FinFin Shrine

FinFin on Teo the Magic Planet is a real-time virtual pet game developed by Fujitsu Interactive and released in 1996 about a dolphin-bird called FinFin. (Finfins are actually a species, but you get your own Finfin in the game ;) ). You interact with him, and depending on your interaction (good or bad) he will either sing songs and do acrobatics for you (without teaching! ;) ), or sulk in his Nest. (Yes, he has a nest. It's only available in the 6-world version and QEMU version, but, in it Finnina, Finfin's wife, incubates an egg (even though they are mammals, but they are part-bird), and out comes a Finfin-Junior.) Since it's real-time, you have to visit the cute little guy almost every day. There's no pause feature either. Don't worry though, he won't die; you just have to visit him almost every day if you want to keep up your friendship with him (20 to 30 minutes per day is usually enough).

There are 4 versions of it (the 6-world version is only available in Japan legally ;) ): 3-world, 4-world, 5-world, and 6-world. There are 6 worlds in total, and only 3 of them were available in the 3-world version, 4 of them available in the 4-world version, and so on. The worlds have many unique animals and plants to discover.

If you came here for the download link, here's a link to a premade QEMU virtual machine! No Setup required :D It's English and it has the Nest! Woo! As an alternative, the fanmade German 6-world version's download link is provided on this page, as it works on Windows 95 to Windows 10, Linux Ubuntu 14.04 using PlayOnLinux, and my Arch Linux 64-bit and Manjaro 64-bit (hooray! :D ) with Wine, although Windows 2000 and Linux Mint haven't been tested yet ;) You can download the German 6-world version at Finfin-Archiv.

The 6 Worlds

Amile Forest - The place where you start off. You'll be here often, talking to Finfin and giving him Lemos (fruits that you can change his colors with; more details in the next section).

Lemo Valley - There are a lot of Lemos here which Finfin can eat. You can also play the drums here by pressing the spacebar to a tune; if you do so when Finfin's not around creatures will come out and sing and dance! (Like a Snuffy.) Sometimes when you play the drums and Finfin is around, Finfin also will sing and do acrobatic tricks! ;)

Tsubu Woods - Finfin flies around and eats Tsubu Nuts here.

Secret Inlet - One of my favorite places in the game; at the Secret Inlet, Finfin swims, catches fish, plays with his friend, the Piki Seal, and greets his wife, Finnina. He comes here to relax, so you may not talk to him or use the whistle here. (Well you can, but you shouldn't if you don't want to annoy or scare him.)

Rem River Bank - Also one of my favorite places. Finfin dives in the water and/or catches a fish, and greets Finnina here too. There's also the Dante Fish, who tries to catch Finfin but he never does, ever! ;)

The Nest - And finally, the nest is where Finnina lays an egg, and Finfin-Junior hatches and lives. Very rarely, he might eat the poisonous Lemodoki (or Elmodoki) and die :( You can prevent this by playing the fear sound if he tries to eat it. :) If you aren't at the nest, he won't eat it, so that's another way to avoid this. But otherwise, he grows up after learning how to swim and fly, and flies away from the nest :D

Lemos

Lemos can be used to change Finfin's color. The method is: you feed Finfin four Lemos of the same color (there are green, orange, yellow and pink lemos; the red lemo resets and stops the color changing process) in the duration of 10 minutes. After some time (10 minutes?), you feed him four Lemos of the same color in 10 minutes again, totally 3 times (3 levels) until you reach Level 3 (fully colored). The color stays until the next full moon or new moon. (Finfin is a real-time game...)

To not have to go through the 12 lemos (or if Finfin delays too long during this process, which gets less likelier as his friendliness bar gets higher), wait for the next full moon and then feed him four Lemos in 10 minutes, and he sings a beautiful song and reaches Level 3 instantly... :) But it only lasts for a day (until midnight).

A special Lemo is the Blue Lemo. Basically, the Lemopackage becomes rotten after 30 days (you can refresh it, though) and if you feed Finfin one very old Lemo (eww!), he changes color after 1-2 minutes and he is blue and acts 'drunk' ;) (flies strangely, hiccups) only for 1-2 hours; it's pretty funny. You can also cheat and enter codes to change Finfin's color instantly on any day, but this makes Finfin's friendship bar go lower after the color goes away. (Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater! ;) ) If you really want to cheat (because you don't care about Finfin's friendliness, maybe?), follow the steps listed under the Finfin Color Passwords section. It can get pretty hard ;)

There's more info about the colors here (as well as pictures and more info about the color passwords).

Finfin Tips

There are special events, plants, creatures, and more in this detailed game. Info about them can be found here, or you can make your own notes as you observe the 6 worlds.

You can call Finfin using the whistle by pressing the W key, but it only works if he wants to come and doesn't feel disturbed by it (so don't try it at the Secret Inlet! ;) ).

Press the S key to take a snapshot in-game. You can view these snapshots in the SNAPSHOTS folder in your Finfin installation folder. On my Arch and Manjaro 64-bit installations though, this doesn't seem to work, but it works in QEMU.

Press the B key to view the Bioscan, and Tab to flip through Finfin's stats (Happiness, Friendliness, Hunger, Thirst, Temperature, etc. Don't worry about these stats; Finfin can take care of himself. The only one you may want to check on often as you play is, of course, Friendliness). The higher the bar, the higher the particular stat is. Middle's usually OK.

Friendliness Tips

Your Finfin should be given at least 2 lemos a day, as he likes them.

Finfin is a wild animal, so don't scare him off at first contact. Be patient with him, and he'll be friends with you soon (usually in 1 to 2 weeks).

Try to visit him at the same time every day, and not at night (unless you're nocturnal :P ).

If using a microphone, Finfin's a great listener. Just quietly talk to him about stuff (not necessarily gibberish), and he'll eat your lemo offerings. You can even sing to him or play your favorite music (especially if it involves dolphins ;) like Ecco the Dolphin music)! Try it!

You check his friendliness level using the Bioscan (see above to find out how to view it).

Talk to him a lot using the keyboard numbers (see below for the default keyboard settings, which you can't change) or the microphone (or the Smartsensor; find out more under the relevant section).

Finfin Color Passwords

1. Go here and follow the instructions. (Basically, play a memory game on the hard difficulty to get a password ;) ).
2. Once you finally get a password, to insert it, download the program from here. It only works for the German 6-world version.
3. The 5-world version also has a Color Passwords program, but it only works for the 5-world version.
4. In case playing the memory game doesn't give you any password (it's a fun game though), JadeTank (maker of the QEMU VM) has compiled most (not all) of 'em here.

Keyboard Settings

Press the number keys on the keyboard (not numpad) to talk with Finfin in his language without using a microphone. Recommended if your microphone doesn't work with Finfin (which seems to be the case in the German 6-world version, where the microphone probably doesn't work unless you use the QEMU VM, but you can try in a Windows 9x computer or virtual machine).

QEMU VM uses the Male / Female sounds of the 5-world version for the 1 to 5 keys, but it can be changed to the Finfinese sounds at the top for the 1 to 5 keys. For the 6 to 0 keys, you can record your own sounds.

Keyboard settings for the German 6-world version: (other versions' keyboard settings found here)

1 = "amu-amu" (I'm happy)
2 = "pô-pô" (Good day)
3 = "kû-kû" (Please?)
4 = "mên-mên" (I'm lonely)
5 = "pû-nii" (I'm tired)
6 = dream song
7 = good night song
8 = good morning song
9 = game song ("Di-del-di-dam")
0 = annoyance / fear (loud - don't use this if you don't want to drastically lower Finfin's friendship!)

Smartsensor

The Smartsensor is a 'webcam' that is attached to your PC and allows Finfin to see you and hear your voice. Finfin doesn't understand English; only your tone of voice (gentle or harsh) and whether you move jerkily or slowly. Obviously, moving slowly and speaking gently is better (as it is with any wild animal ;) ).

Sadly, the Smartsensor may not work in newer systems most of the time (Finfin won't react to you), and the microphone only works in XP and lower and probably not at all in the German 6-world version or QEMU Virtual Machine. I haven't tested the Smartsensor though, since I don't have one and I can't buy one.

If you don't have a Smartsensor, try ebay. ;)

Important Finfin Links

For more documentation on FinFin on Teo the Magic Planet, (including more info on the stuff mentioned above), go to the unofficial Finfin fansite! (Note: The site is in English and German, and the German boards on the Finfin forums have more topics than the English boards.)

Here's a premade QEMU VM with Finfin, working perfectly on my current Arch Linux system ;)

The German 6-world version works on Windows 95 to Windows 10, Linux Ubuntu 14.04 using PlayOnLinux, and my Arch Linux 64-bit and Manjaro 64-bit (hooray! :D ) with Wine, but Windows 2000 and Linux Mint haven't been tested yet ;) You can download the German 6-world version at Finfin-Archiv. In my Arch and Manjaro installations though, snapshots don't get saved and minimizing causes the program to stop working until you log off and log back in.

The Wikipedia page contains more than just one paragraph now ;)

There are some cool Finfin videos on YouTube; in particular, there's a long Finfin video which is the best so far, but it's in German (and it doesn't show off the 6-world version or 5-world version). To understand it if you don't know German, follow these steps exactly: Settings (gear icon) > Subtitles/CC > German > Settings > Subtitles > Auto-translate > English. It's surprisingly understandable, but still not ideal. Here it is (it's by Tyerell). There's also an LGR video on the game, and a Finfin video series called A Moment With Fin Fin by Pixelation (who also does a bunch of other obscure virtual computer pet videos, so subscribe to him now! :D ;) ) which is the best English Finfin video series (and it also shows off the 6-world version, with the Nest), but it has no commentary other than in the description, unlike the big one (which is good). There are also two Finfin streams I've found: this one's by Brutalmoose, and this one's by Wayne (caused a resurgence in the community, which is great!). There's a sequel to the Wayne one. Also, here's a link to the OST.

I've created a cool Finfin Desktop Theme for Windows 10! You can download it at the Desktop Themes page :D

Old Edit: Arcor has closed down, unofficial Finfin fansite has moved to finfin.de.

Edited once again on Dec 10, 2017 (mentioned the 6-world version only being available in Japan; mentioned its availability at the site above; mentioned dancing and singing creatures at Lemo Valley).

Edited once more on June 8, 2018 (changed hatches to incubates; added links to Snuffy and Piki Seal).

Edited for the third time on Jan 28, 2019 (added Teo Project, a link to the Finfin subreddit and a convenient link to the 6-world version updated for newer systems and translated to German). I plan to update this fanpage more than once a year :P

Edited on Jan 31, 2019 (added that the German 6-world version works natively on Windows 95 to Windows 10, Linux Ubuntu 14.04 using PlayOnLinux, and Arch Linux 64-bit [tested by me]). I did it :D ;)

Edited on Feb 2, 2019 (Fixed hidden typos, other edits).

Edited for the sixth time on Mar 26, 2019 (expanded this fanpage a lot. Soon there will a Finfin Newbie Guide at the forums, but for now this is the Finfin Guide (sort of; more info can be found at finfin.de, and there'll be exclusive info in the Newbie Guide, which'll be released before May ;) ))

Edited again after a long time on Dec 2, 2019 (Removed the YouTube Finfin video by kepu94 and edited the description of the YouTube Finfin videos accordingly, as it's private now :( and also made misc. edits :) )

Edited on Sun, Dec 13, 2020 for the ninth time (took almost a year, but the Finfin Newbie Guide has finally been released ;) Also, the TEO Project is on hiatus for now, so removed the 'Check for updates at the forums' sentence. Full explanation: almost all of the Guide's content was already on the Finfin Shrine, and the missing portions have now been added :D So the Finfin Fanpage is now the Finfin Newbie Guide ;) although it’ll still be called the Finfin Shrine.)

Edited on Thur, March 3, 2022 (added some more info about Finfin :D ).

Edited on Wed, Aug 31, 2022 (added two new links to videos about Finfin! :D ).

Edited on Thu, Apr 20, 2023 (added link to the QEMU VM, which is what I use now to visit TEO :D ).

Edited on Fri, Jul 14, 2023 (added a Finfin desktop theme for Windows 10, :D removed the subreddit and added Squabbles, added link to the LGR video and color passwords, added more info about the keys used in the QEMU version, and various other edits).

Edited on Thu, Jan 25, 2024 (updated the Finfin desktop theme and added icons :D You can now download all my themes on the Desktop Themes page, nowhere else).

Edited on Mon, Aug 26, 2024 (removed Squabbles link because shenanigans happened on it).