Hi everyone! I often get asked, “What ever happened to Mazin’ Hamsters?” and “Will you ever bring back Mazin’ Hamsters?”

I will try to answer these and some of your other questions about Mazin’ Hamsters below.

For those that don’t remember it, Mazin’ Hamsters was a fully 3D section in Webkinz World introduced in 2010, which was unlocked when you registered a Feature Code that came with a plush hamster.

Mazin’ Hamsters was unique from the rest of Webkinz World because it was running completely different animation software. While Webkinz World runs on 2D Flash, Mazin’ Hamsters ran on an early version of 3D Unity.

Inside ‘Mazin Hamsters, there were lots of mazes that your hamsters could race around or explore. Completing each maze awarded a trophy!

If you wanted more mazes, you could make your own using the maze building tool. You could even share your mazes with the community and have other players run through them.

Later we added a Hamster Hamlet section with different worlds for your hamsters to explore, along with daily activities like the popular Moolah Mountain!

Unfortunately, the uniqueness of ‘Mazin Hamsters was also its biggest problem. Much like the upcoming discontinuation of Flash by web browsers, the original version of Unity 3D was discontinued as a web plug-in. So, in September of 2015, because we could no longer run the game on the web, ‘Mazin Hamsters was closed.

However, Unity as a game engine has continued to thrive and grow. A new WebGL platform was developed to run Unity on the web, but unfortunately it was not backwards-compatible for those using earlier versions like ‘Mazin Hamsters. The Development and Art teams at Ganz that built ‘Mazin Hamsters would eventually take their collective experience and create a whole new massive online game: Amazing World.

Will ‘Mazin Hamsters ever return? While there aren’t currently any plans to bring it back, with Unity now one of the premier gaming technologies, you never know what the future might bring. Unity continues to be a technology that Ganz uses to develop new projects.

What was YOUR favorite part about ‘Mazin Hamsters? And what would you like me to report on next? Let me know in the comments below.