What is Petz?

Petz (Dogz and Catz) is a series of games made by PF Magic dating back to 1995. These games basically allow the player to adopt their own virtual pets, and in fact were one of the first virtual pet games ever. Graphic technology is based on SNES game Ballz what means that animals are composed completely of balls, with a pseudo-3D look; with the improvement that the balls are attached to each other by lines.

In Petz everyone can play with cats or dogs, feed them and obviously breed them. There are some breeds in different colour variations to choose from and it is a lot of fun with mixing genetics. The community of players is creative and vast, and there are plenty of fanmade programs which allow people to do much more than game provides...

Making new breeed files - far different from original ones - was a key revelation here. Because of this possibility of modifying file code, both the artists wanting to express themselves and the circle of real cynology/felinology enthusiasts started to grow around this game. There are virtual organizations, virtual petz shows and kennels based on realistic breedfiles (with their own official standards). At the same time a culture of hexing one of a kind colorful animals takes the game possibilities to the limits! Many tools were developed specifically for this reason. Besides programs specialized in changing petz' physical appearance, there are programs helping to take care over petz, control their weight, age, plan and make litters etc. There is also special tool to create items, and function of making whole new backgrounds and skins was build in a Petz since very start, so today almost every part of game can be customized and indeed, is customized in almost every player computer.

Petz modding community developed back in the 90s and stands ever since. I tried to link some of working Petz websites on my link page - please check them out!

To start playing Petz, you can download it here.