I hear comments all the time about people reminiscing on their childhood days on Neopets.com, jokingly lamenting over their surely famished Neopets. I nervously laugh along...because my Neopets are rarely less than "hungry".

That's right. I am 20 years old. My newest account is over six years old, and I check it every day.

Sure, I've taken breaks from the game. Small breaks. I ragequit for a while after the notorious server crashes of last year that slowed the website down considerably, but I was back in a few months with my premium membership and several pizzas to satisfy the hunger of my pets. Here are my Neopets, primped and plucked to the gods:

Something I've realized by playing Neopets as an adult: this game is not entirely designed for children. Yes, it does involve feeding and taking care of little pixels on a screen, but underneath the simplicity of it all the game is extremely complicated. For example, one can invest in stocks, prowl various stores for items they can resell for double or triple retail price, attempt to achieve cripplingly high scores in games to earn a congratulatory avatar, and participate in various quests that take me at least a week to complete due to their extreme difficulty.

The game is targeted towards people of all ages; children play on surface level while adults can partake the more complicated aspects. I personally enjoy it because not only does it take me back to my childhood days, it's not something that is mind-numbingly easy and obviously meant for just children.

Some people even go so far as to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning to score rare items in shops while the site traffic is low. The best "restockers" (people who try to buy rare items and sell them for a much higher price in accord to said item's demand) are up at 3 in the morning, refreshing their screen until the shop adds a rare item. They have everything memorized and have the fastest internet speed. These people are certainly not young kids. It takes research, dedication, patience, and math skills; more than even I possess.

I suppose I take offense when people deem Neopets to be a mere "kids game". Just because one plays a game as a child doesn't mean it can't be sufficiently enjoyed by an adult. Take Pokemon, for example; with the new "Pokemon Go" craze I have seen maybe three kids wandering around catching Pokemon compared to the scores of young adults I've spotted thusfar. Neopets is the same way; perhaps even more so, when one factors in the complexity I discussed earlier.

I can't write an article about Neopets without a little shameless self-promotion, forgive me. My account is "icyqueenofmordor": if there remain any beautiful people who play this beloved game, Neofriend me and buy items from my shop that are admittedly three times the retail price. Supply and demand, my friend. Neopia is an unforgiving world.