Have you lived your life wanting to be a kitteh? Now you can!

Sims 3 Pets Assistant Producer, Graham Nordone chats to ABC Technology and Games about the upcoming fifth expansion pack for EA's Sims 3, Kinect voice integration, pet customisation and inter-species breeding.

What can you tell us about the 3DS pedometer integration?

The 3DS version of Sims 3 Pets has a feature called 'Karma Powers'. You can earn these by saving up Karma Points and you can earn those by walking around making use of the pedometer.

What other capabilities are unique to the 3DS version?

One of my favourite things is being able to play as a pet. That's only available in the 3DS version. For the other versions, you need another Sim in your household. So on the 3DS you can just be this stray wandering around town and experiencing life in that way. It definitely gives you a different perspective on things and it changes the gameplay quite a bit. We also take advantage of the Street Pass technology, so if your friends are playing the game nearby, you'll see their pets populating your neighbourhood. They'll come into your game and will be available to use.

What other differences are there between the platforms?

With Xbox we are using the Kinect's voice activation technology . We thought having everyone going around and talking to their animals was a really-natural extension of the gameplay. Of course you are still using the controller to get around town and stuff, but you can command your animals to do certain things.

There are other specific features on consoles as well. For example, the pets can have jobs. Maybe you'll have a dog that is a police dog and it actually goes to the police station and helps catch criminals. The PC version doesn't have this.

Also, on the console version, you can morph your Sim into a cat or dog and back again. There is something kind of fun about morphing cats and dogs into humans and then getting married. There's some kind of crazy stuff in there.

Can they have kids?

Yeah, totally!

What about the PC side of things? There are horses in that version, right?

The PC version is the only version with horses. We wanted to take advantage of our brand new open worlds that came with the Sims 3 and allow players to go out on these big creatures, roaming around and taking full advantage of the space. It was the most-requested animal by our players. There's a lot of fun stuff they can do in there.

What about horse breeds, how many are there?

There are roughly 30 different horse breeds that come with the game. But people can customise them and create breeds of their own. For the cats and the dogs we have over a hundred different breeds.

What players are getting with Create A Pet are the exact same creation tools that the developers used to build the original breeds themselves. Players can create their own and share them on the Exchange. I'm sure there is going to be a ton of content available to download once players get their hands on it. So I don't think there will be any shortage of breeds for people to choose from.

What happens when people get cross-breeds to breed together?

There is a lot of really interesting genetics technology that goes on behind the scenes of the game. You can breed different dogs and then cross breed. We actually have a few already available like the Labradoodle. It's really cool because not only will parental appearances pass down to offspring, different markings and distinct features show up on them too - like the way their ears are shaped. They will also carry down skills and traits from their parents. It's really in-depth because some things can skip a generation.

Do different breeds have unique personality differences? For example, Ragdolls can be a proud breed.

That depends on the traits you give your animal. We don't pre-select those for anybody. If you choose a Ragdoll in Create A Pet, you can go in and assign them the 'Proud' trait. We wanted to give them personality using the same mechanics that the Sims utilise. So you select their traits, you give them their own personality and that changes how they interact with other characters and how they communicate with animals and stuff.

What about if you mistreat your animal will there be welfare agents or the RSPCA to come and take them away?

I think that is one of the things that people are always curious about because we always allowed people to mess with their Sims and be a little mischievous. But with animals they are very innocent creatures and we don't want to promote anything that gives somebody the idea of going out and harming an animal. For our animals in-game, you do have to take care of them. If you are not feeding them or if you're not giving them enough attention, a social worker will show up and remove the pet from the household. Our pets don't have any crazy deaths either, they only die from old age. So animals provide a very nice and friendly experience.

What about their ghosts? Is there an option to have ghosts of pets?

Yeah, our animals can turn into ghosts in the same way as a Sim. Existing gameplay allows a Sim to be a ghost, walk through walls and roam through the world. Our pets can do that as well. And you'll have ways to bring them back to life.

How much time did you have to spend with animals for the project?

That's one of the great things on this project: we spent a lot of time researching animals, how they behave, how they move and all that. We would have different ones in the office, we would go out to a horse ranch and watch them jump and run around. We were also inspired by funny animal videos on the internet. We incorporated all those things because we want to bring out all these personal connections that people have with animals.

What are you most excited about in the PC version?

Well for me personally, it all comes back to the cats because I adopted these two little kitties while we were developing the game.

Can other animals, such as horses, have careers as well?

The horses don't have careers but they do have ways to earn money. Horses can develop a racing or jumping skill and then go to the equestrian center and enter competitions. From there, they can win trophies or cash prizes. If they do really well they might get their name in the newspaper. There's fun stuff for players to discover.

How did you do the pet animations this time around? Was there motion capture involved?

We don't do motion capture on the Sims: everything you see on the game, everything is animated by hand. We tend to go out and record videos. On this project we would have someone (or a producer) come in and act out the behaviours on camera.

And there are adventures you can go on with your pet?

That's exclusive to the console version. The Mystery Journal sends you out on these quests. It's a directed gameplay experience for the newer Sims audience that exists on console. When they finish those quests, they are introduced to the traditional sandbox elements of the game and all the different stuff they can do with the Sims.

The Sims 3 Pets launches in Australia October 20 on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and 3DS platforms. The PC Special Edition offers an exclusive shopping venue filled with special items to purchase for in-game pets.

PS3 and Xbox 360 Special Editions include 10 exotic pet species: Tiger Dog, Skunk Cat, Panda Dog, Ishimura Bobtail (Dead Space inspired), Cyber-tooth Tiger, Data Pup, Data Pointer, Mecha Neko, Iron Terrier, Robo Dane, The Pouncer, Mabari War Hound and Terrier (Dragon Age inspired), Aztec Panthera, Bone Mastiff and Skeleton Crew Cat.