Meet Willy
It's February on the short‑grass plains of Ndutu, in the southern Serengeti. Willy the Wildebeest was just born — like almost every other wildebeest calf in the ecosystem this month. He can already run, but he needs his mother's milk, then grass, to grow.
- Arrow keys or WASD — move Willy one square at a time (every step costs HP, so graze in place rather than wandering without a reason)
- Space bar — nurse from Mom (early on) or eat grass beneath Willy
- J — join with an adjacent wildebeest to form a herd. A bigger herd hits harder in battle and unlocks Stomp & Dust Cloud, and lone wildebeest left outside it are the ones predators actually catch — but every extra mouth eats more grass, spreads grazing onto nearby squares, and dilutes how much HP a graze/nurse restores.
- K — send a wildebeest out of Willy's herd on its own (respawns a few squares away, unprotected again) — use it to ease pressure on the grass supply
- Watch for lions 🦁 and spotted hyenas 🐆 — get adjacent to one and a battle begins. Weakening a predator enough makes it break off the hunt.
- Follow the arrow when it appears — that's the migration route. Grass runs out fast once it does, so get moving!
- Survive a full migration cycle and you'll be offered Year 2 — harder, with poachers' snares, drought, competing cattle, and roads — and, if Willy stays healthy, a chance at Year 3 and fatherhood.
- R, or the button in the top-right corner, restarts the whole simulation at any time
Like the board game this is based on, this is a simplified model — a deliberate abstraction of real Serengeti population dynamics, built to help you reason about predator‑prey relationships, not to be a perfectly accurate simulation.