Stillcraft / Apps / Familiar
A reading tracker with a pixel-art familiar. Hatch an egg and read: it grows through five stages, from egg to ancient, and changes with what you read. A kitsune grows a tail for every genre, a dragon sits on a hoard of the books you finished. Neglect your books and it slowly turns to stone from the paws up, until a few pages break the spell. All the art is pixel art painted by the app itself. Free, no ads, no account.
Android 8.0+ · Free · Online only for book covers · English & Русский
Mimic, kitsune or slime hatch at the start; the dragon, phoenix, griffin, owlbear and moon moth are found by reading: a 400-page book, five late nights, seven days in a row. Each loves its own kind of reading, and about one egg in sixteen hatches shining, in a rare colouring.
Five stages from egg to ancient. The kitsune grows a tail in each finished genre's colour, the slime swallows a thing you name after a chapter, the owlbear puts on spectacles, the moth gets a star for every night of reading. After horror it trembles, after romance it blushes.
A pixel room furnished with sparks, one for every mana ever eaten: a window with the real day or night, a bookshelf in the colours of your books, a bubbling cauldron, a mandrake peeking from its pot. Stroke the familiar to make it purr, and after midnight it sleeps.
A candle burns down while you read: turn pages with a rustle on screen, or just say where you stopped at the end. A fireplace or rain, and with the phone face down the familiar dozes on your lap. Switch any book to its audio version and a gramophone counts the minutes; or log the page or just the minutes later.
Search Open Library, with Google Books as a fallback, by title or author: the author, the pages and the real cover fill in, and the cover is kept on the phone. Or pick your own picture, or get a cover drawn in the genre's colour. Make your own shelves too.
Books gather into cycles with a reward for reading them all, every finished book grows a glowing fruit on the tree of stories, and a goal for the year shows your pace. The saga tells your year as a legend with a square for every day of reading. Three monthly guild errands, an evening line in the familiar's voice and a home-screen widget.
| Familiar | Loves | Grows |
|---|---|---|
| Mimic | Finishing a book | From a little chest to a chest of books with a crown jewel |
| Kitsune | A new genre after the last one | A tail in each finished genre's colour, up to nine |
| Slime | Things from books | Swallows a thing you name after a chapter, and you see it inside |
| Dragon | Long books | Sits on a hoard of the books you finished |
| Phoenix | Coming back after a pause | Never turns to stone: burns to ash and rises again |
| Griffin | Reading streaks | Its wings spread wider every stage |
| Owlbear | Non-fiction and history | Spectacles, then a scholar's mantle |
| Moon moth | Reading after ten at night | A star on its wings for every night of reading |
On Xiaomi (MIUI / HyperOS), Huawei, Samsung and some other phones, allow Autostart for Familiar and remove battery limits so the evening reminder arrives on time.
JDK 17+ (Android Studio's bundled JBR works) and the Android SDK. The pixel art is drawn in Kotlin, nothing else to install.
git clone https://github.com/bigdevwhale/familiar.git cd familiar ./gradlew testDebugUnitTest # unit tests ./gradlew assembleDebug # app.familiar.dev, installs next to a release ./gradlew assembleDebug -Pdemo # app.familiar.demo with ten weeks of reading ./gradlew testDebugUnitTest -Prender --tests '*RenderArt*' # sprite sheets
After two quiet days the familiar starts turning to stone, from the paws up. Nothing is lost: a few pages crack the spell. The phoenix never turns to stone; it burns to ash and rises again when you come back.
Only to search for a book and download its cover. Books, sittings and familiars stay on the phone. No account, no ads, no analytics.
Yes. Audiobooks are counted in minutes with a gramophone instead of a candle. Read on a train or in another app? Just tell it where you stopped and it eats those pages too.
Settings → Backup saves your books, sittings and familiars into one JSON file. Restore it on the new phone.
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A film camera for the family: shoot now, see the prints tomorrow.
They grow up faster than the photos do.
A merry app about death and growing old, in the spirit of the Day of the Dead.
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Intrusive thoughts as ships: the lighthouse beam, the evening watch, forecasts checked.
A magic lantern deals the glass; parent and child make up the bedtime tale.
A date night for two on a night train: a conductor's questions, the phone as the table between you.
The same questions to your child, yourself or a grandparent, year after year, laid as a mosaic.
Your mind is a kite on a string. A few soft tugs a day bring it back to here.
Found a bug, missing a feature, or want it in your language? Tell us on GitHub.
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