BASIC GAMEPLAY

In-universe, FriendZoo has a lot of the basic features of Petz, but some are “added” for roleplay purposes, and others are stripped down or omitted to work with the narrative around the game. Playing the game on a basic level, such as feeding, playing, petting, taking screenshots, etc are all a part of FriendZoo, so don’t worry about limiting yourself there! The only limits to keep in mind are that any “canon” interactions/screencaps in FZ require the modded content here (or other content made by other FZ players, including yourself!).

QUICK START GUIDE

Let's get you started on the [FELID_FACTOR] forums!

The first step for getting set up on the forums is to make an HD forum account, which is fairly standard procedure. Once you have that, it's time to familiarize yourself with the Felid Factor forum rules. Then, you're ready to post a character profile on the Felid Factor Profile Boards. This will serve as an in-universe forum profile for your character- you can decorate or detail it however you want- it's in character, so have fun!

Once that's done, your character is registered with the RP and you're ready to go. You can now post on any of the FF boards as your registered character- and you can register as many characters as you like. As a bonus, every character you register will get you forum cash- which will be manually distributed when a mod notices (whoops). Feel free to ping Mortis in the FZ/Morbit Discords!

RASTERS

Now for the interesting part…the friends themselves, known as rasters. As the developer of FZ suspects, rasters are alive due to his magical ability, and are classifiable as “constructs”- artificially created people. Raggedy even had to get them properly registered, so they're recognizable as Morbitian citizens!

However, these constructs aren’t fully formed by default…they take in input from the in-game “chat feature” (you can roleplay this, see next section) as well as feelings and experiences from the character playing the game. The way this works in exact terms involves more than a little bit of Morbit science/magic knowledge, but…for your sake, just know that rasters develop more personality over time, and learn from their players, both directly and indirectly.

Here’s some ideas for things you can do with a raster character:

The sky’s the limit, though- your rasters are as much of characters as you want them to be, so feel free to get as simple or as complex as you want.

THE CHAT FEATURE

The chat feature in FZ isn’t an actual part of Petz, so this part requires a little bit of creativity. You can “talk” with your rasters via simple, chat-log style roleplay…though I guess it’s more writing with yourself. If you’ve ever played the game Creatures, it’s similar in concept, where you can type in words/sentences and have nearby rasters respond to it. Rasters can only respond using words they’ve been taught, so early communication might be a bit sparse and abstract…but if you want to skip ahead, one of the characters involved in the “development team” for FZ came up with a sort of “language kit” that helps get your rasters to a basic speaking and comprehension level. Just keep in mind- rasters gain more sapience the more you play with them, so early on, they can be a bit more incomprehensible and chat bot-like.

BREEDING

As of right now, breeding isn’t a part of FriendZoo, and using this function in the edited EXE/resDLL versions of the game will still work, but give you really silly (and noncanon) edits to the text. It's recommended that you spay/neuter your rasters after adopting them- they will still be able to fall in love with others!

RUNNING AWAY + WANDERING

Raggedy didn’t want rasters to be trapped with potentially abusive caretakers…so he managed to put a failsafe in, where a raster can leave the player’s game and wander around the digital plane, looking for some other computer to hang out in- or just browsing the internet. If you like, you can add this aspect to your roleplay experience- either through having a raster running away, or “taking in” a wandering one! Rags and other characters may post rasters that wandered into their games up for adoption on the forums/Discord server, so keep an eye out.

Rasters can also view the rest of the screen when the game is active- feel free to incorporate things like your characters watching or playing things together, sharing hobbies, discussing things found while browsing, or anything you like.

HOWLERS

Sometimes strange raster breeds that Raggedy didn't make seem to find their way into the game...these have been dubbed howlers by the dev team, and are constructs seemingly created by the game itself without outside intervention. They tend to be pretty weird...but people all the same, and are just as much in need of care as other rasters! You can decide what surreal/horror elements go into them, but they'll be denoted as howlers in their breedfile download pages- No Signals come with the prepackaged game!

Howlers are also generally designed by B. Comorant!

TRADING/ADOPTING

Swapping and downloading petfiles in Petz is extremely easy- just put .pet files into the Adopted Petz folder and slap whatever extra files (if any) where you’re instructed to. You can send other forum members files through either Discord or email- though it’s advised you only do this with members you trust. Always be careful when downloading files!

FANMADE CONTENT

You’re encouraged to make your own FriendZoo mods and content! While we won’t be putting these on our official site here, we will promote it. If you’re interested, look into some Petz hexing tutorials and go nuts. (will probably link our own tutorials once we make those)

FORUM THINGS

What can you do with the FZ forums? Here’s some ideas!

Remember that the Felid Factor forums have a ton of other good stuff, too! You can participate in any section of the roleplay, not just FriendZoo. There’s also an “instant messenger” RP section if you want to roleplay out some characters talking more privately- good for characters who want to make closer friends!