''Babyz: Your Virtual Bundle of Joy'' is a

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

in which one can play with and take care of a group of

babies In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...

who live in a virtual house on the

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

. The game was released in 1999 by

The Learning Company The Learning Company (TLC) was an American educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and ...

and developed by PF.Magic.

Gameplay

Players can teach their Babyz how to talk, how to play with objects, and how to walk. Babyz can form relationships with other babyz that can result in sibling rivalries or friendships. At release, there were 15 babyz the players could adopt and care for, as well as various toys that babyz could interact with. There are different rooms to explore and numerous clothing items. ''Babyz'' reused some of the Petz toyz and had a similar home setting for its play scenes.

Development

PF Magic PF.Magic, Inc. was a video game developer founded in 1991 and located in San Francisco, California, United States. Though it developed other types of video games, it was best known for its virtual pet games, such as '' Dogz'' and '' Catz''. The co ...

, built ''Babyz'' on the existing engine used for the ''Catz'' and ''Dogz'' games, using many of the systems of those games. The voice recognition in the game was provided by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

ViaVoice IBM ViaVoice was a range of language-specific continuous speech recognition software products offered by IBM. The current version is designed primarily for use in embedded devices. The latest stable version of IBM Via Voice was 9.0 and was able t ...

Reception

Nnedi Okorafor Nnedimma Nkemdili "Nnedi" Okorafor (formerly Okorafor-Mbachu; born April 8, 1974) is a Nigerian American writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults. She is best known for her ''Binti Series'' and her novels '' Who Fears ...

felt that while the game its self was "cute and innocent", the concept of the game—and how it seemed to treat babies like pets—was off-putting.

Related titles

* ''

Petz ''Petz'' is a series of single-player video games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets. Developed by PF.Magic, original ''Petz'' ( ''Dogz'' and ''Catz'') has sold over 1.5 million ...

'' * ''

Oddballz ''Oddballz: Your Wacky Computer Petz'' is a virtual pet game developed by PF Magic, as part of the Petz series, released in 1996. It follows, and uses many of the systems as, PF Magic's previous Catz and Dogz, ''Catz'' and ''Dogz''. Gameplay ''Od ...

References

External links

*{{mobygames, /12200/babyz-your-virtual-bundle-of-joy/, Babyz: Your Virtual Bundle of Joy 1999 video games Mindscape games PF.Magic games Single-player video games Ubisoft games Video games developed in the United States Virtual baby video games Windows games Windows-only games