Before loading the game
The current Godot build has an initial major payload of approximately 63.8 MB before smaller loader files. The play page waits for an intentional click so visitors who only need the guide, roadmap, or credits do not download the game. Use a current desktop browser with WebAssembly and WebGL support, a stable connection, and enough time to keep the tab open through startup.
Mobile and touch controls are not yet a supported alpha target. A dedicated GPU is recommended for the strongest result, but the in-game menu provides quality settings when a device needs a lighter presentation.
Essential controls
WASDMove relative to the camera
ShiftRun
SpaceAttack
Left clickAttack
EEat, drink, or use a contextual interaction
RRest at accelerated time
ZSleep and heal faster
QToggle scent and wind focus
F2 / F3Use current lion skills
TabOpen the Field Journal
EscOpen the game menu
Right / middle dragOrbit the camera
The mouse wheel changes camera distance. Comma and period rotate the camera from the keyboard, while F7 toggles direction-following and free orbit. The game contains more social, territory, observation, conservation, and evolution controls, but the set above is enough to begin living and learning safely.
A sound first-session order
- Orient before sprinting. Read the world clock, condition bars, wind, current state, and nearby-animal information. Running immediately spends energy and can push heat or injury pressure higher.
- Locate water without charging the shoreline. Watering places attract prey, rivals, and human activity. Approach slowly enough to notice context and use E only when the interaction prompt confirms drinking.
- Use Q to investigate information. The scent-and-wind focus reveals the systems your lion can currently interpret. Rain, ground type, water, and time affect what persists.
- Choose fights deliberately. Attacks cost energy, can miss outside range or direction, and may create wounds, pain, blood loss, stress, infection risk, or social consequences.
- Recover away from immediate danger. R accelerates rest; Z advances time and healing more quickly. Nearby hostile animals can prevent or interrupt sleep.
- Save after a meaningful change. Use Escape, then Save Life or Save Slots, after reaching safety, changing the world, or before ending the session.
Saving the living world
WildLives maintains three living-world slots in browser-local storage. A slot preserves far more than player position: the simulation records world time, weather, animal and population state, carcasses, territory, relationships, lineage, ecology, human pressure, culture, evolution, and the current release-compatible save version.
Those saves belong to the current browser profile. They do not yet sync between browsers or devices. Clearing site data, using a temporary private-browsing session, or changing profiles can make a save unavailable. When the game reports a save failure, keep the tab open and try again rather than assuming the world was preserved.
Settings and access
The Escape menu provides quality presets, high contrast, reduced motion, subtitles or text cues, master volume, camera speed, camera distance, invert-Y, and save-slot controls. These settings persist separately from the living-world slots. Fullscreen and a direct-game link are available from the browser play toolbar after the build loads.
What the Alpha label means
The current build contains a playable lion life, persistent ecosystem, pride relationships, territory, life cycles, population simulation, human pressure, conservation, culture, and evolution systems. It is still an alpha: final animation and audio, wider browser endurance, assistive-technology sessions, balance, performance review, long unscripted lives, and owner acceptance remain open gates.
Continue with wind and scent, review water, heat, rest, and energy, or load Lion's Life.