Cheep, cheep!
Finch is a 2021 mobile game for iOS. It is a self-help app designed for those who struggle with their mental health.
The game revolves around taking care of a baby bird (referred to as a "birb") and raising it to adulthood. Every day, when you complete personal goals and write about your own life experiences, your birb will gain the energy it needs to go out on an adventure. As you spend time with your birb and talk to it, it will grow older and learn more about the world.
Has nothing to do with the 2021 film Finch, the band Finch, or the video game What Remains of Edith Finch.
This game provides examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Zigzagged. When your birb first hatches, they are a plain grey color. But when you accumulate Rainbow Stones, you have the option to buy colorful dyes to color various parts of their body, so they can be any combination of colors you fancy.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Seasonal micropets can be randomly hatched from eggs, so if you miss out on one for the month, you don't have to wait an entire year to try to get it again.
- Oatmeal the Llama could previously only be gotten by having 5 different friends sign up for Finch, but he later became a hatchable micropet as well.
- Beary Friendly: The January 2023 micropet is Blizzard the Wizard, a polar bear cub in a wizard hat.
- Bindle Stick: Your birb carries a red sack over their shoulder while adventuring.
- Blush Sticker: Your birb has them, and their color can be changed by buying cheek color dye at the shop. Some of the micropets also have them, including Flutter the Flying Heart and Starry the Twinkle.
- Catching Some Z's: A sleeping micropet will have z's coming out of its mouth.
- Does Not Like Spam: At the end of an adventure, your birb may discover a new food, try it, and declare that they either like it or don't. Liked and disliked foods are listed under their Discoveries.Negative reaction to trying chamomile tea: COUGH, CHEEP, COUGH...the things humans drink to sleep, cheep...
- Fictional Currency: Rainbow Stones are accumulated by accomplishing personal goals, writing in your journal and claiming the free box in the store every day. They are used to buy color dye, clothing, and furniture for your birb.
- Friendly Ghost: Boopty the Spoopty is a Bedsheet Ghost micropet who is said to be timid, but gets excited when other can see him.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Your Micropedia keeps track of all the micropets you've obtained and has "?" slots for the ones you haven't gotten yet. Currently, there are 30 different micropets.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]:
- When prompting the game, you will be prompted to choose the name and gender of your birb. Unlike some pet-raising sims, these features can be changed freely at any time.
- Micropets start with default names, such as Talon the Gryphon and Oatmeal the Llama, but you can give them different names if you want.
- Nested Ownership: Micropets are little pets that your birb can have. They can be obtained through various means such as filling your birb's energy meter for 25 days in a given month (they doesn't have to be consecutively), hatching an egg by completing a goal for 7 days, or inviting friends to join Finch.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: All micropets start in their baby forms, with an option in the settings to keep them from growing up. However, once they have already grown to adulthood, they cannot be regressed back to babies.
- Pokémon Speak: Oatmeal the Llama makes a sound like “Llama, llama!” when you tap on him.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: The gender of your birb does not affect the style of clothes they can wear. Or anything else, really.
- Shout-Out: Occasionally when another user's birb visits you, it says "A wild (birb name) appeared!"
- Skip of Innocence: While your birb is on an adventure, you can give it extra energy and make it come back sooner by doing exercises in the app such as deep breathing or journaling. Give it enough energy, and its adventuring animation will change from walking to happily skipping.
- Snot Bubble: At night, your birb will have one coming out of their beak while sleeping. If they have a micropet equipped, it will be sleeping and have a snot bubble, too.
- Sunny Sunflower Disposition: One of the micropets is Sunny the Seedling, a smiling sunflower in a pot. Her flavor text reads, "Sunny hopes your day will be as bright as her smile! She loves the sunshine, but she also knows some rain helps us grow even stronger."
- Tragic Dream: Wiggles the Squiggle is a worm micropet who dreams of growing up into a beautiful butterfly. Sadly, he does not grow into a butterfly, just a slightly bigger worm.
- Verbal Tic: Your birb ends a lot of its sentences with "Cheep!"
