Frustrated by the unjustified furore that surrounded his tame interactive movie game, designer Rob Fulop turned to Santa for help. And with a clever business model he and his team at PF Magic invented a new kind of game, one in which you adopt and care for a digital animal — a virtual dog or cat, or something more exotic, with a personality and needs and quirks not unlike a real one.

Petz hexing is a deep rabbit hole to fall down, but if you're curious I'd recommend starting with these links:

Ballz & Linez: Remembering the Golden Age of Petz HexingPetz: A lost community of mostly female coders/gamersCarolyn's CreationsAnd for more on the Petz AI, I thought these were interesting:

Socially Intelligent Virtual PetzCreating Emotional Relationships With Virtual CharactersVirtual Babyz: Believable Agents with Narrative Intelligence(Also take a good look at what one of the Dogz/Catz developers did next.)Support comes from my Patreon backers, with special credit to my three $10+ backers Vivek Mohan, Wade Tregaskis, and Simon Moss. Thanks fellas!

To learn more about my book, The Secret History of Mac Gaming, head to its official website secrethistoryofmacgaming.com.

Music and SFX credits:

Two short clips from Night Trap's 1993 3DO versionExcerpt from 1993 Senate Committee Hearings, via YouTubeAnd everything else is my own work.

The Life & Times of Video Games on the Web and social media

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Links:

The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Richard Moss - AmazonAmazon.com: Night Trap: 25 Years Later — Explore the history of the ground-breaking Full Motion Video (FMV) game, Night Trap, in this documentary brought to you by My Life in Gaming.

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