - contains a segment for the Tigren and many other old-style pets.
- JellyNeo's Pet Polls page - covers the original Create A Pet entries, the Tigren poll, and many other design polls through the site's history.
And finally...
Maybe the Tigren isn't completely forgotten? Look what's sitting at the middle of the 25th Anniversary Neopets Banner wearable:
I'd like to hope that this could mean we might see more of the Tigren in the future. Probably not, but you can hope sometimes, right?