The Desktop Pet arrives

Little guy that lives on your desk!

Published on December 13, 2005 By Draginol In Personal Computing

Just in time for Christmas, Stardock has released the Desktop Pet. The Desktop Pet lives on your Windows XP desktop. He will interact with various included desktop objects. A sophisticated artificial intelligence engine helps bring him to life by giving him needs such as hunger, sleep, boredom, and even (ahem) the need to take a potty break.

Users can set the various included desktop objects to be automated or take care of the feeding and cleaning up on their own. It also includes options for muting sound, pausing, and unloading. The pet is saved to disk regularly so that if you close it or reboot he will be back to where he left off when you bring him back up again.

Stardock hopes to keep updating the pet after release to keep adding new behaviors, additional objects, and new habits to help keep the experience fresh and to respond to customer input. The Desktop Pet is a fun $10 diversion and makes a great stocking stuffer for the computer user in your family.

The home page for the Desktop Pet is https://www.stardock.com/products/desktoppet

Comments (Page 1)

starkers

on Dec 14, 2005

This looks like it'll be alot of fun to have, with various included behaviours and accessories to help make it even more life-like....tho I hope the potty breaks do not come with the usual aromas as well.

Yes, I can see this pet becoming a desktop addition around here....my wife saw the SS and went: "cuuuute, I want him."

That'll teach me to allow her to look over my shoulder.

Spike

on Dec 14, 2005

*YAWWWWWN*

Looks like a dummied down version of GoPets. Of course GP is acutally much more sophisticated since it allows you to create a dog or cat, name it, and colorize it to your liking. You can dress it up in clothes, feed it all kinds of different food, and play mini games. Pets can even use stuff like planes and roller skates. New content is added *every* week too. They eventually plan to even have pet breeding so that pets can have puppies or kittens. I'll stick with my free pet that has a lot more potential.

WebGizmos

on Dec 14, 2005

Checked out GoPets...wasn't all that impressed. This Desktop Pet program looks to have more potential.

KarmaGirl

on Dec 14, 2005

Looks like a dummied down version of GoPets.

They aren't at all the same thing. Desktop Pet is for people who just want something fun on their desktop, it's not a "community" that pays subscriptions and pays for clothes and other items for their cat or dog. GoPets is a "social network". Desktop Pet is more...well..anti-social.

iTZKooPA

on Dec 14, 2005

"Looks like you are writing a letter" *twitch*

TheD2JBug

on Dec 15, 2005

any chance of a kitty version?

aimzzz

on Dec 15, 2005

any chance of a kitty version?

See the following post, here: https://www.wincustomize.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=153&AID=95155&p=2
#52 by Admin Frogboy
Thu, December 15, 2005 8:14 PM

Cosmic Fox

on Dec 16, 2005

Many years ago there was a program on my Atari ST made by Activision. Computer people or something it was called. I used to love watching the little guy doing his thing. Funny stuff he did makes me want to pick this up just for a giggle or two.

Nice idea Draginol.

Kevin the Kitten

on Dec 16, 2005

I used to use a Commodore Pet but it wasn't as cute....

Prestophobia

on Dec 17, 2005

I disined the cheesemaker for it.

aimzzz

on Dec 17, 2005

I disined the cheesemaker for it.

(Hint-for your future spelling tests it's 'designed')

Prestophobia

on Dec 18, 2005

sorry

aimzzz

on Dec 18, 2005

No need to apologize-- we are all learning here. I, for one, am proud of you for designing the cheesemaker. It's something I don't know how to do...

Frogboy

on Dec 18, 2005

My son's 9.

(Brad Wardell)

Jafo

on Dec 18, 2005

A 'chip off the old block'.....

or is that 'tadpole'?....

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!