bichinho
it keeps living while the app is closed. feed it, play with it, clean up after it, turn the lights off at night. ignore it and it gets sick. ignore that and it dies.
there is no pause button. it runs on the real clock — hungry at lunch, sleepy at bedtime, calling for you at three in the afternoon whether your phone is in your hand or in your pocket. answer within half an hour and no harm done. leave it, and it counts.
tap the egg and it hatches in a minute. the first hour is the newborn hour: it wants feeding every few minutes and never sleeps. survive that, and things calm down.
- it grows up
- pingo the baby becomes bolota the child becomes zóio the teen. what comes after depends on you — a sun-maned jubão if you were attentive, a chill sossegado if you were mostly around, a grumpy rabugento if you weren't. each lives a different length of life.
- it calls you
- hungry, bored, a poop to clean, asleep with the lights on — the bell blinks on screen and your phone gets a nudge.
- a tiny world
- pixel art on a green lcd, a sun and a drifting cloud by day, moon and stars at night. square-wave beeps, a little hop when it's happy, and a proper ghost when the time comes.
- left alone — a bit
- no account, no ads, no internet needed. set its bedtime to match yours and a night away is fine. a whole day of neglect is not.
bichinho virtual is what these were called in brazil in the 90s — the little virtual creature everyone had clipped to their backpack. this one is built from scratch: original pixel art, original creatures, the same rules of care.
