Ari's Petpetsitter Guide

Whether you are playing for fun, trying to get the avatar, or have your sights set on the High Scores Table, Petpetsitter is a challenging, and at times a frustrating, game.

First thing you have to know is what your goal is, and how long it will take you to reach it. For the avatar you need a score of 2500; a successful attempt should take no more than half an hour. If you dream of one day having a shiny Petpetsitter trophy added to your lookup, prepare to spend a long time at your computer. Towards the beginning of the month 30,000 points should be able to get you a Gold Trophy, at the end of the month you may need 35,000 to get a bronze trophy; my best estimates indicate that you should set aside approximately one hour for each 5,000 points you want to score.

The Basics

First thing you need to do is familiarize yourself with the game. You need to know what petpets make which sounds & actions/movements for each need, and what room to take it to for that need.

The Screen

Let's start with a simple overview of the Petpetsitter screen.

Here is a quick explanation of what all the buttons and items along the bottom do.

Here you can see what room you need to bring the petpets for which needs.

Something else you need to figure out is: what window size is right for you? Sometimes if you have the window too big it can take too long to get from one side of the screen to the other, and sometimes it can make your wrist hurt! On the other hand, with small windows it can be hard to see the petpets, and hard to click on them.

This is the amount of space I like for my window to take up while playing Petpetsitter.

Petpet Needs

Now, let's go over how the petpets behave when they need something.

Look here for examples of what each petpet will look like when they need to use the bathroom, go to bed, play outside, have a snack, or be repaired in the garage
Bathroom	Bedroom	Outside	Kitchen

Garage

In the above table you see one frame from each of the animations for "petpet needs". Here I will explain each a bit further so you can better recognize them.

Bathroom

When a petpet needs to use the bathroom it will rock back and forth (pee-pee dance), drops of sweat fly out from its head, and it makes a whining/whimpering sound.

Bedroom

When a petpet is tired and needs to sleep in the bedroom it will blink its eyes slowly, ZZZ's will appear above its head, and it will make snoring noises.

Outside

When a petpet has energy to burn and wants to play outside it smiles, wags it's tail/arms/ears, and sounds eager to be going outside.

Kitchen

When a petpet is hungry and needs to go to the kitchen for a snack it will lick its lips and make a *pang*-like noise

Garage

Anytime that a robot petpet breaks down it needs to go to the garage. When a robot breaks down smoke will rise from its head, both make very distinct noises.

Earning Pocket Money

There are two ways to earn points/pocket money in Petpetsitter.

Successfully see to a petpet's needs. Every time you get a petpet into the correct room before time runs out you collect 10 points.
Clean up a mess: mop up oil, puddles, or clean up knocked over decor.

There are three ways to lose points.

Bring a petpet to the wrong room: if a petpet needs to sleep and you bring it to the kitchen you will lose 5 points.
Fail to see to a petpet's need: if the timer runs out before you can take care of a petpet you lose 5 points and one attempt.
Whenever the petpets knock over the Milk, Flowers, or Water Pail you lose 5 points.

Messes

There are three objects in the game that can be knocked over: Flowers, Milk, and a Water Pail. Anytime a petpet knocks one of these over you lose 5 points and can use the mop to clean it up for 10 points. Anytime that you do not get a petpet to the bathroom in time a puddle will appear in its place when the timer runs out, you can clean this up for 10 points, but you will also lose one attempt. Whenever you fail to get a robot to the garage in time an oil puddle will appear in it's place, you can clean this up for 10 points as well, but you will also lose one attempt for this

The following table shows what each object looks normally, and what each mess looks like
Normal	Mess

Oil	Puddle

Strategy

Getting through the first 2,000 points of Petpetsitter is the most difficult. The amount of time that you have to take care of petpets decreases two times: the first time from 20 seconds to 15 seconds at around 40 points, and the second time from 15 to 10 at around 230 points. There will be times when you have five or more petpets on your screen, and less than 15 seconds to see to all of their needs. The best way to do this is try to cut down on time getting to each petpet. Here, let me show you.

As you can see there are 3 petpets with needs on the screen. A Noil (lower left corner) who needs to go to the bathroom, a Feepit (next to the bathroom) who needs to go outside, and a Noil (upper left corner) who needs to go to the bedroom. I numbered the petpets in the order you should pick them up. Black lines are taking petpets to rooms, red lines are going from the previous room to pick up the next petpet.

When you have a few petpets with needs, and none of them are set up to move in the previous way you should move the pet with the least time left, and that is furthest away from where it needs to go.

In this image you see that all three pets are on the right side of the screen and need to go to the right. The Noil is furthest away and has the least time, so you should take it first. The Gruslen and Feepit both have the same amount of time and are about the same distance from the place they need to go, so the order doesn't matter much.

If you see a petpet that is about to be covered up by other petpets you always want to pick it up first, this will help you avoid the problems of trying to pick it up when you can't click on it because other pets are on top of it.

In this you can see that the Gruslen on bottom is about to be covered by the Babaa heading its way, you should take care of it before the Feepit.

The 'Step Aside Effect'

When a petpet stops in place because of a need, the petpets around it will move to the side and make room around it. I call this the "step aside effect". It isn't as easy to notice in the hardest parts of the game because when you have several petpets need something at the same time on different parts of the screen the petpets trying to avoid one stopped petpet may cover another back up.

This shot shows a good example of the 'step aside effect'.

Tips

The following things don't really fit under 'Strategy' so they get their own bulleted section.

Always play with sound on, using headphones is best. If you live with other people they will probably be doing other things while you are playing Petpetsitter, and the things they are doing will probably make noise. Headphones ill block some of that noise from your ears, and will keep your housemates from going insane because of the Petpetsitter sounds. If possible your headphones should have a volume adjustment dial on them, this will make adjusting the sound level easiest and since the noise can sometimes fluctuate while playing this can be very important. Ideally your headphone will cover your entire ear, not only are these 'studio style' headphones usually more comfortable, but they also block out sound better than regular headphones.
Use the broom wisely. Using the broom before 2000 points can be difficult, and I suggest that you leave it alone between 100 and 2000 points. However, after a certain point if you are only picking up petpets and not using the mop you will only be making 10 points every 20 minutes.
Give your wrists a rest. After about 30,000 points the petpets will be extremely far apart, sometimes even as far as half an hour! To save your wrist you can use a piece of scotch tape on your mouse to keep the button pressed while using the mop. This way you can just make the button stick and leave the mouse hovering over one of the decor items without having to touch the mouse. Be aware that doing this may cause you to lose an attempt if you are too slow about getting the tape off, so use with caution.
Avoid situations when the mouse "sticks". If you move around more than necessary while holding a petpet or the mop it is more likely to stick. If you want to test this out try picking up a petpet and moving your mouse in small circles without dropping it off and see what happens when you release the buttons. You can cause the mop to stick in a similar fashion by moving the mop around the screen without cleaning anything up and releasing the button before going to the first mess, but I would not recommend doing this as it may be considered cheating.
Train your housemates as "bathroom buddies". If you are going to try to get a trophy for Petpetsitter you will probably have to play for at least 5 hours, during this time it is likely that you will have to use the bathroom at least once. When you do, have someone that lives with you take your seat at the computer take your seat and run to the bathroom. If your "bathroom buddy" loses you a life, do not be short with them. They are doing you a favor, and you probably would have lost all of your attempts if not for them.

Getting in contact with me

I hope my guide has helped you, unfortunately I probably forgot a ton of things; so if you have any questions that aren't addressed here, or that are difficult to understand my explanation of them let me know by neomail or by email. These neomails will eventually go into a FAQ section.

FrequentlyAskedQuestions

Q: How many points do I need to score to get the avatar for Petpetsitter?
A: 2,500
Q: If I use my old computer to play petpetsitter (so the game would be slightly slower) would it be considered cheating?
A: I believe Neopets has addressed issues like this before. If your computer is slow because it is (it's old, it's not built for gaming, whatever), it would not be considered cheating. However, if you run another program to intentionally slow down your computer to give you an advantage in the game, it would be considered cheating.
Q: How long did it take you to score 100,000 points?
A: 13 hours
Q: 13 HOURS!!! How did you eat/go to the bathroom?
A: Well, I started at around 7:30pm my time, and finished around 8:30am so there weren't really any meals to miss. As for the bathroom question, read the last bulleted item in my "Tips" section.
Q: How did you get 100000 on Petpetsitter?
A: Practice, Patience, and following the Strategies and Tips in this guide.
Q: Will you play Petpetsitter for me to get the avatar/trophy?
A: The Neopets Team considers it cheating to access another person's account to get them a game avatar. You should never give your password out to someone, especially someone you do not know well, and if you have to ask me this question you don't know me well. Lastly, A successful gold trophy run for Petpetsitter averages 6 hours (during the first week or two of the month), even if it weren't against the rules it just wouldn't be worth the time I would have to spend.