Support

Meetups happen in person. Both of you open Nibblings and tap the little door in the wall. When the phones find each other, hold them close together. The door opens and your friend's hamster walks into your room. Both phones need Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on (no shared network is needed), and the app needs the Local Network permission. On iPhones without the distance chip, a gentle bump between the two phones does the job.

Both hamsters need to be grown up (about three days after they arrive as pups) and at least one of the two rooms needs space. A pup never comes from two hamsters of the same player. If both rooms have space, a seed is flipped and both phones agree on whose room the pup grows up in. Whoever keeps the pup names it. Not every meetup brings a pup, and nothing you buy changes the chance.

No. Your hamster lives a happy little life on its own and is pleased to see you whenever you come back. The bowl and the bottle are a way to say hello, not a chore.

Seeds are what you use in the app for furniture, outfits, room themes and adopting hamsters. You earn them by caring for your hamster, opening parcels and discovering things. You can also buy Seed bags. Seeds have no cash value and can't be exchanged for money.

Seeds are added once our server has confirmed the purchase with the App Store, which needs an internet connection. Close and reopen the app while online. If the Seeds still haven't arrived after a few minutes, write to us with the date of the purchase and the order id from your Apple receipt.

Purchases are handled by Apple. Request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com. When a refund is granted, the Seeds from that bag are taken back.

On your old phone, open your hamster's card and tap Keep [name] safe, then Sign in with Apple. On the new phone, install Nibblings and Sign in with Apple in the same place. Your room, hamsters and Seeds come along. Without Sign in with Apple, the room can't be moved to another phone.

The noticeboard on the wall opens the adoption board, where hamsters look for a new family. Players can rehome grown-up hamsters there for Seeds at a fixed price, and anyone can adopt one. Strangers see a hamster's looks and DNA name, never the name you gave it or who you are. To rehome a hamster you need to Sign in with Apple. The board is only for players 13 and older.

The shelter is run by us, the makers of Nibblings, and it is always shown as the shelter. It lists a few hamsters every day that you can adopt for Seeds, and it adopts hamsters that players rehome when no one else has after a few hours, up to a price it sets. The shelter never pretends to be another player.

Yes, the hamsters you adopt can be given a new name on their card.

Open that hamster's card and report the name. We review every report, and a name that breaks the rules is replaced. You can also block the player: you won't meet again, and their custom names are hidden for you.

Nibblings is rated 13+. If Apple's age check says a player is under 13, the app runs in a restricted mode without Seed bags or the adoption board.

Open your hamster's card, tap Keep [name] safe, then Delete account. This deletes your account and the room on our server and on your phone, and it can't be undone. Details are in the privacy policy.

Nibblings asks for no name, email or phone number, shows no ads and doesn't track you. The privacy policy lists exactly what is stored and why.