A cozy game about putting a wild place back together: one plant, one pond, one animal at a time.
macOS·Windows·Linux·English & Español·works fully offline
Wild Willows is a nature-restoration sim. You're the caretaker of a preserve that's seen better days: you gather materials, craft and plant real habitat, reshape the terrain, and animals return as each biome recovers. The ecology is the actual game: species only come back when the habitat can support them, and predators won't settle until there's prey to feed them.
No failing, no clock, no combat. Just a quiet preserve slowly coming back under your care.
Original soundtrack by Jon Licht
You start with a tent, a campfire and an empty basket on stripped ground. Gather what's fallen, plant what belongs, dig out the water. The same patch fills back in, and the animals return on their own.
Each biome tracks its own Health and Balance and has its own restoration goal: replant the meadow's grasses and wildflowers, rebuild the forest's understory, refill the wetland. Restoring one opens the trail to the next.
355 recipes, built straight from your basket and chests: 257 habitat pieces (alder snags, basking logs, dragonfly ponds, duck nest boxes), 68 plants that grow in over time, 39 things to make for your home, and 48 structures and paths. No workbench. No menus inside menus.
All 150 species are real, with their real diets, shelters, and habitat needs, researched from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Park Service, US Fish & Wildlife, Audubon, the Smithsonian, the IUCN Red List, NOAA, and more. That research drives the simulation: herbivores need the right plants standing, predators only settle once there's prey to feed them, and each biome tracks the balance of its whole food web. The field guide fills in as animals return, and it reads like a journal, not a textbook.
I really enjoyed it! It's a cozy game and it's so good! I really like the art and the gameplay is relaxing, there is no pressure or timers. Watching an empty landscape slowly becoming more lively and colorful is pretty rewarding. Thank you for posting this game <3
itch.io review
Simple game, yet a very fun one! honestly i didn't expect much! but it surprised me with some unique/simple/cozy vibes! it offers simple yet/very entertaining. art style is pretty cute! game is such a nice vibe! absolutely loved it! and i love that the full game has different biomes and stuff, it feels like a game well made! definitely a game you should try!
itch.io review
I like how you can get all the animals and how you can update things. It's really fun. I love all the animals and I've unlocked two habitats and have three habitats in total. I like every single thing in the game.
8 year-old player
This game has so much content that it's overwhelming (in a good way). Also, I was surprised by the number of settings and accessibility options it has. Pretty cool on your part. The art looks really nice, simple yet charming. I really like the environmental theme of preserving nature
itch.io review
I hope this game continues with great success as it would do wonders for kids/students that are interested in preserving the habitat of different critters. The coziness and its BGM really does help me keep my levels of cortisol low :D. I hope more games like these are created to spread awareness for our environment.
itch.io review
very cute game, im loving the art style , its quite fun to play , recommending this as a family friendly game, good job with the progress to the developer. cant wait to see the full game!
itch.io review
Wild Willows is fully translated: interface, animal notes, field guide and all. Switch on the title screen or in Settings, any time. The whole preserve follows.
Gentle, non-violent, and quietly educational. You pick up real ecology just by playing. Rated 9+ on the App Store. Every setting above lives in one Settings screen and can be changed mid-game, with no restart and nothing to unlock.
Two free, ready-to-run kits built on the same game — one science, one computer science. They work equally well on their own. No accounts, no cost, nothing to install.
Both kits are free to download, print and photocopy — no email, no account, no strings. The science kit’s educator guide and student worksheets download straight from here, and there are a limited number of free copies for schools, first come, first served.
Every animal, biome and habitat item in the game is served from one public endpoint, with no key and no sign-up. There is a free lesson that teaches you to build something with it.
The endpoint is https://wildwillows.app/GameData — 150 species with real diet, shelter and habitat notes, six biomes, and the requirements that decide which animal returns when. It is the same data the game itself runs on, it sends the CORS header, and it needs no key. Build whatever you like with it.
Development updates, questions, and whatever people have built — all in one place.
The game's subreddit is at r/wildwillows. It's where I post development updates and answer questions, and anyone can post there too.
Free to read without an account. You only need one to post.
A cozy nature-restoration life sim. You set up camp at the edge of a damaged nature preserve, then gather materials, craft and plant real habitat, and shape the land. As each biome recovers, real animal species find their way home.
There's a free demo you can play right in your browser at play.wildwillows.app. The full game is a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store and on itch.io. No ads, no in-app purchases, no loot boxes.
The full game is on the Mac App Store for macOS, and on itch.io for macOS, Windows, and Linux. The free browser demo is at play.wildwillows.app. Nothing to download.
If you speed-run the game, all 150 animals can be brought back in about 3–4 hours. Most people don't play it that way though, and for most cozy players that number runs closer to 10–15 hours. Either way nothing shuts the door at the end: the preserve is still yours after the last biome recovers, with 355 recipes to keep building with. There's no clock and no way to fail, so you can put it down for a month and pick it straight back up.
English and Spanish. You can switch language on the title screen or in Settings at any time.
A lot of them, all in one Settings screen and all changeable mid-game: dark mode (or follow your system), high contrast, three colorblind modes, five interface fonts, four text sizes, reduce motion, a low graphics-quality mode for older machines, simpler wording, an interaction highlight, fully rebindable keys, and separate music and sound-effect toggles with their own volumes. The full list is in Made to be played by more people.
No. There's no combat, no enemies, and no way to fail. Animals are observed and welcomed home, never hunted, captured, or lost, and nothing ever dies.
Yes, and there’s a kit for it: a free educator guide and six student worksheets, both on the teachers page. The lesson runs in one 45–60 minute period for grades 5–8 and works with the free demo. If cost is what’s standing in the way, I keep a limited number of free promo codes for classrooms. Tell me a bit about why you want to use it with your class and write to [email protected].
Yes. It's gentle, non-violent and educational, and rated 9+ on the App Store.
No. The game is fully playable offline, with no account and no sign-in. Your world lives on your own device.
No download, no sign-in. If you like it, the full game is a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store and itch.io.