- this is a WiP-
I am slowly putting the thread together... Eventually I'd like to have a directory of files and helpful resources, as well as pictures and a summary of each title.Petz doesn't have a very well documented history or reliable sources of information about older releases, my goal is to try and bring as much of that info together as possible.
Update: 3/2/24 Rewriting the thread as it was riddled with misspellings and lazily written by me.
____What is Petz?
Petz is a series of virtual pet care games (although more of a sandbox/simulation) originally developed and published by P.F. Magic. These games would hit their peak of popularity during the late 90s and early 2000s, while still remaining quite niche and obscure. PF Magic eventually become aquired by Ubisoft, who currently owns the rights to the franchrise. Ubisoft would go on to localize and rebrand various titles (not developed by PF Magic) under the Petz branding and would remain on console (unlike almost all previous titles which had been PC)
Classic / PF Magic Era: 1995 - 2001
A brief history of Petz:
PF Magic was a game developer and publisher founded in 1991 (one of the co founders being Rob Fulop). Very little is known about them and their releases other than Ballz for the 3DO/SNES and (very obscurely) Max Magic for the Phillips CD-i, both allegedly released in 1994. It's also worth mentioning that Facade is related to PF Magic by using the same graphical style as Ballz / early Petz releases and having a bit of the same development team.
Ballz is probably one of their most well known titles aside from Petz. A 2.5D fighting game that used spheres to build the character models, and created what was described as "pseudo 3D effect"
Shortly after devloping Ballz, PF Magic would go on to reuse the graphical technology in Dogz, creating the distict look that all old Petz games are known for. After the success of Dogz, Catz was released that following year (1996). Then came Oddballz, which took a much more comical and typical 90s wacky style. It was very similar to Dogz/Catz except you were raising little alien creatures, and because they were so cartoony, you could use "Toyz" to blow them apart, make their eyes pop out, etc.
Catz and Dogz were treated a seperate games until Catz and Dogz II were released in 1997, where if you installed both titles they would combine into just one: Petz II. These games were now being published under Mindscape (who was also owned by TLC) but still developed by PF Magic. Then Catz and Dogz 3 came out the following year (catz 3 was actually my first experience with the series, given to me by an older cousin).
Up until now, the games remained relatively the same with each installment maybe getting some new toys and breeds, but Catz 4 and Dogz 4 was the first in the series to include many new features (such as Bunnyz and Pigz). One of the biggest and most adored features is probably the breeding system, allowing your petz to have offspring. With a pretty in depth genetics system; you could create mixed breeds.
I believe Bunnyz and Pigz were unable to have babies (unless you had hexxed breeds). In 1999, Babyz was released under the publisher TLC (And later Ubisoft).
Known Releases:
- work in progress -
Modding scene / Hexxing:
- work in progress -
If you see any inconsistent or untrue info in my post, please correct me so I can fix it! if you have helpful links or info about Petz, please share! Thank you
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