A desktop pet that actually talks back
Desktop Companion is a desktop pet for Windows with an AI inside. The character stays in view while you work, play, or read, in the corner you choose and at the size you like. It asks nothing of you: it idles, blinks, and every so often says something unprompted. Speak to it and it answers out loud, with a voice and a temper of its own. Tomorrow, it still knows what you told it. Nine 3D VRM characters ready to use, or write your own. Its AI lives on your PC whichever edition you pick; on itch.io, you can also hand the thinking to a cloud provider, using your own key.
One-time fee: $12.90. Early access, lifetime license.
Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit. For adults (18+). Made by a solo developer in France.
It stays in front, wherever you put it
A desktop pet is only worth having if it's there when you glance over, and this one never slips behind a window. Browser, game, or spreadsheet, the character stays in front. Drop it where it suits you, thumbnail or full height. The 3D characters are VRM and turn on their axis; the 2D ones are Live2D models. Neither has a frame or border around it.
It remembers its spot and size between sessions, lives on one screen at a time (your pick in the settings), and never hides while the app runs. A shortcut only clears the app's panels around it. Ghost mode, Ctrl+I unless you change it, freezes it and lets your clicks pass straight through. Handy over a game.
Ignore it for an hour. It won't mind.
Most of the day you won't be talking to it, and that's the point of a pet. Left alone, it keeps moving a little: a blink, a breath, an idle animation on Live2D and VRM alike. But it stays where you put it and never freezes into a screenshot. Say hello and its face matches the reply: a smile, a pout, a wave. It breaks the silence itself, too. Auto-speak, on by default, has it say something every minute or so, or as rarely as you like, or never.
Switch on screen vision and those unprompted lines are about what's actually in front of you: the match you're losing, say. When you'd rather it earned its keep, it runs a web search, drafts a file, or launches an app. That's the AI desktop assistant side, with its own page.
A desktop buddy with a personality, not a loop of animations
The classic desktop pets are lovely, and we won't talk you out of one: a Shimeji climbing a window is a handful of animations that cost nothing and ask nothing back. What they can't do is answer. This one has a language model behind the face, which is what turns a mascot into a desktop buddy: each character has a personality and keeps it. Tell Iris you finished the thing and she'll pretend not to be impressed. Talk or type, and the answer comes in the character's voice and sticks, because they remember. None of the nine fits? Write your own: a personality in plain sentences, a voice you pick or clone, and a VRM from VRoid Studio.
All nine are on the characters page. Anime fans get a bonus: any of them can answer in Japanese, with subtitles in your language underneath. That's the anime desktop pet side, with a page of its own.
To say it plainly: the pet is an AI. It's very good company; it isn't a person and never claims to be.
One pet, two editions: what changes and what doesn't
Characters, models, voices on your PC, the way it sits on screen: identical. The differences are where the AI thinks and the PC you'll need to run it.
| Edition |
itch.io edition
|
Steam edition
|
|---|---|---|
| On screen: stays in front of your windows, movable, resizable, VRM rotation | Yes | Yes |
| Characters: all nine, plus your own VRM | Yes | Yes |
| Voice: local voices and voice cloning | Yes, plus cloud voices if you bring your own key | Yes, local only |
| Where the AI thinks | On your PC, or with a cloud provider of your choice using your own key | On your PC, with no outside AI service |
| Price | One-time fee: $12.90. | $12.90 from October 15, 2026. 30% off for the first 14 days. |
| The PC you'll need | With a cloud key, a recent laptop is enough. To keep everything local, you'll need the same graphics card as Steam. | A graphics card with at least 8 GB of VRAM (12 to 16 GB to run everything locally), 16 GB of RAM, 30 GB free disk space, Windows 10 (1903 or later) or 11, 64-bit |
The pet is identical on both, so let the hardware decide. No proper graphics card? itch.io plus a cloud key. Got one? Either edition runs it all on your PC, and only Steam guarantees that no AI service is ever contacted.
Before you adopt one
Leave it alone and it behaves like any virtual desktop pet: it sits in front of your windows, animates on its own, and with auto-speak switched off, it keeps quiet until you speak to it. But be honest with yourself about what you want. If it's a silent mascot you're after, a free classic pet does that with fewer megabytes, and we'd rather say so than sell you something you'll uninstall a week later. If you'd like the thing in the corner to answer when you talk to it, know your name, and have a mood, that's what this one is for. It doesn't wander across the screen or climb your windows the way a Shimeji does; it stays where you park it.
Over a game in borderless full-screen, yes. The character stays in view, and ghost mode (Ctrl+I by default) freezes it and lets your clicks pass through, so it never gets between you and the action. Exclusive full-screen is the exception: a game that takes the whole display for itself covers everything, the pet included. Most games offer a borderless option in their video settings, and that's the one to pick.
What takes up room is the AI, and only in local mode: the model stays loaded on the graphics card for as long as the app runs, even when idle, so an answer never has to wait for it to load. That's why the all-local setups call for at least 8 GB of VRAM, and why a demanding game on the same card will be sharing that memory with it. On itch.io, with the AI running through a cloud provider, none of that lives on your PC, and a recent laptop is enough.
Yes to your own VRM: anything VRoid Studio or a similar tool exports, dropped into the app with a name, a personality, and a voice. VRM is a humanoid format, and the nine built-in characters are human, so a cat on four legs is out; a character with cat ears is fine. Both editions.
Give it a corner
Install it, choose a character, drag it to the spot where a pet belongs on your screen, and see whether you're still talking to it a month from now. Our bet is yes. It's on itch.io now; Steam gets the 100% local edition on October 15.
Questions, press, or partnerships: about DokProd.