PETZ
once upon a time, i somehow came across the pf magic petz fandom. to be more specific, it was this site! although i was only about 6 or 7 at the time, i thought that these older petz games were super neat from what i saw of them. at some point (a few years later) i downloaded petz 4, and it's been one of my favorite games ever since. here's my page dedicated to petz and all it's done for me
if you don't know what the older petz games are, they are a series of 8 games made by p.f. magic (that stands for "pure freaking magic", by the way) from 1995 to 2002. they are quite possible one of the most realistic virtual pet games that you'll ever see. there are 6 main petz games (dogz, catz, and 4 sequels), oddballz, and babyz. petz games have a very distinct visual style, with the creatures and some objects (toyz) being made out of colored spheres connected with lines. people eventually figured out how to hex edit the game files and create their own pets, breeds, toys, clothes, and areas. there are many third-party tools developed to help people add to their games.
you can adopt petz from the adoption center, and in petz 3 and above you can breed them to get babies, who will stay with their mother for a few days after birth. there are a lot of toys to use to interact with your petz, and you can do things like feeding them, taking them on a vacation, teaching them tricks, playing dressup, breeding them to create interesting crossbreeds, or just petting them in your character's living room. each pet, breed, toy, and item of clothing has its own file, so you can share your petz with others or create your own, as mentioned above. in petz 4 and 5, there is even a program included with the game that can be used to create your own areas (playscenez)!
now that the explaining's over, on with the show!
something that always makes me sad is when i see a pet on a website that i'd like to have, but the website hasn't been updated in years
alternatively, the pet is up for download, but the website is down and wayback machine doesn't have the file archived
i think it's become a habit of mine to go on old, dead petz websites and download petz from there so they can live on somewhere, even if it's my grandma's computer that's gonna be replaced soon
i should put all my pets in a zip file and upload them somewhere... yeah, that'll be good
i never did like the babyz game
it might be because i relate to animals more than people, but i'm pretty sure the uncanny valley effect is at play here...
also, my grandma's computer doesn't have a microphone on it