Desktop Bird
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
A desktop pet bird to keep you company while you work :)
- Click on the bird to have it follow your mouse
- Click on the perch to send it home
- Drag the perch wherever you'd like
- On Windows OS the bird will also fly to the top of your current active window
- Right click on the bird for settings and to quit
How I made this:
Note: For anyone having issues with the bird having a black background, it appears to be a bug related to old graphics card drivers. I tested on an older computer and had the same issue until I updated the NVIDIA driver to latest. So please try that and see if it fixes the issue! Thanks :)
Download
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Comments
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Hiya! This is a really cool project!
I have a lil budget for a small commission along these lines, and I want to ask you about it because I think you're uniquely skilled for what I have in mind.
I don't know how to reach you, but if you're interested, reach out to me at grohdok@gmail.com and I can give you more information and see what you think!
Tutorial on how to make it run on linux:
1- Download the MacOS version of the game (we need the pck file to run on linux and the Windows version has it embedded).
2- Unzip the dmg file using "7z x DesktopBird.dmg"
3- Go to Desktop_Pet_2/Desktop_Pet_2.app/Contents/Resources/ folder and copy the Desktop_Pet_2.pck file elsewhere.
4- Go to https://godotengine.org/ and download the linux version of the engine.
5- Move it to the same folder of the pck and rename it to the same name of the pck file (for example: Desktop_Pet_2.x86_64 - Ignore the pck extension)
6- Run the godot engine with this command: "./Desktop_Pet_2.x86_64 --rendering-driver opengl3". (running the game in compatibility mode fixes the black background in both Windows and Linux!!!)
7 - Have fun!
Ps: Compatibility mode equals running the game using OpenGL instead of vulkan!
question...
Is this project safe?
Amazing! Please add linux support
that's a nice project! i love it! 😁
If you're experiencing a Black Screen Problem, here's a solution that I've posted before (see below in the comments). Someone commented that it worked for them on a 3070Ti. The solution involves creating a shortcut and setting it to run like this: DesktopBird.exe --rendering-driver opengl3.
Note: I came back to this post because of a notification and I hope this information can help someone.
Much appreciated. it worked
Linux support please :)
Hi!, I really love the idea and I enjoyed the video a lot. It inspired me to work on something. After doing some searching around trying to solve the click-through screen thing. I found this addon (for godot mono) that does the job.. but only for windows tho, I thought I would share it with you if you ever decided to revisit the project. Maybe you could build on top of the addon to add Mac/ Linux support. This would complete remove the pain of having to use multiple windows (which gets rid of the weird white borders glitch)
Click-through addon
Good luck with future projects and I hope you have a good day! :D
Fantastic project! Any linux port coming up? 🥹
Hi! Great video and great project. Congrats! I just wanted to say that the black background problem appears for me even though I have the latest Nvidia driver with a 3070. I'm not sure what could cause that problem. I have the new Nvidia app if that helps.
Edit: I've found a post. Maybe it can help you if you want to fix it? https://forum.godotengine.org/t/transparent-background-show-black/52877/6
Yep, unfortunately I also have the black background.
read my comment below
Same here - I am also on 3070 and using the latest drivers. Still have the black background.
There is a solution that a i posted before(below in the comments) someone commented it worked for them on 3070ti, which is to create a shortcut and set it to run like so: DesktopBird.exe --rendering-driver opengl3
I found this through YouTube and I had to try it. This is so fun! It works fine on my system (windows x64 - 1920x1080). I just wish I could select the pet to be something like a cat or monkey. The ideas you showed in the video were looking good actually, so maybe add a feature to be able to change pets. I know it is a lot of work, but I think you will enjoy it. Good luck and have fun!
What a cute idea! I instantly had to try it, it's so funny. Found your game via your video on youtube. What an adorable desktop companion.
This is adorable and so creative. I love it!
Thanks so much! 😁
139 MB Download? Try to compile the engine. It's easy actually. When I did it, it reduced the size to around 100 Kb from 100 MB.
Omg this is so good ngl. It's so fun to work with this bird on your screen. I mean, atleast I won't get bored much.
I aspire to be as good as you!!
I'm so happy to hear you are having fun with it! 🕊️
Why not compile a linux version? It seems bad faith to me :(
what a weird thing to say to someone... "bad faith" for not implementing something to YOUR wants...
As far as I'm aware (although I'm a programmer as well, I don't program games) its just a matter of exporting to linux, if that's not the case I apologize, but usually with game engines like godot or unity (with unity I'm sure this is the case) all you have to do is click one button and ta da linux version... You did not think she had to code the same thing twice right? She had to put some checks about the os in the window location parts, since that is using window's own api, but again as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the code should be as easy as to click one button to compile it to other platform :)
Out of all the kinds of "games" one could make, this desktop pet would probably require the most custom code to work on Linux. How many different desktop environments, windows managers, etc are there to support? What a nightmare prospect it would be to port this to linux. Yikes.
Bravo to Rachel for getting it working with Windows
If you check the video she made about it, it is clear that it pulls specific Windows DLL into the running code to access extra window features that are needed to make it run. It won't natively run under Linux.
So in this case it's not just about exporting to another platform. It's using features not supported by Godot itself. It even explicitly needs the C# version to use the PInvoke functionality.
can't open in mac :/
You should be able to open it following these Godot Instructions
Linux version pls!
Linux verion? :)
Hi,
I found a bug. When I have two monitors and focus on a window on my second screen, the pet moves to the corresponding position on the first screen instead of staying on the focused window.
I think this solution might solve the issue
Thanks for looking into that! I didn't have multiple monitors to test with, but will see if I can set it up to fix.
Works for me on 7 yo AMD card: RX 560.
Plays well with other pets.
Yay, glad to hear!
For anyone having issues with the bird having a black background, it appears to be a bug related to old graphics card drivers. I tested on an older computer and had the same issue until I updated the NVIDIA driver to latest. So please try that and see if it fixes the issue! Thanks :)
Transparency isn't working for me either unfortunately (Windows 10, using the latest NVIDIA driver). Even so, this is a fun project you've made! Nice work! 🐦
i have an old graphics card, tried creating a shortcut and setting it to run like so: DesktopBird.exe --rendering-driver opengl3
and it works for me, so maybe this is a viable solution to some.
Cool, thanks for testing that!
I have an RTX 3070ti and the latest driver and this happened to me, using yas19sin reccomendation worked though. Hope this helps!
Would you be willing to publish your C# code that deals with reading window information?
I'm also working on a desktop pet project (in 3.2.1 before they reworked window transparency clickthrough) and would love the ability to read window position data! Anything beyond GDscript is outside of my wheelhouse of expertise.
Here's the C# code that interacts with the Windows APIs: https://gist.github.com/RachelfTech/d98a7c8f4c7eb8bb18a09552cf7bab40
Then you can reference https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/cross_language_script... to interact with the data from C#.
Just wanted to note that the file is a bit messy (I didn't end up using all the code for the final project) and I also don't really know C#, but hope it helps anyway!
Thanks! I'll definitely take a look. Love how your project turned out!
Hi, that's a neat thing, thank you for making it. For me, the transparency is not working, the bird and the perch have a black background (Windows 10).
Thanks for trying it! I've received some other similar reports on Windows 10 (I'm on 11). If possible could you also let me know what graphics card you have? Trying to see if there are any trends outside of just the OS. Thank you!
Transparency is not working for me either and I am on Windows 11 Business.
I just tested on an old laptop and had the same black background issue, but then I updated my NVIDIA driver to latest and it works fine now. So maybe if possible try that if your drivers aren't fully up to date.
If anyone tries that please let me know if it fixes the issue for you. Thanks! 😁
I am using an AMD GPU with the latest drivers..