How did this happen? Ironically, I was trying to make a scene for this blog, about how people are so angry by the disappearance of their extra golden and rainbow poo. Pet Society allows 3 golden poos and only 1 rainbow. The way some people have been reacting, you’d think that their babies had been kidnapped.

So I wanted to make a scene with Sushi pushing a stroller with the rainbow poo in it. I even bought a stupid baby cart just to make the picture. And then, as I was trying to put the poo into the cart (which wasn’t possible, by the way), the thing just disappeared! Waaaah!!!

The only thing that gives me comfort is visiting the original Rainbow Girl, the girl who first got the rainbow poo back in March 2009. It’s genuine, it’s real, and unfortunately, it’s NOT mine. Waaaah!!!

Tips for Taking Care of Your Special Poo

• Make sure your chest is open before touching the rainbow or golden poo.
• Don’t fall asleep on the job!
• Don’t move around the special poo unless you really have to.

Uh-oh, the Pet Society Police has caught up to the Rainbow Poo Hack. Today, when I logged into the game, I found this note.

Aww, shoot! Last week, I had a whole bunch of rainbow poo which I gave out to friends. I had one left for myself, and one reserved in my chest. I was thinking of holding a contest where the prize would be the last extra poo. Sigh.

On the bright side, I’m glad to see that Playfish is doing something to fight the growing number of hacks. (Finally.) For a while, I was thinking that you could get away with cheating. Not so in this case.

The Poo Police is also cracking down on Golden Poo. You can have a maximum of three golden poos. (For rainbow poo, only one.)

Naturally, many people are angry about this. As one person complains in the Pet Society forum, “I paid a lot for them. This is unfair. RETURN MY 4999SSSSSSS.”

Hmm. I feel this girl’s pain. She herself didn’t cheat. But buying rainbow poo from a cheater is like buying stolen merchandise from the back of someone’s car. Or buying pirated software from E-Bay for $79 when it should have been more like $790. I tried to do this once and I was burned. The seller on E-Bay took my $79 and never sent me any software. I had to harass him for 8 weeks before I got my money back. But, I’m digressing. Moral of the story: Don’t cheat, and don’t buy the products of a cheat. If you’re still going to buy stolen goods, at least beware that Playfish might take them away at some point.

Keep the game pure. Keep it fair. Happy pooing playing!

What’s the cause of this explosion? A hacker, of course. Patiniox, the programmer I interviewed last month, has come up with a cheat for rainbow and golden poo.^* Patiniox is Argentinian, so his blog is in Spanish, but the video demonstrates the technique step by step.

I personally don’t have the desire or patience to try it (I don’t like to mess with my computer), but I do appreciate the sight of rainbow poo. It’s colorful and cheerful and moves up and down as if it were alive. It always made me happy when I visited Rainbow Girl and saw it dance and twinkle in her house. That sh*t was really special. It was almost holy. I’m a little sad that rainbow poo is now so common. My friend Ruth Quiñones sums it up best: “Something once precious is now just… poo.”

Facts about Rainbow Poo

• Rainbow poo is slightly larger than golden poo and undulates up and down.
• Back in March 2009, only one person in the Pet Society universe had it.
• A couple of more people got it over the course of the next few months.
• Rainbow poo is now aplenty, due to a hack developed by an Argentinian programmer named Patiniox.
• It’s still really hard for pets to poo it out naturally.
• If you recycle it, you earn 122 recycling points.
• If you cash in the rainbow poo, you earn 20 coins.
• You get 4 paw points if you give it to a friend.
• It’s still pretty cool and makes a nice gift.

* Update * Sep 25, 2009 – Playfish is now cracking down on rainbow and golden poo. You are allowed to have only 1 rainbow poo and 3 golden poos. The extras will be taken away. Click here for more info.

My pet squeezing one out.

I have written several entries about brown poo, golden poo and rainbow poo, but many readers are still wondering how to get their pets to drop a load. Perhaps you’re new to the game and still learning the ropes. In that case, here is a step-by-step guide on Pet Society poo:

1. Raise your pet’s health & happiness levels by feeding it and visiting other pets.
2. While keeping the first two levels high, allow the hygiene level to go down by not cleaning your pet.
3. Go home. Your pet cannot poo while it’s out and about. Like many people, it needs the comfort of home in order to take a dump.
   

4. Do not let your pet sit or lie down. This includes toilets. Your pet has to stand up in order to poo.
5. Try going to a relatively empty room, where your pet won’t be able to sit on a chair or pick up toys. If your pet doesn’t have much else to do, it will poo more quickly.
6. If you want to save your poo and move it to another room, you must store it in your chest first. Otherwise, when you click on the poo, it will be cashed in for 1 coin.
7. Golden poo is rare and rainbow poo is very, very rare. But you produce them the same way as you produce brown poo.
8. Golden poo and rainbow poo are worth only 20 coins when cashed in. They’re worth much more when trading with other people for valuable items.

Hopefully this answers all your questions about pooing in Pet Society. To see other pictures of Pet Society poo, check out these posts:
Poo Pride – Cool pics of hot poo
Pooing & Wooing – When a friend poos in front of you
Rainbow Poo – So rare you can say this sh*t is holy without being ironic

Update September 2009: There’s been an explosion of rainbow poo, thanks to a hack.

Please note that in order to protect Rainbow Girl’s privacy, I am not disclosing her name. Big thanks to Ruth Q. for hooking me up.

This is not the first time I’d heard about rainbow poo, but I thought it was a myth. Now, there’s a video on YouTube which shows that the rainbow poo is very much alive, dancing and twinkling on top of a pet’s toilet.

Facts about Rainbow Poo:

• Much more rare than golden poo.
• The sh*t is so rare that you can say it’s holy without being ironic.
• As of March 29, 2009, only one person in the Pet Society universe is known to have it. (That’s one out of more than 5 million players.) In order to protect the woman’s privacy, I am nick-naming her Rainbow Girl.

I wonder why Playfish made this rainbow poo so rare. It seems like a clever way to keep the game interesting and to get people to talk. Rainbow poo is yet another object of obsession. But if only one person can get it, then it’s a burden on that player. I’ve heard that Rainbow Girl is being hassled by throngs of people wanting to see the poo for themselves and non-believers who are calling her a liar. Trade-offs for being lucky and special.

I also wonder if the rainbow poo was an Easter egg or inside joke created by a gay programmer at Playfish. If so, I think it would be great if Playfish released the rainbow poo en masse later this June in honor of gay pride awareness.

Here’s the link to the YouTube video.

Update September 2009: There’s been an explosion of rainbow poo, thanks to a hack. For more info, click here.

Big thanks to Ruth Quiñones for hooking me up with Rainbow Girl.

Striking gold in Pet Society

More about Santa Huang: He’s got a lovely place with a gourmet kitchen. One piece that stands out is a fruit bowl made with a light fixture. Pretty ingenious, heh?

Fruit bowl made with light fixture.

Still Trying to Poo
Some readers are still mystified by how to get poo, gold or brown. In my earlier entry about poo pride in Pet Society, I asked a simple question, “How often does your pet poo?” Out of nearly 1000 responses, almost half indicate they are still trying to poo, and another 19.5% wouldn’t dream of letting their pets get dirty. No pun intended, but how anal can you get?


How to Get Your Pet to Poo
For those who are trying to poo, here are some hints.

• Keep your pet full.
• Keep your pet happy (visit other pets to raise your happiness level).
• Keep it dirty. It’s not necessary to have flies buzzing around, but let the cleanliness level go below 40%.
• Go home. Like many people, your pet doesn’t feel comfortable enough to poo at someone else’s house. It might make a scrunchie face, but it won’t drop a poo when it’s out and about. That said, pets have no problems pooing in front of other pets. I’ve seen several pets poo right in front of me. I was shocked and insulted the first time I witnessed this. The key is that the pet is at home, in his comfort zone.
• Go to a relatively empty room. The pet will often pick things up or sit on a couch. It doesn’t poo when it does other things, so the emptier the room, the quicker it will poo.
• Many people advise clicking on your pet until it poos. However, I recommend opening another page on your browser and doing something else, like E-mail. This way, the Pet Society program will still be running, but you won’t go nuts waiting. A few minutes later, check your first browser and see how your pet is doing. You might see that he’s pumped out a poo!

Facts about Golden Poo and Brown Poo

• Golden poo is random, like a lottery, and like a lottery, winning is rare.
• Golden poo is worth only 10 coins if you cash it in. Brown poo is worth 1 coin.
• Other players have reported that there is a 3 poo limit. So if you’ve pooed 3 times already and you want to keep pooing, get rid of the others by either giving them as gifts or by clicking them for coins.
• If you want to move your poo, you first need to open your chest.

Good luck, and happy pooing!

Now, onto my exciting update. I visited my friend Hank’s pet Wasabi and tried to seduce him in the bedroom. He, however, had other ideas. As my pet, Sushi laid down on the bed, he squeezed out a chocolate poo! I wish I had a screenshot of that exact moment when he scrunched up his face, but I was so shocked by this effrontery that my fingers did not react in time. Then, just as I was about to leave a message about this disturbing occurrence, Wasabi pumped out another one! Jeez Louise, did this guy eat a bottle of laxatives or what?

My pet tries to seduce, but his pet just wants to poo.

Perhaps the game’s creators read too much Marquis de Sade, for this is getting into some really kinky territory.

But love surprises in many ways. Just as I was thinking that the romance was completely over between us, Sushi and Wasabi laid down together for a post-poo cuddle. Even with the flies buzzing around them, the moment, oh so brief, was breathtakingly beautiful. It was, dare I say, golden.

Still wondering how to get poo?
You produce golden poo in the same way as you do regular poo. For more details, see “How to Get Your Pet to Poo.”

› More on Sushi & Wasabi’s Romance

Post-poo cuddle.

The Gift of Poo: Send your friends something personal this holiday season.

I immediately went to the Pet Society forum to get the lowdown on poops, but confusion and constipation abounds.   Some players advise clicking on your pet, then stopping when it rubs its nose or blinks. Others say you need to go offline, that the pet will poo when you’re not looking–understandable, since we all enjoy a little privacy. Everyone seems to agree that the pet has to be very well-fed and happy, but dirty with flies buzzing around it. 

Pooing is such a challenge that many players are now proudly displaying their excrement like trophies.  It’s odd, considering that we spend so much time sprucing up our pets and homes. Then again, there should be no shame in poo.  Even celebrities and socialites have to take a dump once in a while.  None of us is exempt.  If we were, we’d become very fat and constipated.   Within my own circle, I’ve identified three ways in which players are showing their poo pride:

• The Welcome Poo, to greet visitors at the door
• The Trophy Poo, displayed atop shelves
• The Golden Poo, shining like a beacon

The Welcome Poo, to greet visitors

The Trophy Poo, to show off your many accomplishments.

The Golden Poo, the blingiest poo in Pet Society.

To keep up with this latest poo obsession, I stuffed my pet with junk–donuts, yuletide logs, meatballs.  Flies buzzed around him, and he kept pleading for soap, but I dutifully held off.  I clicked and clicked, but nothing came.  Then I did what one person in the forum advised: to stand in a relatively empty room where the pet won’t be able to sit or lie down.  I kept up his food and health levels, and waited. It took a while, but my poor pet finally scrunched up his face and dropped a load.   Yippee!!

My pet squeezing one out.

* All names, including pets’ names have been changed to protect the players from public embarrassment.

** Update on Poo **
It’s not true that you need flies buzzing around you to poo. My pet pooped again when his cleanliness level was about 40%. But I did just feed it a loaf of bread. Maybe the fiber had something to do with it. Heheh. For step-by-step directions, read Pooing for Dummies in Pet Society.