Special Report – With Steve Webkinz!

Hi everyone, Steve Webkinz here. I’m thrilled that after so many years of trying to get the project off the ground, we’ve finally taken the first step in allowing players to edit their House Map by adding the Move Room feature. So in today’s special report, I’m going to take this opportunity to take a closer look at the Webkinz House Map!

As many of you already know, when you adopt your first 10 Webkinz pets, you also get a room which is automatically added somewhere on your House Map. Unfortunately, this placement isn’t usually ideal for each player’s personal preferences. Now with the Move Room feature, this layout problem can be easily fixed. You can read more about the newly-released Move Room feature here.

Part of what made adding an editing feature to the House Map layout so complicated is that it uses a mathematical algorithm to determine where rooms can be placed, rather than a simple coordinate system. That meant that if a room became separated from the rest of the map, it could break the whole house. So instead of re-writing the entire House Map logic, our developers updated the complex algorithm to prevent accidentally creating “islands” by separating rooms from the rest of the map.

When adding additional rooms on your own, all players can buy 1 of 4 types of rooms:

1. Large outdoor room (10×10 tiles)
2. Large indoor room (10×10 tiles)
3. Medium indoor room (7×7 tiles)
4. Small indoor room (5×5 tiles)

Full and Deluxe Members also have the option to buy 2 other types of rooms:

1. Large underwater room (10×10 tiles)
2. Large treetop room (10×10 tiles)

If a player adopts a flying pet as one of their first ten pets, it automatically comes with a treetop room. If a player adopts an underwater pet as one of their first ten pets, it automatically comes with an underwater room.

When you’re a Free Player, you can only buy two additional rooms from the one given to you at the start. If you were previously a member and then became a free player, you can’t add any more rooms, but you’ll still have access to all of the rooms you created while you were a Full or Deluxe Member. Remember, just like when we launched in 2005, all you have to do to remain a Full Member is to adopt a pet at least once every 12 months.

Moving Rooms is just the first step in allowing players to edit their House Map. We still plan on adding a deleting rooms feature at some point in the near future. But for now, if you don’t want a room, you can at least move it away to some forgotten wing in your house.

Want to know anything else about your Webkinz House Map? And what would you like me to report on next? Let me know in the comments below!