Critterkin

Tiny companion. Epic journey.

Give your interface a little company.

Critterkin adds an animated pixel companion that perches on your UI, reacts to your adventures, and grows alongside you.

Name your new friend, choose its appearance, and find it a favourite spot above your chat window, beside your minimap, or on another supported interface element.

Turn in a quest and watch it celebrate. Click it for an affectionate reaction. Leave it to its own devices and it might shuffle about, look around, or curl up for a nap.

Early alpha: Currently targets World of Warcraft: Forever 1.60.1. Actual in-game compatibility testing is still pending.

Choose your companion

• Cinderling — Ember dragon: A cheerful keeper of campfire embers, with tiny wings and an expressive tail.
• Mosskit — Forest fox: A bright-eyed woodland companion whose growing antlers acquire leaves and blossoms.
• Moonlet — Moon owl: A sleepy little watcher that develops a starry mantle as it matures.

Each species has four visually distinct growth forms, animated reactions, selectable colours, and unlockable accessories.

All three share one companion level and XP progression per WoW character. Switch species whenever you like without losing progress.

Level up and evolve

Your companion earns its own XP independently of your character’s XP and battle pets.

Evolution milestones:

• Levels 1–6: Spark Whelp, Moss Kit, or Moon Owlet. Starting form.
• Levels 7–17: Cinderling, Bramblefox, or Duskfeather. Requires 3,618 total companion XP.
• Levels 18–34: Emberwing, Grove Guardian, or Starwing. Requires 27,888 total companion XP.
• Level 35+: Hearthkeeper, Elderbloom, or Moon Sage. Requires 131,487 total companion XP.

Each evolution changes your creature’s appearance and triggers a transformation celebration. Levelling continues after the final form.

Open Settings → Progression to see:

• Your current level and XP.
• XP required for the next level.
• Your next evolution and remaining XP.
• Unlocked and upcoming growth forms.
• A browsable level-by-level XP guide.

Additional cosmetic unlocks:

• Level 10: Moonfrost colour.
• Level 12: Wayfarer’s scarf.
• Level 25: Little star crown.

Grow through your adventures

Supported companion XP sources include:

• Quest turn-ins and character level-ups.
• Rate-limited increases in character XP.
• First visits to eligible maps after installation.
• Newly earned achievements.
• Successful supported boss encounters.
• Your own messages in selected social chat channels.
• Optional social emotes and a small, limited petting reward.

Cooldowns, caps, and duplicate tracking limit repeated rewards. Social chat uses diminishing returns, and trade/general channels do not award chat XP.

Current limitations: Exploration tracks map visits rather than historical exploration discoveries. Repeatable quests award companion XP only once per quest ID. Dedicated profession, dungeon-completion, and PvP-win bonuses are not included.

A little personality on your interface

Critterkin includes twelve animation states covering idle behaviour, curiosity, affection, surprise, sleeping, movement, combat alertness, XP gains, and celebrations.

• Left-click: Pet your companion.
• Hover: See its name, mood, level, and XP.
• Right-click: Open its profile, appearance, positioning, and settings.

The companion profile shows its current form, recent rewards, and unlocked cosmetics.

No hunger. No neglect penalties. No maintenance chores.

Find the perfect perch

Choose a supported player, target, pet, minimap, chat, or main action-bar anchor—or position your companion freely.

Adjust its edge or corner, offsets, size, opacity, and position lock. Advanced attachment supports inspectable custom frames using their exact global names.

Free placement uses proportional screen coordinates and keeps your companion within screen boundaries after display changes. Missing or restricted anchors use a fallback position.

Companion positioning changes wait until combat ends.

Make it comfortable

• Animated species selection cards.
• Clearly labelled cosmetic unlocks.
• Reduced motion and optional sparkle effects.
• Quiet or alert combat presentation.
• Adjustable sprite size, opacity, and menu size.
• Optional XP notifications and individual XP-source toggles.
• Crisp sprite rendering with square proportions.
• Windows that scale uniformly to fit the available viewport.

All interactions are silent.

Getting started

1. Download the Forever file from this project’s Files tab.
2. Extract the Critterkin folder into your Forever client’s Interface/AddOns directory.
3. Enable the addon and log in.
4. Follow the introduction to name your companion, choose a species, and preview its home.

No additional addons or external programs are required to play.

When upgrading, replace the addon folder and retain your SavedVariables to preserve progress.

Commands

• /critter — Open settings.
• /critter pet — Pet your companion.
• /critter position — Toggle position lock and open positioning settings.
• /critter status — Display current progression.
• /critter show — Restore a hidden companion.
• /critter help — Show available commands.

Compatibility and development status

Critterkin currently targets Forever 1.60.1 — interface 16001. Other game flavours and individual third-party UI addons are not certified.

Automated validation includes 33 Lua integration test groups and a 330-configuration display geometry matrix covering standard, portrait, ultrawide, and 4K layouts.

Privacy

Companion progress is saved per character. General configuration is account-wide.

Chat rewards use event metadata without inspecting or saving message text. Sender GUIDs are compared temporarily and are not saved.

Critterkin has no telemetry or automatic outbound chat/addon-message sending calls.

Artwork disclosure

The project icon is AI-generated promotional artwork, not an in-game screenshot. The addon uses its own original pixel sprites.

Feedback and bug reports

Please report problems in the project comments and include:

• Your Critterkin version and Forever client build.
• Steps to reproduce the issue.
• Any Lua error message.
• For display problems: your resolution, UI scale, and relevant UI addons.

Please remove personal information from screenshots or logs before sharing them.

A little friend for every adventure.