Weyrdlets Review

I’ve often heard it said how “history repeats itself” but I’ve always thought this was referring to a longer span of time; civilisation following similar paths over hundreds of years. Instead, here I sit at my desktop, following a little yellow lizard thing run around and do goofy stuff on my desktop… and it’s not a virus I downloaded off of a site with more download buttons than ads? With the rise of productivity tools and idle games played on top of your desktop, I suppose the return of virtual pets was inevitable, so join me in adopting a little jellybean of joy in Weyrdlets!

You start off the app by choosing one of three little Weyrdlets to adopt: the squamate Wagyu, the feline Gyoza, and the lagomorphic Mochi. After picking one — I got a Waguy and named him Waggy — you are whisked away to your new island home. In Island Mode, as it is called, you can hang out with your pet and watch them bumble about, exploring the island, going for a swim, eventually going too far and being unceremoniously plopped back into the little house that is the centre of your new domain. You have access to a shop run by the charismatic Calcutron for all your pet needs, the enigmatic Oscar with shifting deals, and a mailbox with which to send and receive messages from your friends. You can also send random players little notes and gifts in bottles.

Your new friend has an array of stats ranging from health and cleanliness to hunger and… well, the call of nature, let’s say. Your goal, as with any pet sim, is to keep the little silly happy and healthy! You can interact with your pet via the mouse, which can be used to grab items in the area or your Weyrdlet, give them lots of pets, or direct them to walk to a certain location. While very active and energetic, the creatures of Weyrdlets are relatively low maintenance, requiring a few bits of fruit and a bit of play to stay chipper. You’d think this could get a bit boring with time, but this is where both the productivity tools and the desktop mode come in!

Whenever you feel like it, you can decide to take your pet from Island Mode onto your desktop. In this mode, you will be free to use your computer freely to work, watch videos, or do whatever else you usually do, but now with the constant companionship of your Weyrdlet. As in Island Mode, they will run around, do funny little dances, and even dig up treasure every now and again. When hovering over your rascally pet, you can also pat them, move them out of the way, or interact with them in other ways such as giving them food or a toy to play with.

Taking a screenshot sensors whatever is on your desktop at the time

In addition to your pet, the basic menu of the game also follows you onto the desktop, which allows you to alter the music and SFX levels of the game, decide how much of the menu to show, and even hide your pet for a bit if they are getting a bit distracting. The menu itself is toggleable, being the size of a desktop icon at its smallest, which I do appreciate. Your Weyrdlet also does not interact with anything on your desktop (which, in hindsight, is probably a good thing) and they seldom disappear behind any windows, though a fullscreen program may cover the eager fellow.

Now, you may have noticed I mentioned shopping and buying a paragraph or two ago and this app indeed does require a bit of management. To keep your little buddy fed and happy, you will have to buy food, toys, and other fun collectables and all of that costs money. Luckily, earning a few coins is easy enough; every time you log into, you get a daily reward of either coins or jellystars, the premium currency of the game. Additionally, your pet does love a good dig, unearthing small piles of money or other resources during the day to pay for their care.

Another way to make some money is by sending your darling on adventures on the nearby fishing boat, which takes up about two hours of real-time. During these expeditions, your pet will be riding on the boat on the bottom of your desktop, showing you a timer and catching some fish now and again! On completion, you will be awarded some money and your pet will often have done some soul-searching or discovered something about themselves they want your opinion on, resulting in +1 to their Logic stat, for example. I’m unsure how said stats will affect the little guy in the long run, but the interactions were often cute.

So, what do we actually use this money on? Well, there are a few options. First off, you can buy your pet food and snacks. Food, often in the form of fruit, will fill your little guy up and improve their health, whereas snacks are not good for them, decreasing health, but instead give you luck, which may in turn result in additional or more lucrative digs! You can also purchase tools and toys to take care of your pet, such as a ball to kick or a pooper scooper to do the obvious. You can use the app’s premium currency, jellystars, to buy more Weyrdlets, a micropet to hang out with your buddy, or some fancier furniture and stickers from Oscar.

Another aspect of Weyrdlets is collecting both stickers and furniture. Bought from Calcutron and Oscar, these items can be placed onto the map (or given to your Weyrldet to wear in some cases) and the game does offer an extensive set of tools to change the orientation and size of the items you decide to add. You can even change the size and location of your pet's wardrobe, adding a lovely hat to their tail, for example. Each purchased item is also added to your milestone collection, which includes multiple sets to complete. Upon completion, you get a reward!

Now that we have gone through the basics, let's get into the dual purpose of Weyrdlets: a productivity tool and a pet simulator. As a pet simulator, the app does a great job. The Weyrdlets are cute in a goofy way, and watching them bumble around doing their thing does remind me of watching very young puppies play: they explore, do stupid things, and are constantly underfoot, but they’re too adorable not to like. Waggy is out as I write these words, forcing me to move him so I can see what I’m doing. Say hi Waggy! However, sometimes I had trouble with the app’s overlay messing with my work, as some clicks were read as me interacting with the app and not with my document, for example. Weyrdlets also seemed to, at times, be a bit resource-hungry, though not to an excessive amount.

So, it's a cute little pet sim, but what about the productivity side? Well, this is where things get difficult. Weyrdlets does offer some pretty useful tools for both productivity and mental health, such as a mood tracker, a to-do list and a Pomodoro timer, but honestly, I seldom found myself using them. The to-do list is good, but getting to it can be a bit finicky and it couldn’t be disconnected from the other menus. The mood tracker was equally interesting, but it wasn’t something you could do quickly, but involved a slightly slow process to get anything logged. Finally, the Pomodoro timer was great, with a fanfare of tomatoes indicating when the timer was done. However, I felt the timer often malfunctioned or forgot where I was in the 25 and five minute cycles. The background music also kept turning itself on randomly, which was annoying.

To summarise, Weyrdlets does offer some good tools for productivity tools, but their spotty record in regards to function in addition to the natural distractivity of a fellow lizard running around on your desk had me questioning why this feature was added. However, while letting Weyrdlets keep me entertained during the week, I also showed the app to a few of my friends whom I knew like this kind of thing more. To the surprise of few, they were absolutely smitten by the experience and seemed to love what I was lukewarm about at best! This may be a good indication that I simply am not the target audience here.

Weyrdlets is a cute app that can offer you some company on those long days or dark evenings while you work. The pets don’t require much maintenance and you can hide them if they start getting on your nerves. As a pet sim, it does a wonderful job, but it doesn’t quite deliver as a productivity tool, though maybe it doesn’t have to. It has the whopping entry price of free so if you think this could be your thing, go ahead and adopt!