Most desktop pets ignore each other completely — they're sprites on the same screen, not characters in the same world. This is the feature we're proudest of, because nothing else on your desktop does it: your pets notice each other, and they have something to say.
How a conversation happens
You don't start it. Two of your pets happen to wander near each other, and one of them opens with a speech bubble. It raises a few subjects — each one a little pixel-art symbol, a coffee cup, a heart, a question mark, a tiny dog — then the bubble pops out and the other pet answers. Back and forth, two to four turns, then they both go back to their day.
The whole thing runs about 16 seconds and covers roughly 19–20 subjects. Crucially, the topics for an entire conversation are picked in one pass, so a pair can never raise the same subject twice in one chat. The same two pets talking again tomorrow will say entirely different things.
They never walk towards each other
This is deliberate. Pets don't seek each other out and there's no "go talk to that one" button — a conversation only happens if two of them genuinely end up in the same place. In practice that's roughly one chat every ten minutes when you have a few pets wandering around.
There's also a quiet period right after you launch the app. All your pets drop in from the top of the screen at once and land next to each other, so without it the very first thing the app would do is stage a mass conversation. It waits.
A lone pet still gets to think out loud
If you only keep one pet on screen, you're not excluded. A pet on its own gets a single, longer musing turn instead of a back-and-forth — nine to twelve subjects, all to itself.
What it costs
Ambient chatting — pets starting conversations on their own, all day — is part of the supporters tier. But the manual trigger stays available to everyone: you can start a conversation yourself from the interactions list without a subscription, so you can see exactly what you'd be paying for before you decide.
Feeding, toys, cuddles and sending love are all free, for the record.
Where it works
Pet conversations run on macOS, Windows and Linux.