There's other Hamtaro games besides the ones listed in the sidebar: this includes a few official games, but also unofficial games such as bootlegs, or fangames. I don't know as much about the other official games, because I have no reasonable way of playing them and doing my own research, so that's why they don't have full entries on this wiki. And although this is the "Unofficial" Hamtaro Games Wiki, it's not actually a wiki for unofficial games, again, because I don't know very much about them. This page is meant only to give you some basic information on these topics, so you can do your own research from there.
Besides the games released on the GBC, GBA, and DS, several other official Hamtaro games exist. This includes three Sega Pico games, the e-card minigames, a PC game, an unavailable iOS game, and several online games that were once playable on the Hamtaro websites.
Three Hamtaro games exist for the Sega Pico: Tottoko Hamtaro: Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu Tottoko Nakayoshi! Ham-chans! published in 2001, Tottoko Hamtaro: Oekaki Ippai! Ham-chans! published in 2002, and Tottoko Hamtaro: Tottoko Tanoshiku Aiueo: Maboroshi no Hikaru Tane o Mitsukeru no Dah! published in 2004. The Sega Pico is a game console from 1993, meant for very young kids. It's shaped like a laptop that a picture-book shaped cartridge can be inserted into, and has to be hooked up to an external monitor. The games are played by flipping the pages of the cartridge, using the stylus on the touch pad, and pressing buttons on the console. The Sega Pico Hamtaro titles were only released in Japan, and are probably, like most other Sega Pico games, edutainment games for small children.
In 2003, a series of Hamtaro trading cards for the Nintendo e-Reader were released in Japan. The Nintendo e-Reader is an accessory for the Gameboy Advance. It's inserted in the GBA slot like a cartridge, and has a slot that e-cards can be swiped through. Depending on the cards, they can be used to unlock additional content in games, or play mini-games. In case of the Hamtaro e-cards, they are used to play mini-games, and view information on Hamtaro characters. They're not known to be compatible with other Hamtaro games.
Wake Up Snoozer! is a PC game released only in North America in 2003. It follows a story where Penelope has fallen into a tunnel, and the Ham-Hams must wake up Snoozer in order to retrieve her, as he is blocking off the entrance. It features a variety of educational mini-games for young children.
In the not-so-distant past, it was common for official websites for children's franchises to have games on them for visiting children. Much like Barbie.com was once covered tip-to-toe in sparkly pink dress-up games, the official Hamtaro website(s) had several games on it as well. None of these games are still available, and the official English language Hamtaro websites are down. Flash games were possible to download and repost, so copies remain of some of these games, but they may be difficult to find, have to be emulated because of the termination of Flash, and may not work as intended now. Your best bet to finding what remains is probably on archive.org, like here: https://archive.org/details/hamtarosdayout.
Hamtaro: Little Hamsters, Big Adventures is an iOS game released in 2011 in both North America and Europe, developed by Egg Ball Games. It's a match-three puzzle game, similar to Bejeweled, in which you swipe tiles to match three. Additional content was planned for it, but was never added, and the game was eventually removed from the App Store in 2014.
A bootleg is an item meant to look like in order to be passed off as an official product, but isn't one. For example, a lot of hamster plushies may look really similar to Hamtaro characters, but aren't officially Hamtaro products. They look that way to profit off of the popularity of the series, without having permission to use a copyrighted name or image. This is different from fanmade items, because these are clear about not being official items. Just like there are bootleg plushies, toys, and clothes, there are also bootleg Hamtaro games.
There are generally two kinds of video game bootlegs: unauthentic cartridges of official games, and unauthentic games.
[add comparison picture of bootleg ham ham games vs real cartridge] Unauthentic cartridges look similar to authentic cartridges, and usually have a sticker of a real game on it. They may look completely the same as an authentic cartridge on the outside, but some have clear tells, like a cheaper quality sticker, an incorrect or stretched picture, or an incorrect cartridge color. They look different on the inside from other cartridges, and often (but not always) don't work as well as authentic copies. For example, they may get stuck on the loading screen or title screen, run out of memory before the end of the game and crash, or be unable to save. These bootlegs are made using cheaper or refurbished materials, which is why they look different on the inside, and often don't have the parts required for the game to work like it should.
To identify bootlegs, watch out for the following things:
For further reading, try searching "fake GBC/GBA/DS cartridge comparison". Clear tutorials on opening game casings can be found on youtube.
[add picture of my SCARY bootleg] Some bootlegs don't have the advertised game on it at all, or a different game that they try to pass off as an official one. Pokémon bootlegs are a well-known for this: for example, Pokémon Diamond and Jade (for the GBC) aren't real Pokémon titles, and the games within are hacks of Keitai Denjū Telefang. Pocket Monsters Crystal Version is a hack of Pokémon Crystal, known for its comically bad translation. Pokémon Adventure is a platformer and a hack of another hack. Similarly, there's bootlegs for Sonic, Mega Man, Mario... and just one Hamtaro one I know of.
Hamtaro: Simonchu Adventure is a bootleg for the GBA. It contains Simonchu 2, an original homebrew game made by Jacobo Romero Manrique (Jagos), and is one of the selected entries in GBAdev's 2004Mbit Competition. The game is an original work, and was made as part of a challenge to create a game that was only 4Mb in size. Several of the submitted games were then picked to be compiled into a composite game, to be distributed on a physical cartridge. Only 500 of these cartridges were made, and Hamtaro: Simonchu Adventure is none of them. Rather, someone must have taken the rom for Simonchu 2 on its own, and used it to create a Hamtaro bootleg, probably without the author's involvement or permission.
You can view a gameplay video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f34mFV7l4cs
Although I own a physical copy of the bootleg, I don't know much more about it than that - such as when it was first distributed, by who, and how many copies exist. I can't even find records of it existing in the form I own it anywhere on the internet. Any tips, stories, or information is appreciated!
Fangames are, instead of officially licensed games or bootlegs, games made by fans in tribute to the series, much like fanart or fanfic is. Several Hamtaro fangames exist, but I don't really know very much about them other than that, and I've never played any. If you have a Hamtaro fangame or know of one you'd like me to add here, I'd love to hear about it! Please copy and fill out the form below, and e-mail it to thenightcorner@gmail.com! All fields on the form are optional, but I'd like to know as much detail as possible.