A Day In The Life Of A Petpetsitter

So what is Petpetsitter? Well it is a time management game (duh) in which you have to take care of some adorable Petpets in a basic but functional house (thankfully not mine) and attend to their every need, for what feels like an entire day. You have to make sure they are fed, toileted, get their naps on time and send them out to play in the garden. OH and for the GX-4 Oscillabots make sure they stay well maintained in the garage. The garage which appears to open directly into the living room, bit strange but this is the land where tapping mess with a mop clears it up so we will gloss over that. Sounds quite easy right? Take care of the pets and clean up the mess! HA! Unfortunately in true ‘avatar game’ fashion it is not simple at all, not even a little bit. Many Neopians who are brilliant at games struggle with this one and as for me, even being an adult Neopian with a small human of my own has still left me vastly underqualified for taking care of multiple Petpets.

Well where do I begin? These Petpets are NEEDY. Worse than needy they are also incredibly impatient. Do not let the slow start lull you into a false sense of security, things get out of hand extremely quickly and you probably won’t notice it turned bad until you are drowning in Petpets and have forgotten the mop even exists (more about the mop later). I really cannot stress how fast this game spirals out of control!

Before you begin tending to the first Petpet it is a very smart idea to type in ‘oscillabot’ (the only cheat that exists for this game) straight away for an all important extra life, you are definitely going to need it. Then prepare for absolute and total madness…

The Petpets all have handy (anxiety inducing) timers for how long you have to satisfy their needy-needs. At the beginning you will have 20 seconds to put the Petpet in its desired location. This will then decrease to 15 seconds and then at approx 40 points you will have only 10 seconds to get each petpet where it wants to be. Sounds like long enough, right? Not when you have 10+ petpets all whining at you at the same time! Remember what I said about them being incredibly impatient? I’m sure each pet cannot repeatedly need the toilet 4 times in 30 seconds! Accurate and fast mouse control is essential!

Each petpet makes a different noise for each action it wants you to perform so having your sound on will surely help your score once you can recognise the sound. The more you play, the more you will recognise what each noise stands for, no matter how annoying it may be. Be prepared to continue hearing hungry Feepits and broken GX-4 Oscillabots even in your sleep.

You also have 3 items that the Petpets can knock over (clearly they have ZERO spatial awareness) while they are running around looking for something to ask for just to stress you out that little bit more. Milk bottles, a flower pot and water bucket. Sadly they never seem to knock over that rather garish looking lamp though. You would think whoever this house belongs to they would have put these out of harm's way by now after having their house repeatedly trashed, but anyway a Petpet knocking these over will decrease your score by 5 every time. Personally, I ignore these until later in the game when the pets needs slow down. I’m only here to look after the petpets, not do the housework! You want the housework done too? Hire a maid! Once those items are knocked over, you cannot lose the points anymore so it is probably best to just leave them be, like any responsible sitter would…*sarcasm*. However, if you wish to clean up your house, simply drag the mop over the messy item to earn 10 points.

Tending to each pet’s need will earn you 10 points too. If you fail to tend to a petpet their timer will run out and they will leave behind a puddle. Mopping this up will also earn you 10 points but you will lose a life. If you’re anything like me, mopping up a puddle will soon be the end of your game as you lose touch of what pet needs what and you lose all 5 lives very quickly!

You will earn an avatar at 2,500 points, yep that’s right the avatar score for this game is 2,500. My highest score for this game is 845. Yep thats a whopping 1655 points away from the magical score, but don’t let this put you off! This game is so challenging that few achieve the avatar score, so if you are a Petpet ninja and achieve 2500+, you will surely add a shiny trophy to your lookup, and gain yourself a spot on my list of envy.

So to sum up here is a handy list of things to remember!

-Type oscillabot as soon as the game begins for an extra life

-Ignore the mop until later on in the game.

-The robots only ever need to be moved into the garage and no where else.

-Turn the sound up to hear the Petpets sounds clearly.

-Pay close attention to the timers and prioritise the Petpets accordingly.