"Do you have what it takes to take care of your very own alien pet?!"
-The Google Play Store Description of the Game.
Pou is a Virtual Pet game released on mobile devices on August 5th, 2012 by Lebanese developer Paul Salameh. In it, you take care of a round alien blob named Pou by feeding it, giving it a bath, and putting it to sleep. There are Mini-Games (mostly clones of existing games) which can be played in order to get in-game coins. These coins can be used to buy food, potions, clothes, or just extra stuff for your Pou.
Tropes
- Armless Biped: Pou's "pets" (a hamster, rabbit, monkey, pig, cat, and dog) are drawn like this.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: Vertically (Tumble) and horizontally (Cliff Jump, Cliff Dash, and Jet Pou).
- Big Eyes, Little Eyes: A baby Pou's eyes are bigger than its body. After time its eyes will shrink as their bodies grow.
- Big Eater: Pou can eat anything in Food Drop without getting fat. Averted in the main game itself, as Pou will refuse to eat when it is full.
- Canon Name: The virtual pet's official name is of course Pou.
- Character Customization: Pou's clothes, wigs, and skin color can all be changed.
- Cheeky Mouth: Pou's mouth is on its left cheek when it is happy.
- Every Pizza Is Pepperoni: The Pizza food item is a slice of pepperoni and cheese pizza.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Pou can somehow get in here in the Doodle Jump clone Sky Jump.
- Grid Puzzle: Sudoku appears as a minigame, in its regular 9x9 form.
- Healing Potion: There are potions to improve Pou's health and fully energize Pou.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You can give your pet a different name than Pou.
- Innocent Aliens: Paul Salameh confirms that Pou is intended to be an alien.
- Match-Three Game: Food Swapnote, Tic-Tac-Pou, Color Matchnote, Pou Poppernote, and Star Poppernote.
- Medium Blending: Most of the food (not counting Drinks) is rendered as photorealistic images as opposed to the simple 2D vector art of the game.
- Microtransactions: The gray skin color can only be bought for 99 cents. Bundle packs of in-game coins vary in price.
- Memory Match Mini-Game: In the minigame Memory, the player must match cards with pictures of food before the time runs out. The number of cards increase after every round.
- Mini-Game: The main way to earn coins is to play mini-games in the Game Room with Pou.
- Nobody Can Die: It is virtually impossible for Pou to die, even when it is sick, tired, sad, dirty, or hungry, even at the same time.
- Nobody Poops: Averted when Pou leaves behind Poos in the Bathroom.
- "Simon Says" Mini-Game: Pou Sounds. Even the Pous are colored red, yellow, blue, and green like the original toy.
- Shell Game: In Find Pou, the player has to find Pou hiding under one of two to five cups. They player loses when they uncover a Poo.
- Stock Food Depictions: Almost every food item is depicted in their most recognizable forms. Red apples, sunny side up eggs, maple syrup pancakes, and many more.
- Virtual Paper Doll: One of the advertised features is the ability to dress up Pou. You can even change your Pou's color.
- Virtual Pet: The game is entirely about taking care of your pet Pou.
