sweet 32-bit creatures

a petz 5 blog/nostalgia machine

[anchoress-petz]

[petz4]

[anchoress-petz]

Might be taking a small hiatus - I had to uninstall the game because it was glitching out (all items turning to tennis balls in carrying case, minigame playscenez spewing tons of popup windows, not saving anything from the last run - that old hat) (I’m sure many of you know what I’m talking about). 

All of my .pet files are preserved (hooray for backups!) but I’m thinking this might be a sign to slow down. Work is about to heat up again and my spring semester has started, so I think I’m going to focus on real world stuff for a while. I might post some old gifs/screenshots/petz related material, but don’t expect much new content for a while.  

I’m not gonna try to reinstall for a bit. I’m not nearly as tech savvy as most of this community, so it takes me a while to troubleshoot things, and frankly, I have a lot on my plate right now. If anybody has tips to prevent this kind of glitch from happening again, I’d be really grateful. I’ve heard that saving the game files to My Documents tends to stabilize them or something - maybe that’s something to try this time around. 

Tldr: game glitched, my petz are safe, and I’m taking a break for a bit. Hope to be back soon! 

[anchoress-petz]

I love making my pets fall in love id have so many litters at a time just because I liked to see how the babies turned out

I know, breeding is one of the best parts of the game! And puppiez and kittenz are so cute :)

[junkyardd0gg]

JYD’s Naturally Curly Hair - Ms. Priss

-

I didn’t realize she had a poodle personality until AFTER I spent 20 minutes trying get a dali pose and she suddenly pulled this move. I had assumed she was a chihuahua because of her voice, but I guess looks (and sounds) really aren’t everything.

[anchoress-petz]

Newborns are so cute! They look like rolling piles of digital mush :’)

[anchoress-petz]

[anchoress-petz]

girl’s night! girl’s night! girl’s night!

[petzhex]

Pumpkin, hexed into Petz 5. She barks and the jack-o-lantern terrifies her.

[anchoress-petz]

[determinators]

Guys, I have great news.

[anchoress-petz]

[unregisteredpetzbreeder]

Somewhere along the line of breeding my spotted Danes, I ended up with some spotless guys. I collected them up and started a new line, eventually ending up with these two standard coat colors.

But, I love, love, love, fuzzy coats. So off to the adoption center I went, looking for the perfect fluffy dog to add to my Cloud Dogs.

I decided to go with a Sheep Dog, and was not disappointed by the outcome! The Field Herder ended up with two standard coat colors (and a couple others that show up from time to time) and either full or bobbed tail.

[anchoress-petz]

[anchoress-petz]

The hermit crabs (or crabz, I guess) are definitely my favorite playscene animal!

[anchoress-petz]

hi, i have a question! is petz one of those games where if you leave for a long period of time and come back, the pets will be gone? i love virtual pet games, but i tend to be unable to play them all the time. it would break my heart if i opened up the game again one day and my pets were gone.

Hi, thanks for the question! I totally understand your concern - causing even virtual animals to feel neglected would be pretty heartbreaking. In my experience (which is limited to Petz 5), petz don’t run away if you don’t play the game. I’m pretty sure, if you were to leave for a while, your petz would all be there the next time you played. However if you continue to play the game and you ignore some of your petz, they will feel neglected and run away. 

Major caveat: I’ve been playing Petz 5 pretty consistently since I downloaded it this year, and I haven’t gone more than a week without checking on my petz. I’m sure I went more than a week without playing the game when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago and I don’t remember what, if anything, happened. However, all the anecdotal evidence I’ve come across seems to indicate that your petz would be just fine if you stopped playing the game for a while.

Hope this is somewhat helpful! If anyone could truly confirm that your petz don’t run away when you stop playing the game for a long time, I’d be grateful. 

[anchoress-petz]

Thanks @schafpudel! What a silly oversight on my part - I always forget to read the instructions haha

[anchoress-petz]

Made a few changes around here!

Icon/mobile theme/desktop theme have all been changed up. The desktop theme, if anyone checks it, is a little screwy with my gif formatting but I think it fits the general vibe of the blog. The color scheme is appropriately “old web”, I feel (i.e. creeping into eyesore territory).

More importantly though, I was thinking about my old blog title: “petz is abandonware, long live petz”. I thought I was being kinda clever, but I got an ask a while back that took issue with the title. Regardless of whether or not Petz actually meets the definition of abandonware, I thought about it, and now I feel like the term had some negative implications. 

Petz may be currently unused by Ubisoft, or whoever owns the rights, and the community may have diminished since its heyday, but there are plenty of active users and dedicated fans. Calling it “abandonware” feels a little dismissive. I’m sure I’m overthinking things, but this game feels so sweet and genuine, and I want to keep that positive vibe going. I don’t know, I just wanted to get that out there.