The Basics of Me! What is Petz? My Petz Journey Today & Beyond
Name: Sid or distortarte (pronounced dis-tort-art)
Pronouns: They/Them
Age: 30+
Gender: Non-Binary
Current Mood: 
Job: Student, Game Dev, Artist
Hobbies: Digital Art, 3D Modelling, Thrifting CDs, Surfing The Web
Starsign: Aquarius
Favourite Petz Breedz: Alley Cat, Neko & Mazz Coon!
Real Life Pet: Uno the tabby!
(Uno picture on it's way!)
Petz was a series of games created by the company PF Magic in the mid-90s. They originally launched with Dogz, and later followed up with Catz. They released more games, where eventually if you owned both Catz and Dogz, you would then own a hybrid of those games, called Petz.
Petz has an extremely advanced-for-its time genetics system in which there are almost endless possibilities of the Petz you can breed. There's also been a very active community for the games since their launch, whom of which have modded (also referred to as hex editing, or "hexing") the games, creating potentially thousands of new breedz for the game, expanding the games horizon almost endlessly.
After the release of Petz 4, Ubisoft purchased the brand name. Petz 5 was published under Ubisoft. However, Ubisoft then began publishing completely unrelated games to the original franchise under the Petz franchise, including irrelevant Japanese series with the Petz title slapped on them.
Now, the original games appear to be entirely abandonware with no Petz 6 with advanced genetics in sight. However, the wonderful online Petz community keeps the games alive, with many fun elements such as custom breedz, online Petz shows, hexing challenges, and so much more.
I first played Petz when I was around 8-10 years old in the early 00's. Catz 5 was bought for me from ASDA, a supermarket in the UK!
My first adopted pet was the Alley Cat. I loved playing with Scamp! I later adopted a Desert Lynx, and had a lot of fun playing with them, too. They had a kitten at one point, but I don't remember how it looked. But I do remember it being VERY exciting!
A Petz 4 recreation of my first Catz!
I later discovered online Petz websites, and found out about custom breedz via Carolyn Horn's website and the RKC forum. I learned about Oddballz, and the communities preference for Petz 4, so a little while later I was gifted that, too.
One of my favourite things to do in Petz was just to crossbreed the weirdest Petz I could imagine. Anything strange I could find, you betchya I'd mash them together and see what happened! Then I'd try and enter them into conventional contests. A contarian even at that age. A bizzare rebelling child, but one I'm proud to have been.
My favourite Pet from back then was Molar, a Mew / Zott crossbreed.
She was born on 26/01/04. She was just extremely mild-mannered
(maybe just in extreme constrast to her Oshie-based mother!) and was a delight to play with. Unfortunately, she has since been lost to time, but luckily I was able to salvage some old photos of her and some awards she managed to win from the Wayback Machine!!
.png)
A cleaned-up transparent picture of my girl, she lives on. <3
As I grew, my DysAuDHD festered and my life got kinda weird, I explored new hobbies and interests. Life changed as school became more difficult, and I drifted away.
I suddenly returned to Petz in 2018, many, many years after my last venture into the Petz community.
I played around with certain breedz, managed to download old ones from the Wayback Machine, and even managed my first breeding project with a goal in mind,
which was Lisa Frank Dalmation x Kistune crossbreed.
This is Sprinkles! She's a beaut!
As soon as I picked it up, I fell off again. I popped in a few times, inspired by targetted YouTube videos or a lockdown-inspired nostalgia trip, but nothing too substancial. I managed to breed one of my favourite Petz, Misty in this time, a Spamton x Trinket miracle. Sometimes mixing crazy breedz can result in something cute, somehow!
This is Misty. She makes dial-up noises.
...And that is where the current Past of my journey ends. Now, we look to the Future!
I redownloaded Petz 4 on a whim and discovered my files from 2018.
I still had a few Petz on my drive and I thankfully had a bunch of old Petz on my computer.
This time though, I finally properly connected with the community. I finally spoke up in the Discords I was in.
I found a wonderful, warm, and amazingly creative community of people who inspired me to be the best that I can be.
The Petz Community has really helped me engage in my creative practices much more, and it's been so wonderful to be back, properly this time!
I even managed to brex a very similar Mew x Zott to Molar! She's certainly not exactly the same and I may tweak her in future, but right now, seeing her running around on the screen in the way she used to has been, quite frankly, Pure Fucking Magic.
My girl, Molar Jr. <3
For the future, I plan on learning much more about hexing, collecting more Petz, showing the Petz I do have, and continuing to engage with this truly wonderful community!!!
Happy Petzing!!!
