Shimeji Pets Cute: Screen Pals

What Screen Pals shimeji pets are

Screen Pals is a set of animated shimeji-style pets that stay on the phone screen. The listing describes them as anime-style, with a cute, kawaii look, and says the pets are meant to keep you company while you use the phone. It suits people who want a small animated character on screen rather than a utility or a game in its own right.

Each pet can move around the top of the screen in the status bar, or walk across the whole display. The developer says the pets also respond to events on the phone. The listing gives no further detail on what triggers a reaction.

Placing a pet in the status bar with a background

A pet can be placed in the status bar beside the clock and system icons. The status bar itself can be given an illustrated background, chosen from pastel clouds, lavender hills, warm sunsets, quiet meadows, starry skies and others. The listing does not say how many backgrounds there are in total.

The status bar option is the smallest way to use the app, since the pet stays out of the way of whatever is open below it. Pairing a pet with one of the backgrounds changes how the top of the screen looks without covering content.

Choosing from the 20+ pet characters

The collection includes 20+ pets, among them Mochi, Toffee, Zappy, Boba, Spikey, Daisy, Pancake, Hootie, Shroomy, Pingu, Quacky, Glowie, Orbit and Tiny Knight. The listing says there are more beyond these names. Each character has its own appearance, its own small habits and its own animated reactions, so choosing a pet also means choosing how it moves and behaves on screen.

Keeping a pet on screen while using the phone

According to the listing, the pet is designed to stay on screen while you chat, listen to music, watch videos or play games. The pet can roam the full screen, so it can share the display with whatever app is open. Because the reactions depend on what the phone is doing, the pet's behaviour changes over the course of a day rather than staying the same.

The listing does not describe any settings for controlling how often pets move or how much space they take up on screen.