Walk
Sällskap is a small digital pet that lives in your browser, free and without an account. You hatch an egg, name the creature, and from then on three values need keeping up: food, mood and energy. They fall with every day that passes, and you answer with four actions: feed, play, let it sleep, and cuddle.
The creature is properly alive. It breathes, blinks, looks after your finger and moves its ears, tail or wings. Tap it and it reacts, drag a finger across it to pet it, hold to lift it up. It also comments on the day in a small speech bubble: the time of day, the weather, holidays and how it feels. You only hear sounds when you touch it yourself, and sound can be switched off.
Care is not the goal in itself but the preparation. A fed, happy and rested pet handles longer and more dangerous expeditions, and a big part of the game lives there.
From level two, Quests opens in the menu. Every day you get three new daily quests, such as feeding, petting, practising a trick, greeting today's visitor or sending the creature on an expedition. Finish all three for an extra bonus.
Besides the daily ones there are stories told in several chapters. In The Lost Star you search for a star that fell to earth, in The Secret of the Forest you coax out the forest animals and in The Night Visitor you receive an unexpected guest. Each chapter has its own goal, and the last chapter gives a title and sometimes a new item, such as a backpack. Collect quests measure what you have already achieved, like the number of finds or days in a row, without taking anything from you.
Quests give experience points and stardust, and every finished quest counts towards your rank. It starts as Newcomer and can grow all the way to Legend.
You send the creature out to four places: the Meadow, Deepwood, Frost Ridge and Night Coast. Trips take real time, from a fifteen minute ramble to an overnight trek, and while the pet is away the room stands empty. When it comes home you unpack the bag yourself, one find at a time. A small dot on the menu button shows when something is waiting.
Before it leaves you get a forecast you can improve. Places demand different things, and that is where accessories matter: the scarf warms on Frost Ridge, the lantern lights the Night Coast, the backpack gives stamina in Deepwood. If it goes badly the pet comes home early with a condition such as chilled or sprained, and needs care before it can head out again.
Neglect can still cost the creature its life, but never suddenly. When a value bottoms out the pet first turns droopy, then ill, and only after four days without care does it die. Every step is clearly shown on the page. A shield can be bought in the shop and covers one missed day.
Overfeeding, on the other hand, kills nobody. It makes the pet rounder and slower, which shows on its body and drags out expeditions. It works off over time.
If the creature does die it moves to a graveyard that keeps the cause of death and the number of days it lived, and you hatch a new egg.
There are eighteen species, four of them rare and only occasionally appearing when you hatch. Many have body parts that move on their own: the cat and the fox have ears and a tail, the owl flutters its wings, the jellyfish has tentacles. Every creature also gets an innate personality that drives how it behaves out on expedition: the brave one takes risks and finds more, the calm one almost never fails but never hits a jackpot either. The colour is derived from the name you choose, so two pets with the same name look alike.
Behind the creature is a room you furnish. The furniture works while the pet is away: the bed restores energy, the wall keeps mood up, the shelf gathers stardust and the rug heals conditions. That means a homecoming brings two harvests, the bag and the home.
The pet also remembers its trips and forms opinions about places. If it has had luck in Deepwood, it looks forward to going back.
Actions, daily quests, expeditions and one gift a day give stardust, the currency of the game. It buys snacks that save a value at the last moment, a shield against a missed day, furniture and accessories. More features open as the pet levels up: the wardrobe and quests, the room and the memory book, expeditions, minigames, trick training, achievements and an almanac.
Everything lives in your browser's local storage. There is no account and no server keeping track of your pet. The upside is that the game works offline and nobody can see what you do. The downside is that the pet belongs to that one browser: clear site data or switch phones and it is gone. If you grow fond of your creature, that is worth knowing in advance.
If you turn on reminders, only the pet's name and how it is doing are sent, so that Nollan can nudge you when it needs you.
Written for Nollan.se. Knowledge base · About Nollan · Nollan.se