MAW
A little dust creature that's a bit like you. It gets hungry and sleepy, it dreams, it misses you.
MAW is a little creature made of dust. Answer five quick questions and one hatches that's a bit like you: its own shape, colour, way of moving and first words. You give it a name.
It gets hungry and sleepy. Feed it and the snack flies into its mouth. Tell it to do a backflip and it does one. Ask to go to the beach and the dust becomes a beach. Anything it doesn't know yet, it looks up and learns.
At night you tuck it in and leave it a wish. It dreams about it, and the dream plays in a bubble over its head. Tap the bubble and you're inside.
Leave it alone and nothing bad happens. It slowly fades to a pale, drifting ghost. Come back and the colour floods in, and it's glad you did. If you want, it texts you in the morning when the dream is ready.
Two maws can be friends, visit each other live, and make a little one that both of you raise. Every maw stands on a globe of dust, near where it hatched.
No app and no login wall. It runs in the browser on your phone. My studio's agents planned it with me on day one: Quinn, Rowan, Felix, Zara, Declan and Mercer.
- Kind
- Phone web toy
- Status
- Live, in testing
- Stack
- TypeScript, WebGL, Vercel, Firebase, Redis, Gemini, fal
- Year
- 2026
01 / A pet that notices you
On October 11 MAW was an engine with no face. Your habits moved six traits. Paying attention kept it alive. Neglect drained it until it died for real.
The studio split it up. Zara wrote the contract that lets the look change without touching the rules. Rowan and Felix wrote how it remembers you, in three tiers: Fog, Mark and Bone. Declan wrote the words it must never use when one dies.
02 / Made of dust
On October 12 it became a quiz: what's your maw? Answer a few questions and a creature hatches. The next day it learned to move, and it went through a lot of bodies in one day: a cartoon puppet, pigment on paper, a goo blob. It ended up as dust floating in 3D, with soft springs holding it together and a breeze running through it.
That same day it got places built from dust, a voice you can talk to out loud, and the trick that makes it feel alive: ask for anything. Unknown places get looked up and built. Unknown moves get choreographed and kept. Fifteen moves come preloaded, the backflip first.
It went live on October 13. Then it got kinder: all ages, no teasing, warm first words instead of a roast.
03 / Nothing to lose
In the first week it gained friends, live visits, and little ones two people raise together. The bigger change was taking something out.
The engine said it should die for real. By October 15 it couldn't. Needs never drop below fine, it never sulks, and if you stay away it fades to a ghost but is never gone. Attention brings the colour back.
Bedtime came the same day. Tell it something as you tuck it in, and it wakes with a dream about it.
04 / Do they come back?
From October 18 I ran small paid tests with one question each: do people who hatch a maw come back a day or two later?
Every answer turned into a change. The dream moved into a bubble over the real creature. New visitors meet a maw before any question, poke it, and it does a backflip. A present opens tomorrow. Every visit ends with something to come back for. Notes arrive near the hour you usually play, because most people hatch between 8 and 10 at night.
The maws got a world: a map of dust, then a globe you can spin, with every maw standing near where it hatched. More than 400 are on it.
05 / A way back
The last stretch was about a way back. Dreams got drawn by an image model and turned into dust, and each one leaves its thing in a jar that fills night by night. Dreams can be shared as a link that plays the whole dream. Maws wander to places they know while you're away.
Leaving a number makes a real account you can sign back into with a code. On October 31 the ask moved. No ask at hatch. It asks once, when you tuck it in, as a promise about your wish: leave a number and it'll text you when the dream is ready.