That’s great! The Petz community is a lovely place, and we all share a love of these little digital dogs and cats.
Here’s my guide to getting started with the games!
There are five Petz games (that are part of the actual series, anyway). Petz 4 is by far the most popular one, but you’ll see people playing Petz 3 and 5 as well, and less frequently people who play Petz and Petz II. I did my best to assemble a table comparing the features of these games:
| DOGZ/CATZ | PETZ II | PETZ 3 | PETZ 4 | PETZ 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compatible as one game | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Breedz | 5 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 30 |
| Multiple Petz | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Genders | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Breeding | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Litterz with multiple babies | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Toy Closet | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Toy Closet | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Clothes Closet | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Salon and minigames | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Nursery | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Technically, I can’t tell you that. The Petz games may be abandonware, but Ubisoft still holds the copyright. But they’re not hard to find! One place you could look is the Internet Archive, somewhere I go to get a lot of my old games. Quite a few people on my Links page can hook you up, too, since a lot of us have links to downloads. If Petz 4 is the game you want, I recommend checking out Reflet’s site. Petz 3, Gyiyg’s. And Petz 5, Mazz’s.
Technically, no. You can play Petz completely vanilla if you so choose. But if you have a finicky Windows computer like mine, especially Windows 10 or 11, I highly recommend it! Prevents a lot of glitches and crashing.
Also, if breeding projects are your thing, I highly recommend PetzA for Petz 5 and Prism’s fork of it for Petz 4! It really saves time to be able to set how many babies you want to get.
When I first opened Petz 5, all the petz I’d take out of the Adoption Centre looked like masses of triangles. The trick to solving this is reducing your screen resolution! Mine’s set lower than the recommended level and I hardly notice the difference, plus my petz look like their proper selves!
♧ — From this point onwards, I’m going to be using Petz 4 as my example. There are differences between each game, so if something doesn’t line up quite right, assume it’s because Petz 4 does something different than your version. — ♧
This is, of course, a rough guide. “Do what you want” is practically the motto of Petz – it’s a simulation game, after all!
You’re going to want to start off by adopting a pet (or two!)
You’ll first load into the game at the Adoption Centre, this yellow-panelled building with the game’s title on it and the text “Adoption Center” (the American spelling). There’s a couple of toys scattered around for the petz to play with. You can press “Pick A Pet” to choose from the breedz available in some games, if you wait long enough, a pet will come out of the AC on their own to say hello!
When you’re ready to adopt, press the yellow-texted “Adopt Now” button with the basket beside it, type in your pet’s name and your “owner name”, and continue. You’ll see a certificate of adoption, where you can continue to officially adopt the pet.
You will be transported with your pet to the Family Room on your first playthrough. (If you go to the AC after being in another playscene, you will be taken to whichever playscene you were at before.) Note that I have the Moody Botanical Study overwrite that Rho put out, since I really liked the aesthetic. That’s why everything looks so… well, moody.
Feel free to explore the other options in the “Go To” menu. There’s some fun worldwide adventures to be had!
You can also make your own playscenes! They’re not as complex, but they’re still pretty good. I have some for picture-taking purposes.
You’ll eventually come across various toys and such in the game world. Put them in your Carrying Case to keep them! You can then take them to the Toys Closest (PII-P4) or just hold onto them in the Carrying Case (P5) for future use.
In the Clothes Closet (P3-P4) or the Salon (P5), you can see a wide variety of clothes that you can put on your petz!
If you have the setting turned on in Petz 4 and 5, you might get a guest in certain playscenes!
In any playscene, leaving items and especially food outside can attract mice. There are two of them, and you can even paint them different colours!
Assuming you don’t have Prism’s PetzA and you don’t have that setting turned off, every day you open Petz but don’t play with your petz will result in them gaining neglect. Too much neglect, and your pet will run away (irrecoverably in all but Petz 5!). Make sure to play with all your petz every day! This way, they can learn and grow.
(Another way for a pet to gain neglect is through spraying them with the Spray Bottle, or watering them with the Watering Can if they’re a breed that doesn’t like water, e.g. the Chinchilla Persian, which literally goes insane when wet.)
When petz hit adulthood, they may fall in love if they are opposite genders (but not always, under specific circumstances!) and both catz or both dogz (this gets complicated with hexing). If they spend enough time with each other, they can breed and a baby (or multiple in P5) is on the way!
As I go on and on about, Petz has an extremely complex genetics system. Try out different combinations of petz, and try using Love Potion on petz you want to breed! There are other love-inducing toyz, but Love Potion us the most effective one. Especially in large numbers…
There are some other features and mechanics that I haven’t mentioned here, but that’s because I don’t want to ruin every aspect of the game! Instead, here’s some hints:
