One day in the Petz program is counted by one real day; once midnight has passed, you can open the program and your Petz will all have aged one more day. However, they only age if you open the program at least once a day. If you don’t open the program, your Petz are frozen in time.

Because the Petz day starts at 12:00am and ends at 11:59pm, it leaves a window for manipulation. Impatient kids like myself – who wanted to super-age the Petz to see what their kittens looked like – learned to set the Windows computer clock to 11:59pm, wait one minute, and open the program. To age the Petz another day, close the program and repeat the time-resetting process. This manipulation works well so long as you don’t go back and re-set the computer to its proper calendar date. Aging your Petz several days forward when the computer calendar shows that only one day has passed will eventually cause the program to no longer launch – or in some cases, it will just cause certain Petz to remain “stuck” in their stage of life for several days longer than they should.

Every Petz you adopt starts off as a Puppy or Kitten (with the exception of the bonus animals, Bunniez and Pigz, which simply start off as the “baby” of their species). After 4 days, the Petz become Adults and can reproduce (once again, with the exception of the bonus animals, who always come from the adoption center spayed or neutered and can never reproduce in the game).

Now, here’s where the fun part starts: breeding your adult Petz.

First off, you must make sure they are compatible. You cannot breed a cat with a dog, or male with a male/female with a female (males are denoted by a blue icon next to their name, and females with a pink icon), or a kitten/puppy with an adult, or a spayed/neutered Petz with any other Petz. Also, your Petz can’t hate each other. They don’t have to like each other all that much – that can be overcome – but Petz who fight with each other will never breed. Fighting behaviors include angry hissing, growling, and angry scratching-biting fights (denoted by a rapidly-spinning ball of fur on the screen with screeching sounds coming from it). Play-wrestling is not a fighting behavior and will not adversely affect two Petz’ ability to breed with each other. When play-wrestling, the Petz will simply hug and tumble over the floor.

Once it’s been determined that the two Petz are compatible, you can leave them together for a very, very long time (sometimes weeks, and sometimes never) and hope that they fall in love. OR, you can do what we impatient kids did, and stuff the two Petz into the Toy Closet area with about 50 bottles of perfume and love potion (both of which are objects that you can grab in endless supply from the Toy Closet). Then you just change the window size to the smallest possible, cramming your two hapless Petz into an area where they can’t take more than two steps without being sprayed by dozens of bottles of perfume and love potion. Next, take them to another play scene where there are no mouse holes, host characters, or objects that can distract them (we usually use the Clothes Closet) and leave them there for a bit. If they are successful, a big red heart will pop up in the middle of the screen telling you that the two of them are expecting a new kitten/puppy. If the red heart doesn’t show up in five minutes or so, take them back to the Toy Closet and bathe them in perfume again. Repeat the process until you get your offspring.

Pregnant Petz will remain so for 2-3 days, and then a pink birth announcement window will pop up in the middle of the screen when the mother cat is taken out to play. This new Petz is categorized as a “Newborn” and will remain at this stage for another 2-3 days. The newborn will only come out when carried in the mouth of its mother. It has its eyes closed, makes high-pitched baby animal noises, and can only belly-shuffle short distances across the screen (except for the few occasions when it gets up and walks around, eyes open, to chase the milk bottle you’re holding with your cursor).

The next level of Petz growth is “Infant.” The Petz is still inseparable from the mother, but in all other respects acts like a normal puppy or kitten. It remains at this stage for another 2-3 days.

After this, the new Petz becomes a regular Puppy or Kitten and can be taken out separately from its mother – just the same as if you’d gotten it from the Adoption Center. It takes another 4 days to become an adult.

Petz only produce one kitten or puppy at a time; there are no litters in the game. Moreover, the game only allows a maximum of 4 Petz to be out at any given time (if you have two mothers bringing their offspring with them onto the screen). This is probably due to the fact that the game was designed for Windows 95/98 and much slower systems.

Once a Petz reaches adulthood, it is immortal. Petz can develop a bit of a cold (evidenced by frequent sneezing), but this is cured in a matter of seconds with a few drops of medicine in their food bowl. The only ways you can lose a Petz is by choosing to “return” them, or by having them run away from abuse or neglect.

Petz will run away if you open the program on too many days (usually 4 or 5) without playing properly with them; this is one factor to keep in mind if you decide to speed-age them. In order to keep the Petz from running away, one must take each Petz out and set out food and water for them. It doesn’t matter if they eat the food or not; they just need to have the food present. It’s also a good idea to throw the ball for them and pet them. Also, there must be some amount of mouse movement to keep them happy, and typing in another window doesn’t count. Leaving the mouse still for too long results in one of the Petz sitting on its haunches and meowling or howling mournfully at you. Moving the mouse doesn’t have to be in the Petz window necessarily – you can play a game or two of Minesweeper on top of the window and that will be enough to keep them happy.

If you return a Petz and change your mind, or if your Petz run away, don’t give up hope just yet. As long as you are running the program on any Windows version besides the butt-sucking Vista version, you can access the individual Petz files by digging into your computer folders as follows: C:>Program Files\P.F. Magic\Petz4. Inside, you will notice a folder for Adopted Petz, which is all the Petz you currently have in the game. The Returned Petz folder is where your returned Petz are held; if you want them back in the game, just drag the file for the particular Petz you want back into the Adopted Petz folder. You can also attempt this with Petz files in the Runaway Petz folder, though this doesn’t always work. Having access to the files this way also allows you to “back up” your Petz files in case something happens to them.

The program does little to tax the modern computer; it was designed for older systems and ran quite well on my old computer with the 4GB hard drive. It will run on Windows XP and Vista, but only with the sound disabled (sound can be turned off under Options > General Options). It also crashes occasionally in the newer Windows versions, but usually at predictable times – so that one can avoid the crashes by simply re-starting the program when a crash is around the corner.

All of the critters available in Petz 4 are furry things made up of many furry spheres of varying sizes. The Catz 4 program comes with ten breeds of Catz and one bonus animal, the Bunny; likewise, the Dogz 4 program comes with ten breeds of Dogz and a Pig as the bonus animal. Most of the Dogz and Catz breeds are ordinary purebreds with specific markings and personalities. However, one Dogz breed is the “Mutt” – which has a similar appearance and coat variance to a Labrador in the game, and has a specific personality. The more interesting counter-breed on the Catz side of the spectrum is the “Alley Cat” – an unfortunate-looking creature with a kinked tail and vocalizations reminiscent of a long-term smoker’s.

You start off at the adoption center, where you can choose the species and breed of the Petz you want to bring out. Then the Petz comes through the doors into the play area, where you can spend time with the Petz and check out each different personality of the Petz breeds. Several breeds have some amount of variance in eye and coat color; these, along with the Petz’ gender, are chosen randomly when the Petz appears at the Adoption Center doors.

Once you’ve chosen and adopted your Petz, they are taken to the Family Room play scene. The yellow “suitcase” on the screen is where most of the important controls are. An arrow button allows you to expand the suitcase and store up to nine objects inside it (and then compact the suitcase once it’s full, so that the Petz do not go up to the suitcase and bat different objects out of it). The camera button allows you to photograph your Petz. The “pick a pet” buttons are used to select the Petz you want to bring out – but another Petz can only be brought out once at least one of the Petz on screen is put away. You must right-click on the Petz to pick them up, and then drop them over the door to put them away. However, it’s a good idea to have a mouse that you’re very comfortable with, because those little buggers run fast and can be very difficult to catch.

The last important button on the suitcase – the “Go To” button – allows you to select any play scene to travel to. You can go back to the Adoption Center to fetch more Petz, to the Clothes Closet to dress the Petz in ridiculous outfits, to the Toy Closet where a wide variety of objects are available in unlimited supply, or to play scenes around the house and around the world. You can also use the Go To menu to select the play scene editor, where they can create a Petz play scene based off of any properly-sized image.

The outside-the-house play scenes can also include Host Characters (these can be turned off in “General Options” if the player chooses). The host characters include an Alley Cat outlaw for the Wild West scene, and an Indiana Jones dog for the Arabia scene. These play scenes also have strange and exotic objects that show up in them – skulls, gems, and coins on the South Seas Island; fossils and tumbleweeds in the Wild West; and a basket with a snake that can be charmed in Arabia (use the flute from the Toy Closet to charm it). Some of these play scenes also have objects large, fixed objects that change when the program is opened – like the balloon machine and the confetti-ball-firing cannon in the Gypsy Circus, or the dancing hermit crabs at the Beach.

Some scenes – both at the house and away from it – include mouse holes, which mice may exit from unless the mouse holes are closed in General options. There is one white mouse and one grey mouse, and you are free to torment them as you wish. The least of these mouse’s worries are the Catz, which will simply pounce on them, bat them around, and then release them. You can pick them up and hold them for any length of time, hang them on hooks by the fireplace in the Family Room, or simply paint them ridiculous colors. However, if you want to give the mice a treat for putting up with all the torment, just grab a hunk of cheese from the Toy Closet and set it out. They will grab a piece of it and carry it off to their hole.

The kitchen play scene will also get cockroaches if you leave food out. You can clean up the food and set out a roach motel to get rid of them, but it’s more fun to watch the Petz chase them around. They’re rather tricky to catch though, and can’t be tormented like the mice.

Other than that…the game can get very repetitive, very fast. It has some re-playability, which is involved with the Petz 4 life cycle. The only way to avoid boredom is to have a mission in breeding your Petz for certain characteristics.