Hello, and Welcome to the Bureau for the Understanding and Research of PostPets (BURP)
introduction to the wonderful world of e-mail virtual pets, Lesson One: So You've Downloaded
a PostPet. (Other Lessons in this series include: PostPet Real Estate, Cooking
with your PostPet, and So Your PostPet is Driving you Insane. After the first lesson,
you're free to cancel your subscription at any time you like: Just keep the ones you like, and
send back the rest in their original packaging! Order now and get a free homemade PostPet snack
of your very own!)
Congratulations on downloading your very own PostPet! This entertaining little virtual friend
will provide you with hours of frustration as you alternately curse Sony and Microsoft for
creating such a prone-to-crashing product, replete with nonsensical error messages
(Translation of error messages: "PostPet is acting funny. Please shut down, reboot, and pray
to your deity of choice)
and a tendency to shut down *right* in the middle of typing a long e-mail, or right in the
middle of receiving a long e-mail.
Here are some tips to help you along.
FSQ (Frequently Screamed Questions) #1: AAAAAAAH! My Pets won't come home! I got an error
message! Aaaah!
In such a situation, try setting your computer clock about a day forward, and checking mail.
(Doesn't matter whether or not the program connects to your mail server.) The pet will return,
although the status bar on the bottom of its room may still maintain that it's out delivering
mail. Alternately, you can wait 12 hours or longer for the pet to get tired of delivering mail,
at which point it will come home as soon as you check mail.
Keep in mind that there is an unconfirmed rumour that your pet may become "damaged" if you
repeatedly use the computer clock-trick, and in programs such as PostPet 2001, certain special
PostPet Functions will not work if you force your pet to come home before it's ready.
FSQ #2: My pet won't eat the food I set out for it! It keeps violently shaking its head!
Pets eventually "mature". They often start out liking kiddy food, like sweet sweet candy,
and other similar foods. They may, however, mature in their tastes so that they begin to enjoy
bitter foods (rice cookies), gourmet foods (durian), disgusting foods (hopper), etc. They will
almost always eat "general foods" (eg, space food). Try experimenting. There's also a cute
little PostPet Food editor that will allow you to edit the amount of food, how long it lasts
before getting "slightly old" and finally "gone bad", and what type of food it is.
FSQ #3: There are no more snacks in the menu/The snacks have all gone bad.
If there are no more of a particular snack in the menu, you can always close PostPet, go through
Windows Explorer, and open the PostPet Snacks Folder. You can delete the old snack file
(thus clearing it from the menu).
You can then use WInZip or whatever to extract a fresh file into the Snacks Folder.
You can also add new snacks to your PostPet snack menu thusly.
In Postpet 1.2 onwards, there is a handy-dandy "drop" button in your snack menu; thus allowing you to "drop" any rotten or undesired snacks without
having to go into the actual Snacks Folder.
FSQ #4: There's a funny little dash instead of the number of snacks left.
That means that there's an infinite amount of them left. Be thankful.
FSQ #5: My pet keeps clapping its hands/jumping on its bed/getting these black lines over its head/ getting an X over its head.
Your pet is probably unhappy. In the case of getting an X over its head, it's outright angry.
Here are some things you can try:
- feed it.
- clean it.
- pet it, by running your cursor over it.
(clicking = slapping it. PostPet owners are advised not to do this.) - mail it off to another PostPet owner.
*grin*
FSQ #6: The pet has these icky fly-like things surrounding it.
...Ewwww. Wash it. Repeatedly. If you wash it enough, its "style" rating will be "Got its own
fan club", the best possible rating.
Alternately, you can keep it looking filthy until it becomes "Hard" or "Superhard".
At this point, the critter will start, er, making a mess when it visits friends.
FSQ #7: How do I get new rooms?
Well, you have two options. You can either wait for PostPet Singapore to put out a new room
*heheheh* or you can download an "unofficial" room. These can be found in plentiful supply,
thanks to a Postpet Room Editor that someone created which lets you make your own rooms.
Unfortunately, there are many sites which essentially steal the rooms from other (mostly
Japanese) sites, and post them on their websites with nary an acknowledgement of the poor soul
who worked so hard on the room. Remember, kids, if you're going to post someone else's work
on your site, the least you can do is credit them and include their URL as a link.
The unofficial rooms can be unzipped into the Plugins Folder, and selected by going to the Care
Menu via the menu bar, or by left-clicking on the PostPet room itself.
NOTE: Most Japanese PostPet Fan sites note that if you use an Unofficial Room, you are no longer
eligible for customer support and assistance from Sony Communications, as you have effectively
tampered with the program by adding a possibly harmful plug-in. I don't know what
Sony Singapore's policy on Unofficial Rooms is, though.
FSQ #8: What's with the little box on the side?
That's the treasure box. As your pet wanders around, it gathers treasures from time to time.
You can't do much with the treasures, except look at them and wonder what exactly the Japanese
programmers were smoking. (eg, one of the treasures is a decapitated head labeled "Oyaji" or
"middle-aged-dude".) To look at the treasures, click on and around the box until it opens up,
or select "Treasure" from the PostPet Care Menu.
FSQ #9: What's with my pet randomly sending me e-mails and journal entries?
Eh. Everytime your pet goes off on a mail-delivery, it brings home a little account of what it
did, whether it was excessively slapped, etc. If it has been slapped while delivering mail,
it is less likely to think of the slapper as a "friend", and will not send it e-mails.
It is rumoured that being slapped by a stranger is more damaging to your pet than being slapped
by its owner.
If you send e-mails back and forth often enough with a person, *eventually* the pet will start
writing e-mails to other people as well as yourself. Rather like a benign, cuddly version of
the Melissa virus.
Like the treasures, the journal entries also make you wonder what the programmers were smoking.
FSQ #10: What does my pet do while it's delivering mail?
Supposedly, PostPets interact during the brief periods when they visit each others houses.
They will either get along well, and possibly fall in love, or very subtly try to kill each
other.
There are 5 known types of PostPet attacks...
Bear -- Chopping motion with arm
Rabbit -- kicking with hind legs
Cat -- kicking out with one hind leg, and glaring
Turtle -- breathing a large fire ball.
Mailman (you have to hack the program a bit to get this one) -- crossing its arms and blocking.
Postpets may also eat while out delivering mail, so if someone's sending a postpet to you, you
may with to leave a snack out.
UPDATE!
PostPet 2.1 has a whole new set of pets, and a new set of attacks. They include:
Pouched Penguin -- Head-banging or pecking motion.
Mystery Mechanoid -- Firing Missiles-motion. (How subtle.)
Big Mouth Hamster -- Puffing up like a blowfish.
Mongrel Dog -- I forget what the dog's attack is.
Other known problems with PostPet:
- crashing while composing mails/getting mail/receiving other pets.
While the instinctive reaction is to excuse this as a Beta product glitch, the sad fact is that this has been reported in the Japanese final product as well. The Japanese commercial product owners have given up, saying that they compose the e-mail in notepad, and paste in the message right before sending... It should be noted, though, that the product was developed to encourage a broader base of people (eg, young women and children) to familiarize themselves with e-mail, to combat the burgeoning threat of internet illiteracy looming over Japan. - No Bcc option, and no forwarding option.
These have been included in the "New and Improved PostPet 2001" program, which is a Japanese sequel to PostPet with all 4 current pets, as well as 4 new pets. (Pouch-penguin, Dog, Mechanoid, and Big Mouse/Mouth Hamster.)
For now, we non-Postpet 2001-users must satisfy ourselves with a "reply to" e-mail, replacing the sender's e-mail with another.
UPDATE
It appears that I was wrong, and PostPet 2.1 does not have a BCC or Forward option.
- Only one copy of the program can run at a time.
Eh. It happens. - Pet can only be sent to one person at a time. Pet can only receive one "guest" at a time.
Well, it *is* a rather limited program...
*smile* - When I send an attachment, the Call Pet icon turns grey.
Er... maybe the attachment's too heavy for the pet?
*grins*
Anyhow, yes, you can only send simply text-only e-mails using PostPet. - The Beta version only lasts 90 days.
Well, it used to last 180 days. But with Christmas around the corner, and the final product due out anyday now, I guess they got antsy. Some people (eg, me *grin*) still have the original lasts-180-days version of the setup program, and are willing it to send it to those poor unfortunates who got saddled with the 90 days version.
*grin* - UPDATE! The Trial version only lasts 30 days, and you can only get the bear on it.
Dunno what to say. Apparently, Sony Singapore was slowly weaning PostPet users off of the free Betas and trials... first it was 180 days, then 90, and finally 30 days only. - FURTHER UPDATE
For PostPet 2.1 Trial, it only lasts 10 days. You can only keep the bear or dog pet on it; however, you can recieve all 8 pets as guests (where as in PostPet 1.2, the new pets will show up as Unidentified Mysterious Animals). - The Pet ran away.
*sigh*
This is one of the quirks of a virtual pet program. If it feels maltreated, cranky, or whatever, it may run away. In some cases, it will return. In other cases, it will not... or worse yet, will return only to leave some bitter little letter on the table about how it's never coming home again. THIS HAS HAPPENED TO MY SISTER.
The Cat Postpets in particular are infamous for running away from home... but I know of one friend who had her Turtle Postpet run away from home in its first week with her, so all of the pets are equally a risk, in terms of running away from home. - Where are all the PostPet Freebies you keep telling me about in BURP?
Initially, PostPet Singapore had snacks and rooms that you could download for free on their main page. However, it has since moved its free snacks download site and other neat freebies into its PostPet Park, a members-only site with all sorts of PostPet extras and games available for DL and online play. The full Park opened sometime in the summer of 1999, as the Full Program began to ship.
The program, known as PostPet Premium, consists of a double CD. One is for yourself; the other is for a friend. It should come with an envelope and stickers so that you may send the second CD ROM to your friend, as well as a lovely "PostPet Friends Address Book" and a small card.
Very cute. - How do I access PostPet Park?
As of December 21st 1999, PostPet Park Pacific is open to everyone.... much like it was open for everyone before PostPet Premium started to ship. However, it may begin charging for membership again; the only way to know for sure is to visit it frequently.
This concludes lesson one of the Living With PostPet series. Thank you for your time.
