Wild Willows works fully offline, needs no account, and collects as little as it can. This page is the complete list of what the game handles, what leaves your device, and how to have it deleted.
Effective 3 July 2026 · last updated 19 August 2026 · Bailey Dunning · [email protected]
The long version below says the same things with the exact field names.
Saves are files on your own device, and the world itself is never uploaded. No account, no sign-in, no ads, no tracking, no third-party analytics. The browser demo is the exception — see the browser version.
When you're online, the game periodically sends a snapshot of counters — play time, things crafted, animals returned — tagged with a random per-save ID.
It's the one field in that snapshot you chose, and it's there so a row is recognizable rather than a bare UUID. Nothing else in the snapshot identifies you.
The single piece of personal information I ever receive is whatever you put in the feedback form, including an optional email if you'd like a reply.
Your saves are local files in the app's data folder. Each save holds your caretaker's name and appearance, your world (terrain, placements, plants, animals, chests), and gameplay counters. The game also uses local browser-style storage for small preferences and to queue unsent feedback while offline. None of this local data is readable by me; deleting the app, or the save files, removes it.
The Mac App Store build is solo-only: no multiplayer, no account, no passcode. The game is fully playable with no internet connection at all.
While the game is open and a connection exists, it sends a snapshot roughly every three minutes, plus once when the window is hidden or closed. This is the whole payload — there is nothing in it that isn't listed here.
About that save name. It's the one human-written string in an otherwise numeric payload, so it deserves saying plainly: it is sent, and it is the only part of an automatic snapshot that came from you. Everything beside it is a random ID, a version string, or a count.
The game never asks for your real name, and there's a dice button beside the field that fills in a random caretaker name for you — but the field itself is free text and starts empty, so what goes in it is your choice. Nothing in the snapshot ties that name back to you, your device, or your Apple ID. It is set once, when you create the preserve, and there is no way to change it afterwards — so pick something you're happy for me to see. If a name you already used bothers you, email me and I'll delete that row.
Sending is best-effort. If you're offline the report is simply skipped — nothing is queued, and the game never nags you to connect. I use these snapshots solely to understand how Wild Willows is played and to improve it.
If you would rather send nothing, play with the device offline: the game is built to work that way and loses no feature by it.
Neither is part of the snapshot above, so they get their own heading rather than a footnote.
The in-game feedback form (in Settings) sends whatever message you type, plus light diagnostic context so a report like “the game feels slow” makes sense: app version and build, platform and operating system, browser user-agent string, your save's name, tutorial progress, unlocked biomes, achievement count, and play time.
You may optionally include an email address if you'd like a reply. It is used only to answer you — never for marketing, never shared. If you're offline when you submit, the feedback is stored on your device and sent automatically once a connection returns. On my server, feedback and any reply address are readable only by me.
Wild Willows is gentle, non-violent and rated 9+ on the App Store — a rating that reflects how much reading it asks for rather than anything in its content. The age-suitability page explains that in full.
I do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The game never asks for a real name, and the only free-text personal data anywhere is the optional feedback email. If you believe a child has submitted personal information through the feedback form, contact me and I will delete it.
The browser version is the free demo at play.wildwillows.app, and it works the opposite way round from the installed game: your save lives on my server instead of your device — the save name, a passcode (stored only as a salted hash, never in plaintext), your caretaker's appearance, and your world state. Play in the browser and your world is on my server; install the game and it never leaves your machine.
Two consequences of that, worth stating plainly:
If the server can't be reached when the page loads, the demo falls back to running entirely inside your browser, and the save is genuinely local to it — in which case clearing site data erases it outright.
Everything else in this policy applies identically — no ads, no tracking, nothing sold or shared, and the same deletion route.
If the game's data practices ever change, I'll update this policy, revise the effective date at the top, and note the change in the release notes. Material changes get called out in-game.
They all go to one person, and that person is me.