Petz
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Petz (Dogz and Catz) is a series of games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets. Petz were the world's first virtual pets, and were shown to people to be revolutionary. First released before Tamagotchi. They were among the first 3D characters, rendered in a non-photorealistic cartoon style. Petz has sold over 3 million copies worldwide, and appeals to both children and adults.
The player starts at the Adoption Center, where they may choose a dog or cat to adopt of a breed and gender of their choosing. Once they have found a pet they like the user can adopt and name the new puppy or kitten. After around three days (real time) the petz become adults. Adult petz can then breed and have kittens or puppies of their own in Petz 3, Petz 4, and Petz 5 (this was not available in the first two lines). Cross-breeding can create different types of petz, called 'Mixed Breeds'.
There are a number of toyz, food/water bowls and treats available. Petz can learn tricks with positive rewards such as tickling and treats, or trained not to do something using the punishment (water) spray bottle. Petz must be looked after properly; abused or neglected petz may run away.
Players may share their petz with others who have the game. Each version allows the importing of petz from all earlier versions. There is also a camera feature, permitting snapshots of petz to be taken and saved as .bmp files.
One can choose to adopt dogz, catz or both depending on the version installed, and play with a small selection of other animals including pigz and bunniez. Later versions of the games included a Petz Web Fun Pack, Petz Publisher and a Petz Player web browser plug-in, allowing players to publish their petz online in playable webpages.
Users soon learned how to reverse-engineer the system, and began producing additional breedz, toys, playscenes, clothes, and developer tools for the games, as permitted by PF Magic, Mindscape, and Ubisoft Entertainment.
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[edit] Creature Design
Body: (Ball style design) The petz are modelled as a set of balls joined by lines with variable parameters. The concept for this was developed in an early PF Magic title, the fighting game Ballz for Sega Genesis. Because of this design, Petz breedz, toyz, and clothez are relatively easy to modify, but the ball and line system also causes some glitchiness. This model was scrapped in the 2006 games "Dogz" and "Catz" for the PC for a more "realistic" look.
Colours: There are 10 default colours that occur naturally in the game. These are white, black, 2 shades of grey (known as blue and silver), cream, brown, red/ruddy/sorrel/russet, orange, tan and dusty. In addition to these coat colours is the pink found on some Poodle variations. Eye colours are not limited to these 10, although shades of brown, green and blue are most common, particularly in low generation petz. In "hexed" breedz/petz the range of colors can be much greater, although all colors must be within the 256-bit selection. Any coat colours other than the default 10 can not be inherited properly and will mutate to inheritable colors in offspring.
Textures: Textures cover the ballz, imitating fur.
Paintballz: Some Breedz have splotches of colour or texture on their bodies called Paintballz. The spots on the Alley Cat and Dalmatian are examples of this.
[edit] Breedz
Each Petz breed has its own body shape, personality and colour variations.
Petz 2 began with 5 Breedz per game, and new ones were introduced through downloads via the PF Magic website. In addition to what became 10 Breedz, avid Petz fans began using a hex editor to modify the 10 Breedz to form new ones. This hexing continued through Petz 3 as well.
Petz 3 and 4 contain 10 Breedz per game, referred to as the Original PF Magic Breedz. For Catz these are the Alley Cat, Black & White Shorthair (B&W), Calico, Chinchilla Persian, Maine Coon, Orange Shorthair (Oshie), Persian, Russian Blue, Siamese (Meezer) and Tabby. For Dogz these are Bulldog, Chihuahua, Dachshund, Dalmatian, Great Dane, Labrador Retriever, Mutt, Poodle, Scottish Terrier (Scottie) and Sheepdog.
Petz 5 saw the addition of 5 new Breedz per game, referred to as the UbiSoft Breedz. For Catz these are the Desert Lynx, Egyptian Mau, Honey Bear, Japanese Bobtail and Scottish Fold. For Dogz these are the German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Jack Russell Terrier, Papillon and Pug.
[edit] Hexies
Hexed breedz and petz -- called "hexies" -- are petz that have been modified to appear or act a certain way -- colour, size, behaviour, sound, shape, fuzziness, texture, paintballz and much more can be changed in this way. This can be particularly useful when creating new breedz and unique petz. The term comes from "hexadecimal code", which is the coding that is modified to create a hexie.
Although most hexing used to be done in Notepad there have recently been many new hexing programmes created to aid "hexers". Due to this much more of the "Petz Community", or "PC" have started hexing.
[edit] Breeding and Petz Genetics
Petz in the game can become attracted to one another and breed to produce offspring, much like in real life. This feature was introduced in Petz 3 and has also appeared in Petz 4 and Petz 5. In Petz 3 and Petz 4, a petz couple could only produce one kitten/puppy per breeding, but in Petz 5 a mother can bear up to 4 offspring per litter.
The user can encourage petz to fall in love by squirting them with love potions and perfumes and giving them food with aphrodisiac-like qualities, as well as using other means. When petz have mated, a heart will appear on the screen informing the user of the female's pregnancy (which generally lasts 3 - 5 days). In that time, females will become noticeably rounder and will require lots of love and a few extra treats.
Petz' genes carry through to their offspring but can mutate (very easily in Petz 5, less so in previous versions), resulting in different fur and eye colours to that of the parents. The shape and size of body parts is also inherited in "sections;" eg. the legs, head, and ears could be inherited from one parent and the feet, tail, and body could be inherited from another. There is a slight tendency for offspring to inherit traits more frequently from parents than from farther-back ancestors. Crossing small and big petz can also result in odd-looking offspring, and it is possible to selectively breed overly large or small Petz. There are 10 coat colours a pet's body colour can be. These are the default colours listed in the Creature Design section. The eye colours are not restricted to these colours.
When two different breeds of Petz are bred together, the offspring will have the base personality of one parent (or ancestor). The base personality can be determined by the pet's voice, their personality and behaviour (eg. if the pet trembles when it walks, it has an Orange Shorthair personality) and how they pose if they are a cat (different breeds pose with different expressions, and some pose more readily than others).
Dogz and Catz cannot breed together as they rely on different base files that determine their movement and behaviour.
Players have reported that in very rare cases, it is possible for two females to breed due to an unintentional coding glitch.
[edit] Petz Life Cycle
When petz have babies, the player is asked to name the offspring. During the first few days of a pet's life, it is blind, small and cannot walk as it would be in real life.They cry when they are touched or picked up (which can irritate the mother). The mother feeds her infant and the user can do so with the milk bottle. When the puppies\kittens are young, they remain in the nursery room (the only room they can access at this time) with their mother until they are weaned. Only the mother and offspring can access this room, and the mother and offspring cannot be taken out separately. When the babies have grown up, the nursery becomes inaccessible.
The newborn will later become an infant, or toddler. Its eyes have opened and it is able to walk around, jump onto ledges and has stopped suckling. They can eat from food bowls and drink from the milk bottle, but cannot swallow treatz.
Eventually, the offspring will separate from their mothers as they grow to kittenz and puppiez.
As a result, many generations and colors may occur in the game, even in purebreds. The differences can be enormous. A maximum of 8 generations can be recorded in the pet's file and family tree, although Petz can obviously be bred to much higher generations.
[edit] 2006 Petz
The 2006 and onwards Petz games bear little resemblance to the original Petz games. Instead of mathematically generated ball-and-line modelled Catz and Dogz that could grow, breed and interact with each other (as opposed to a separate game for each species), the 2006 Petz feature 3D graphics that can be retextured, but not remodelled by players due to the expensive software used to create them (the resulting model files being saved in a format incompatible with other 3D programs).
Six other games were released along with Catz and Dogz. These were Bunnyz, Horsez, Tigerz, Dolphinz, Monkeyz and Hamsterz. The new Petz games were produced for a range of consoles, including Playstation 2, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Gameboy Advance and PC. On the DS and GBA, the player can care for up to three catz or dogz, which are unable to breed, whilst on the Wii and PS2, the player controls a cat/dog on an adventure quest to save the planet from Ivlet, an evil wolf. In this version the player may customize his/her cat or dog to their style, respectively. In the PC version, the player cares for a single pet.
[edit] See Also
[edit] External links
- Ubisoft's Official Petz Website
- PetzA Petz add-on
- The Petz Archive
- The Petz Kennel Club (PKC)
- The Virtual Petz Association (VPA)
- The RKC Petz Forum
