Wildgrove
They learn to trust you.

Wildgrove is free to play, right in your browser. Nothing to download. The wild creatures here are called kith. You cannot catch one, ever. You sit down near a kith, hold out a gift it likes, and wait. If it makes up its mind to trust you, it follows you home.

Play in your browser Meet the kith
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You make friends with kith. You never catch them.

Nothing is ever thrown at a kith. Nothing gets shut in a box. You spend a little time with one until it trusts you. That trust is called a bond.
1Come at the right hour Each kind of kith keeps its own hours. Some are only out at dawn. Some only after dark. The same meadow holds different kith at noon and at midnight.
2Give a gift, and wait Watch the kith first. Then hold out a shiny pebble, or a sip of dew — the water that sits on the grass at dawn. Sitting still works too. Pick the wrong gift and nothing bad happens. The kith backs up a step and thinks it over.
3Let it choose Once a kith trusts you, the two of you choose together. It can come live in your Grove — the garden you look after — or it can stay wild. Both answers are fine. The kith remembers which one you picked.
4Look after it Feed it, play with it, give it a name. A happy kith grows up when it is ready. We call that blooming: the kith changes into a bigger shape.

Three islands, and you earn your way to each

You do not pick an island off a list. Each new island opens when you finish a passage — a small job with a name. Each passage teaches you what the next island will ask of you.

Once in a while, a kith is born glowing

1 in 800
A lumen is a kith that carries its own light. About 1 kith in 800 is born this way. It is not a different animal and it is not stronger. It is the same kind of kith, wearing a rare coat.

Every kith is a little bit different. Its height, its weight, its shape and its light are all set the moment it begins to trust you, and they never change after that. No two plips are quite the same plip. Your Field Atlas — the book you keep about every kind of kith — remembers the tallest and the heaviest you have ever met. Meeting a lumen is luck. Making friends with one works the same as always: sit down, hold out a gift, wait.

They grow up, and stay themselves

When a kith grows up it blooms: it changes into a bigger shape. You cannot order a kith to bloom. It blooms in your Grove, when it is old enough and feels at home, and when the right thing is nearby — moonlight, for example, or a high tide. It is still the same one afterward: same name, same markings, same little differences.

There is no stone and no item that makes a kith bloom, and nothing here you can buy to hurry it. Blooming is the kith's job, not yours. Feed it, play with it, and one day it will get there.

What you keep

Your game is saved on your account, not on one computer. Sign in on a phone, a tablet or somebody else's laptop and your Grove is right where you left it.

The Field Atlas

Your book about every kind of kith — all 14 of them. Each page is an empty shadow until you meet that kind. Then it fills in: where the kith lives, what it likes, and the tallest and heaviest one you have ever met.

A map of the islands

A hand-drawn map of the Emberveil Isles, the small group of islands you live on. It shows which boats you can take from where you are standing. Beside it is the passage board, which always tells you the next job to do.

Your Grove

Home for every kith that trusts you. Feed them, play with them, name them. You can also open the gate and let one go back to the wild — but it will not come back, even if you change your mind.

Real weather, real hours

Dawn, day, dusk and night each bring out different kith. At the Tidepools the sea comes in and goes out twice a day, and the same beach is a different place at high water than at low.