Inspiration

We wanted something that makes coding a bit more fun, so we made a Tamagotchi-style pet that reacts to your code.

What it does

It's a small pet that stays on top of your screen while you code in VS Code.

When you compile or run code in the VS Code terminal, the pet sees it. You get a token for every compile and EXP for every one that works. If there's an error, the pet loses a heart.
When there's an error, the pet tells you what went wrong in simple words, like "Line 4: You forgot a semicolon."
The pet gets hungry over time. You buy it food in the shop with your tokens.
If its health runs out, it dies and you have to revive it.
It levels up as you code. After level 25, it levels up more slowly.
You can name it, poke it, and pick a personality, like Tsundere or Pirate. It says funny things when you're not doing anything.
You can spend tokens on random outfits, from 1-star to 5-star, like the wishes in Genshin Impact. You're guaranteed a 4-star every 10 tries and a 5-star within 90.
In wander mode, it walks around your desktop. You can drag it somewhere else and double-click it to bring it back.

How we built it

We wrote it in C++ with the raylib library. A small PowerShell script watches the commands you run in the VS Code terminal and saves any errors to a file, and the pet checks that file every couple of seconds. The pictures were made with AI. We also used Claude Code to help with the coding.

Challenges we ran into

Getting raylib to work on all our computers. We each had different setups, and one had an old compiler that didn't work with it.
The AI pictures had fake see-through backgrounds, so we had to write code to cut out each picture.
Catching every compile, not just the ones from our own build script.
Making the window see-through, keeping it on top of other windows, and letting it walk around the screen.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The pet explains errors in a way beginners can understand.
The outfit system works like Genshin's. When we tested 200,000 tries, the 5-star rate was 1.59%, almost the same as the real game.
The pet can leave its window and walk across your screen.