Review on Pure Felinity

[Serendipity]

Ok, this site isn't in the usual circle of pet sites. But it deserves it's place, so I'll cover it here. I'll not post pics or screenshots, as I haven't the permission from the site owner, as she holds the copyright. Although, she doesn't mind me posting on here about the site. And there's always a cat featured on the home page here Pure Felinity

Firstly, lets go over what some people see as negatives, in comparison with regular pet sites, then, I'll explain why these negatives aren't too relevant.

It's basically a cat breeding site, and cat's have a natural life cycle, they're born, can breed at 10 days, they can be retired from the game at 60 days onwards. Can no longer breed at 80 days, and, if you've held on to them after that, will auto retire at 100 days. (the days are translated into months on the game)

There's no generation numbers, no customs, and no cat images, unless you upgrade. And they start at € 9.99
US$ 14.02 for a 3 month "star" account.

Now we have covered the negatives. Here's what holds the faithful followers.

This is a site based on true genetics. Cats can carry genes through generations, and then they can pop up if your cat is bred with a cat also carrying the recessive gene. The genetics hold coat types, and colours, and leg and tail length, and ear folds/curls etc.

Each cat breed is based on different body traits. They are:

Body Type - Ranging from Foreign - semi foreign - semi cobby - cobby

Body size - Ranging through small = medium - big - large

Head shape - ranging through round - oval - rounded wedge - wedge shaped

Ears in small - medium - big and large Also in straight, curled, folded and curled folded

Eyes in round - oval - almond shaped

Nose in long - medium - short and very short

Coat type in all varieties, short, long, satin, rex all sorts

Coat colour in all the varieties you'd expect in natural cats.

Even the tail and leg lengths.

Different combinations of these traits will create a specific breed.

For example.

This combination makes a Persian

Body type: cobby
Body size: big
Head shape: round
Ears: small, straight
Nose: very short
Eyes: round
Eye colors: orange, yellow, green, hazel, blue, aqua
Coat: longhair
Tail: normal
Legs: normal
Colors: any; cinnamon/fawn and mink/burmese not allowed; everything else allowed

And this combination creates a Siamese



Body type: foreign
Body size: medium
Head shape: wedge-shaped
Ears: large, straight
Nose: long
Eyes: almond-shaped
Eye colors: blue
Coat: shorthair, satin
Tail: normal
Legs: normal
Colors: all pointed colors; whitespotting and mittens not allowed; everything else allowed

You can breed together mixed breeds, where the traits don't fit a breed, and end up with a pure breed.

Players can create their own breeds. If you find a selection of traits you like that don't currently create a breed, you can work on your own. You need the dedication to breed 5 generations of cats, true to that breed, and pay € 9.99 - US$ 14.02 for a new breed license to add your breed to the game. And even after all that work, it can take up to a year for your cat breed to be added. Yet people still do it. I submitted my breed on the 10th July 2010, and am excited to wait for the 1st July 2011 when it's added.

Along with the traits. There's an excellence scale. For example. The Persian cat needs a big body size. You could get kittens needing bigger or smaller body size. The perfect is classed as an "excellent" And cats with 7 excellents is the aim of any breeder. These cats can be shown, and earn tokens, and show titles.

Then there's their condition, they need feeding, vetting, and if you want to show them, grooming.

The game is quite complex, not just a matter of breeding 2 cats together for a pretty cat. And although the images of the cats is only available to upgraded accounts, there's so much else involved, the image of the cat is a bonus, not a necessity.

The site owner is the artist and coder and she has another site, named Small Critters. The site has been around since 2004, and, yes, it doesn't suit everyone, but there's a hard core of members that have been there for years, they're tolerant, if new ,members are willing to learn. And the community is friendly, like a family, and those that find they like it tend to stay around for a long time.

[MrPrince]

For the breeding license, is that a forever thing, or just a one time use?

[Serendipity]

The new Breed License is a one use thing. You can only ever create one new breed. It used to be limitless, without the need of a license, and one less generation on the new breed. But there was so many new breeds being added that the site owner had to draw a line, and devise a way to make it only one new breed a month.

As far as general breeding is concerned, I forgot to add, you can breed 2 cats per account, per week. The week starts on a Monday, and the kittens are born on a Wednesday. You are allowed 2 accounts, so you can breed 4 cats a week, unless you buy extra slots with real money.

Litters are between one and four kittens per cat.

The difference is, that apart from the people breeding and selling show cats, the general population breed to improve the breed they're working on, or add different coat types, colouring etc.

[dray]

Speaking as a player who doesn't own a star account, pure felinity can be frustrating at times: random vet checkups seem to be inconsistent with real life in that a couple of cats always need to 'go to the vet' every day if you have quite a few of them, even if all of the cats are well fed and groomed. It's easy for new users to find new cats -- check the 'trait search' function instead of the shelter for cheaper cats, for example, but it's quite difficult to maintain a cat's coat condition, as items are quite expensive compared to the weekly allowance. (For example: each account can claim $1000 per week, manually, while grooming items cost between $599 and $999 for those with lots of uses... and even then, a certain number of uses in each item fail to actually do anything.)

Once, however, you're up and running, and selling cats as pets or to other players, it's not so hard to keep the momentum of the game rolling. It is not the kind of site that a player can really spend hours being occupied at. It is, however, good for checking up and updating once a day.

The images, while themselves being less spectacular than those we tend to see on different breeding games, are subtly extremely complex. I think it's the one thing that I would like to see in the game as something available to non-star users. The rest of the star account benefits (and there are many of them) are fluff. Being able to pay for an image with in game resources would be an excellent compromise, but alas.

The game still keeps me coming back despite the bonuses that come with shelling out $60 per year for a star account. The stats, genes, and progress towards breeding cats with more 'excellent' features are all intriguing and can be quite addictive.

[Toxic Rainbow Kisses]

Thank you for this review. It was a fun read.