Bichinho

Feed it. Play with it. Clean up after it. Talk to it. Ignore it, and it gets sick. Ignore that, and it dies.

Bichinho is a virtual pet the way they were in the 90s — a tiny creature that keeps living while you're not looking. No pause button. It runs in real time: hungry at lunch, sleepy at bedtime, calling for you at 3 in the afternoon whether your phone is in your hand or in your pocket.

NOW IT TALKS Hold the mic and say anything. It listens, thinks, and answers out loud in its own little voice — squeaky as a baby, grumpy if it grew up grumpy. It greets you when you come back, complains when it's hungry, mumbles in its sleep and texts you when it misses you. On iPhones with Apple Intelligence its lines are written fresh on your phone; everywhere else it has hundreds of its own. Nothing is ever sent to a server.

IT HATCHES IN A MINUTE Tap the egg to hurry it along. The first hour is the newborn hour: it wants feeding every few minutes, it poops constantly and it never sleeps. Survive that, and things calm down.

IT GROWS UP HOW YOU RAISED IT Pingo the baby becomes Bolota the child becomes Zóio the teen. What it grows into after that depends on how well you looked after it — a sun-maned Jubão if you were attentive, a chill Sossegado if you were mostly around, a grumpy Rabugento if you weren't.

TWO WORLDS The classic green LCD with pixel art and square-wave beeps — or the colour world, where your round, squishy pet lives under a sky that follows the real time of day: sunrise, clouds, sunset, stars and fireflies.

BICHINHO WORLD • Walk together — your real steps are its exercise • Food camera — show it real food and watch it react • Dream diary — every morning, what it dreamed last night • Jokenpô — rock, paper, scissors against your pet

ALWAYS WITH YOU It lives in the Dynamic Island and on your Lock Screen, and Home Screen widgets show how it's doing at a glance. Ask Siri: "Feed Bichinho" or "How is Bichinho?"

MADE TO BE LEFT ALONE — A BIT No account, no ads. Set its bedtime to match yours and a night away is fine. A whole day of neglect is not.

BICHINHO PRO One purchase, no subscription: keep the colour world after the free days, remember every pet you've raised in the Hall of Past Pets, and keep every dream in the diary. The classic green screen is free forever.

Bichinho is what these were called in Brazil: bichinho virtual, the little creature everyone had on their backpack. This one is built from scratch — original creatures, original art, the same rules of care.

Every Bichinho is one of a kind. Name it well.