Show HN: Lumo – a tiny fluffy virtual pet you can play with in the browser

2 rand_num_gen 2 8/22/2025, 3:09:21 AM youware.com ↗
This is Lumo, a tiny fluffy virtual pet that lives in your browser.

You can feed it, tickle it, or just say hi — it reacts naturally, more like a living toy than a game character.

Play here: https://yw.app/ujtA8IZ

## Why I made this

I wanted to experiment with combining AI-generated assets (image-to-video via Google Flow) and a lightweight state machine in JavaScript to simulate natural pet-like behaviors. Instead of giving direct commands, you just interact — and Lumo reacts.

## How it works

- Assets were generated with image-to-video (idle, happy, annoyed, etc.). To make the animations feel more natural, I used the Frames-to-Video mode — for example, I set both the start and end frames to the idle state, so transitions between different behaviors look smoother.

- A JS state machine switches animations and reactions. For example, the default state is the idle animation. If you touch Lumo once, it becomes curious and shows the corresponding behavior (animation). If you touch it again, it turns happy.

- Everything runs client-side in the browser.

## What’s next

This is just a small experiment right now. I’d love to hear feedback:

- What feels fun or missing in the interaction?

- What other “pet-like” behaviors could make it more alive?

- Anyone else here experimenting with AI video assets for interactive projects?

Thanks for checking it out

Comments (2)

southwindcg · 57m ago
This is adorable. You might get swamped in search results by Proton's new AI cat chatbot, though.

https://lumo.proton.me/guest

rand_num_gen · 33m ago
Thanks for the reminder!!

Mainly doing a funny experiment this time and seeing if I can get some feedback on HN.

The indexing speed of HN by Google is amazing... just searching "Lumo pet" brings up the post. I hadn’t thought of that before.