Meet your pet

For months, HibiTomo has been a cozy little room with no one living in it. That changed in January. The star of the whole thing finally showed up: the pet.

A creature with feelings

The biggest leap this month is that the pet is no longer just a sprite standing in a room. It now has its own needs and stats bubbling away under the hood, and it lets you know how it's doing.

Best of all, it expresses itself. Little emoji speech bubbles pop above its head to show what it's feeling:

• Happy when it's well cared for
• Hearts when it feels loved after a good play or pet
• Sleepy when it's ready for bed
• Sad when something's off and it needs you

Watching the first bubble appear on the screen was the moment the whole device clicked for me. It suddenly felt like there was somebody in there.

The room grew up too

The world around the pet got a serious glow-up. The room now has real atmosphere: rain and weather effects drift across the screen, giving the little home a sense of place and mood depending on the day.

The furniture also went proper top-down, so everything sits and reads correctly from that cozy overhead view. And because a room isn't home until it's your room, room saving now works too, so your setup sticks around between visits.

The first things to do

A pet needs a world worth living in, so January also brought the very first activities, the beginnings of that "there's always something to do" feeling I want HibiTomo to have.

• Farming. The first seeds went into the ground. Crops that grow over time are the front end of the farm to cook to feed loop I'm most excited about.
• Fishing. A relaxed little minigame where you wait for a bite and reel it in. Calm, one handed, the kind of thing you do while unwinding.
• Bug catching. The first version of the creep up slowly, catch it before it bolts hunt.

And to make the outside feel less lonely, NPCs now wander around on their own paths, moving through the world instead of standing frozen.

Alive, at last

If November and December were about building a home, January was about moving someone in. Between a pet that feels things, weather in the sky, and a few things to actually do, HibiTomo finally feels alive rather than like a nice screensaver.

There's a long way to go, but for the first time I found myself picking up the device just to check on my little creature. That's exactly the feeling I'm chasing.

More soon.