Bella Sara (partially found pre-altered website of online virtual world; 2007-2020)

Status: Lost

homepage for Bella Sara circa 2019

This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its lack of formatting.

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Bella Sara (not to be confused with Bella Sara Adventures) was an online virtual world game playable from 2007-2020 aimed at girls from age 5-12. It was spawned from a trading card series of the same name from the Denmark company, Conceptcard. It was brought to the US with the help of a small company called Hidden City Games, Inc., later Hidden City Entertainment, before they went out of business circa 2011, after which the Bella Sara company, which was founded around the same time, received full rights to the game and rehired 10 of the 12 former Hidden City Entertainment employees. They also continued to work closely with Conceptcard.

In 2013, only two years after The Bella Sara Company was founded, Bella Sara U.S shut down and a halt was put on any new web game or trading card development. Conceptcard followed, going out of business in 2014. However, the classic website stayed up and was fully playable until 2020, albeit with some reported bugs and glitches in 2019-2020 with the death of Adobe Flash. In April of 2020, the Bella Sara homepage was replaced, and the Flash game was removed from the website and the internet.

There have been scarce updates from the company since, including an animated movie called "Emma's Wings" becoming fully watchable on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcIgEhQPXtQ&), advertising for an app where you can view trading cards and listen to music, and a book, also available in full on the website. Gitte Odder, the original mind behind Bella Sara, promises frequent updates to the website, though there has been no sign of the well-loved game nor anything to replace it.

Magical Horses stables

In the game, you could care for horses by brushing, feeding and watering them in their stables, as well as play six simple mini-games: "Spectacular Jumping Game", "Cloud Jumper", "Treasure’s Hunt", "Magic Bubble Wand", "Trail Blazer", and "Citrustacked". From the trading card's 10 digit activation codes you could get more horses to care for and horseshoes, the in-game currency that you could use to buy items from the Bazaar, which could then be used to decorate your house.

In "Spectacular Jumping Game", your horse would run while jumping over obstacles. There were four levels, your horse and speed changing depending on which level was selected (Bella for level 1, Fiona for level 2, Jewel for level 3, and Thunder for level 4). You could collect diamonds to boost your score, and occasionally horseshoes.

In "Cloud Jumper", you controlled a pegasus in an auto scrolling level, flying from cloud to cloud to obtain flowers in groups of 9. Each flower would give you 10 points, and you would get a bonus for every 9 flowers you collected.

In "Treasure’s Hunt", you play as a water horse as you explore the ocean and collect fish, shells, and magical objects. Jellyfish and electric eels decreased your speed, and schools of fish and bubbles would increase your speed. Your speed would also decrease over time unless you swam into schools of fish or bubbles. These fish and other objects were gathered in groups of 9 similarly to Cloud Jumper, and you would also get a bonus for every 9 objects collected.

"Citrustacked" is a game featuring the colorful, fuzzy creatures called Citrustacks. It is a basic puzzle game where you click on groups of Citrustacks of the same color. The larger the group, the more points you earn. There was a story mode where you had to hit a certain score each level, and a practice mode. Once there are no more groups, the level ends.

"Trail Blazer" is a simple brick breaker style game where you bounce a ball around to break multi-colored hexagonal tiles.

In "Magic Bubble Wand", you catch bugs and special creatures in bubbles. Bugs add to your score, and special creatures, like fairies, dandelions, and raindrops can make your bubble wand bigger or give you more bubble solution. You can also catch horseshoes sometimes. Once you run out of bubbles, the game ends. On the right side, there is a simple table showing the numbers of each bug you’ve collected.

When you first create an account, you are given a foal by Sara that you can name yourself, and are then directed to their stall. This foal is separate from the other stables but has similar gameplay mechanics, with brushing, feeding, and watering. You could access your foal by the My Horse button by the top of the page, and the stables with the button next to it, labeled Magical Horses. Later, a shortcut was added on the site for Bella Sara Adventures, another online game.

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Thank you to my sources:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200120170352/http://bellasara.com/about2.aspx

https://web.archive.org/web/20080906212317/http://www.bellasara.com/about2.aspx

https://web.archive.org/web/20071203235200/http://www.bellasara.com/about.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20071205075050/http://www.hiddencitygames.com/

https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/25985/bella-sara-u-s-shut-down

https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/20518/bella-sara-goes-in-house

https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=141144

https://datacvr.virk.dk/enhed/virksomhed/28891903

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu1c3oDTFAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8liTODSD_k