Every city in BeMatrx has one animal with a name, and it lives at the city's landmark. In Istanbul it's Tarçın, a cat at Hagia Sophia. In Tokyo it's Mochi, a dog at Shibuya Crossing. The app calls them Street Friends, and there are 90 of them, one for each city.
Where to find them
Each BeMatrx city has a landmark, the one place everybody knows: the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, Big Ben in London. That's where the Street Friend lives, and the city park is its second home. You meet it early, because when the Build Your Life guide opens after sign-up, you're already standing at your city's landmark.
Most of them are city cats. Of the 90 Street Friends, 77 are cats and 13 are dogs. A few of the cats, with the place you'll find them:
- Tarçın in Istanbul, at Hagia Sophia
- Larry in London, at Big Ben
- Minou in Paris, at the Eiffel Tower
- Oliver in New York, at Times Square
- Birba in Rome, at the Colosseum
- Hodu in Seoul, at Gyeongbokgung
Each name is a common pet name in that country, the kind someone there would actually call their cat or dog. A name is written the same way in every language, except where the city's own language has its own script. That's why Hodu appears as 호두 to Korean readers and Mochi as もち to Japanese ones.
Why some cities have a dog
In some cities the animal comes from a story the city already tells about itself, and in those places the Street Friend is a dog.
Tokyo is the clearest case. Mochi is an Akita and lives at Shibuya Crossing, a short walk from the statue of Hachikō, the Akita who went back to Shibuya Station for years to wait for an owner who had died. His statue outside the station is one of Tokyo's best-known meeting points.
Edinburgh's Street Friend is Bonnie, a terrier, who lives at Edinburgh Castle. The city's favourite animal is Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye Terrier who, as the story goes, stayed by his owner's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard for years. His statue still stands in the Old Town.
In Mexico City it's Firulais, a Xolo, at the Zócalo. The Xoloitzcuintle is the hairless dog whose line goes back to the Aztecs, and in Mexico it's treated as a national symbol.
The other dogs include Sharik in Moscow at Red Square, Caramelo in Rio de Janeiro at Cristo Redentor and Matilda in Sydney at the Sydney Opera House. All 90 are listed on the website.
What you can do in the app
Go to your city's landmark or its park. From there you can feed the Street Friend with a food item from your bag, or just give it a pet. The food comes from BeShop, the city's own store. Along with the books that teach skills, it sells food for a street friend. You pay in BeCoin, and the order is delivered to your home or to a pickup point. The BeShop help page has the details.
Feed it a few times and it comes to trust you, and the trust you earn doesn't go down. There's no penalty for being away either. A Street Friend never goes hungry and never dies, it doesn't blame you for a long break, and when you come back after one it still remembers you.
Some mornings it wakes up in someone's home: one of the residents it trusts who slept at home in that city that night. Whose home it ends up in isn't something you can plan for, and nobody is promised a visit.
You aren't limited to your own city's animal. When you travel, you usually arrive at the other city's landmark, which is where its Street Friend lives.
If you found this post while looking for a virtual pet app, BeMatrx works differently. The animal isn't yours. It belongs to the street, and the other players in your city can feed and pet the same one.
Every animal has a page on the website
You don't need the app to look them up. The Street Friends index shows all 90, each with its city and the number of homes it has slept in. Every animal also has its own page, like Mochi's or Tarçın's. If you only know the city, its name works in the address too: bematrx.com/en/k/istanbul takes you to Tarçın.
An animal's page reads like a small city record. It lists the species, its home at the landmark and its second home in the city park. Under "By the numbers" it counts the homes it has slept in and the residents it trusts, and gives the date of its last night in a home. No one's name appears on the page, only totals. Until an animal has spent a night in someone's home, the page says "No home yet".
Getting the app
BeMatrx is free on the App Store and Google Play for anyone aged 18 or over. Pick one of the 90 cities when you sign up, and that city's Street Friend is at the landmark where your first day starts. You can download the app here, and if you want the longer idea behind the cities, read What Is a Living World?
