Frequently asked
questions.
What is Pixel Wild?
Pixel Wild is a free iOS app for discovering the plants and animals around you. You point your camera at any wild thing — a sidewalk weed, a balcony bug, a bird in the park — and it identifies the species, turns it into pixel art, and adds it to your collection. You then spend the species you find building your own pixel-art nature sanctuaries.
Is Pixel Wild free?
Yes. Pixel Wild is free to download and play. It offers optional in-app purchases (a currency called Matter) for premium catalog items used to decorate your sanctuaries, but you can discover species and build sanctuaries without paying.
What platforms is Pixel Wild on?
Pixel Wild is an iOS app available on the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad. There is a companion website at pixelwild.dev for sharing discoveries and sanctuaries, but the app itself runs on iOS.
How does Pixel Wild work?
Take a photo of a plant or animal with the in-app camera. Pixel Wild identifies the species, generates pixel art of it, and adds it to your collection. Each discovery earns you resources you spend to place tiles and items in your own pixel-art sanctuaries, which grow over time as you keep exploring.
Do I need to know species names to use it?
No. Identification is automatic — you just take a photo and Pixel Wild names the species for you, along with background and facts. The app is built for curious beginners as much as experienced naturalists.
Is my location and photo data private?
Yes. Pixel Wild only shows city-level location on anything you share publicly, never your exact coordinates. You control what you share. See the Privacy Policy at pixelwild.dev/privacy for full details on how captures, location, and account data are handled.
Where does Pixel Wild's species data come from?
Species records — names, taxonomy, and ranges — come from iNaturalist, the open community catalog of life on Earth. Background and descriptions pull from Wikipedia. The pixel art is generated by Pixel Wild for each species, and every species links back to its original sources.
Do I need an account?
You sign in to save your collection and sanctuaries so they sync and you can share them. Public discovery and sanctuary pages can be viewed on the web without an account.