Someone Saved Me a Sunny Spot
On long workdays, tiny companions, and a small game that asks for nothing except to be noticed now and then.
A note before we start: I'm part of Technocrux, the team that made CutePets. This one is less a review and more a small story about why it exists.
Somewhere around the third hour of spreadsheets, the screen starts to feel very big and very quiet.
Tabs, cells, a meeting reminder. Nothing on it is alive. And then, at the bottom, just above the taskbar, a small orange cat wanders into view, sits down next to a dog, and a speech bubble pops up:
"I saved you a sunny spot."
You don't have to do anything about it. But you smile, and the afternoon gets a little lighter.
If you remember Tamagotchis
Some of us grew up with a little plastic egg on a keychain that needed feeding at inconvenient times. Some of us remember the sheep that used to wander across Windows desktops in the early 2000s. CutePets comes from the same place, and grows up a bit.
It isn't a game you sit down to play. It's a game that sits with you.
Choosing a friend
It starts with adoption. There are six companions: a cat, a dog, a rabbit, an alpaca, a cow and a wolf. You choose a colour and a pattern, and give them a name.
The alpaca and the cow are the unexpected ones, and I'd gently suggest one of them. There's something quietly funny about a cow strolling past your video call.
They grow up while you work
Once they're home, your pet lives along the edge of your screen. They wander, take naps, notice when your cursor comes close, and find small things to do on their own.
They also grow up in real time, from baby to child to adult to elder, over real days. Hunger, happiness, energy, health and affection shift as time passes, so they do best when you check in, feed them, and play for a moment.
It's the kind of attention that fits between tasks. Thirty seconds while a file uploads. A break between two calls. Just enough to look up from the work.
They have each other, too
Adopt more than one, and something nice happens. They start inviting each other to things: races along the taskbar, games, the occasional campfire.
Two grown-up, happy pets can even start a family, and their little one inherits colours and personality from both. Over weeks, you end up with a small family tree running along the bottom of your screen.
What it deliberately leaves out
A lot of cute games are built to make you anxious: timers, pop-ups, and gems to buy before your pet gets sad. CutePets doesn't do any of that. There's no account, no ads, no subscription, and no random paid items. It's a one-time purchase, $1.19 in the US.
That also makes it an easy thing to put on a child's computer without worrying about surprise charges.
To be fair about what it is: it's a companion, not an adventure. There are no quests or levels. If you want a deep game, this isn't it. It's also a first version, so if you were hoping for a hamster or a dragon, they aren't here yet.
Back to the spreadsheet
CutePets won't make anyone more productive. That was never the idea.
The idea was simpler: that somewhere around the third hour of a long day, there'd be something small and alive at the edge of the screen. Something that had, apparently, saved you a sunny spot.
CutePets is on the Microsoft Store for Windows.
