Granddad's Camera

A pixel-art wildlife game for iPhone and Android

Find Britain's wildlife. Then wait for the shot.

You're a budding nature photographer with your granddad's old film camera and an empty field journal. Badgers come out of the sett at dusk in spring. Puffins carry sand eels to their burrows on Skomer in June. Get the place, the season and the hour right, keep still, and the journal fills with your photographs and the real story of every species.

103 real species 24 moths 5 real places Sunrise, weather and seasons
Get launch news See what's about In development · coming to the App Store and Google Play
The game on a phone: a red fox in a Millbrook alley at dusk, with the SHOOT, CREEP, WAIT and LEAVE menu and the control deck below.

The almanac

What's about?

Every animal in the game keeps to its real calendar and clock, and the rare ones really are rare. Pick a place, a month and a time of day to see who you're likely to meet, and roughly how long you'd sit quietly to see one. This is the same data the game uses.

Place
Month
Early May
Light

How a photograph happens

Read the signs, keep still, time the shutter

  1. Millbrook at night: street lamps pool light on the High Street.

    Be in the right place

    Field signs tell you what's about: a latrine by the canal, spoil heaps at a sett, cones stripped by a red squirrel. People tell you how to see it. Ask around: everyone local knows something. Then walk slowly through the long grass, or sit at a bench, a hide or the rail of a boat.

  2. A puffin carrying sand eels, with its alert meter rising.

    Creep, or wait

    Every move raises its alert, from CALM to BOLT! Mind the wind: deer, foxes and badgers smell you coming from upwind. Wait, and it settles, and you may see the rare moments: a murmuration, boxing hares, a stag roaring in the rut.

  3. The viewfinder: a mountain hare in its white winter coat, with a focus bar.

    Frame it and focus

    Zoom with the lens you can afford, then press the shutter as the focus marker crosses the green. Photos are scored on framing, focus, light, the moment and the mood.

A year out of doors

Always a reason to go back out

Wildlife keeps its own calendar, and so does the game: it knows today's date, where you are, and what the birds are up to.

A developed print of a kingfisher on a branch, five stars, ISO 400.

Granddad's film camera

24 shots a roll, and you won't see a single one until Lens & Lark develops them: an hour in town, or overnight by post. Choose the film for the light. Save up for digital later.

ISO 200 · 400 · 800

The Nest Cam app on the in-game phone: blue tit chicks crowding a nest box, with this year's record below.

Nest Cam

Put a camera in Granddad's tit box and watch a whole season on your phone, infrared at night. The first egg around 26 April, about nine eggs, two weeks sitting, three in the nest. Not every nest makes it. Send your record to the county recorder.

Timings from the BTO's Nest Record Scheme

A Bird News notification sliding down over the New Forest: a hoopoe on a lawn near Lyndhurst.

Bird News

Earn two ranger stamps and you're on the bird news. A hoopoe on a Hampshire lawn, waxwings in the Co-op car park, a snowy owl on the plateau. Rarities stay a day or two. When it pings, go.

12 rare visitors

Granddad's garden with feeders, a pond, nest boxes and a wildflower patch.

Granddad's garden

Feeders, a wildlife pond, nest boxes, a log pile, a hedgehog highway. Everything you put in changes who visits. Set the moth trap at dusk and see what's on the egg boxes at dawn.

24 moths, by real flight season and moon

The Hall of Fame at the Nature Society: each month's winner and the prize money table.

Field & Fen Monthly

A new theme every month, and a Hall of Fame of local photographers to beat. Win it, and the magazine pays out.

£300 · £150 · £75 (in-game)

More to find

Photograph each species' behaviours, from cubs at play to a stag's roar. Rare colour forms turn up at their real odds, like a white fallow deer, and there are local legends like Old Scar the otter. Five conservation stories, from bats in a barn due for demolition to seal pups and the Marine Code.

20 rare forms and named locals

Five places, one railcard

Start at home, then take the train

Earn each ranger's stamp by photographing six species there, and the next part of Britain opens up.

The field journal

Every page, checked against UK sources

Photograph a species and its journal page fills in: size, diet, population, conservation status, the law that protects it, field signs, a photographer's tip and the ethics. Here are all 103 pages.

Fieldcraft

Good photographers leave nothing but footprints

  • Protected birds keep you backSchedule 1 birds in the breeding season can't be approached. The game won't let you creep closer, and tells you why.
  • Some things are watched from a hideFewer than 550 capercaillie remain in Britain. You only see the dawn lek from the hide.
  • Work into the windDeer, foxes and badgers smell you long before they see you. Approach with the wind in your face.
  • Red light at nightHedgehogs, pine martens and shearwaters are watched with a red-light torch, which most mammals barely notice.
  • Never open a nest boxNot while there's a nest in it. That's what the camera is for.
  • Seal pups from the clifftopA disturbed mother can abandon her pup. Watch the coves from above, never from the beach.
KitWhat it changesPrice
Granddad's camera35 mm film: 24 shots a roll, developed in town.Free
Club DSLRDigital. Quicker focus, much cleaner at dusk, takes lenses.£450
Telephoto 70–300mmThe classic first wildlife lens.£380
Macro 100mmInsects, reptiles and amphibians, pin-sharp.£420
Binoculars 8×42More sightings while you watch.£90
Red-light torchNight watching without disturbance.£35
Pop-up hidePitch it in cover; shy animals come close.£260
Trail cameraLeave it by a sett overnight. Infrared after dark.£180
Nest box cameraThe whole blue tit season on your phone.£65
Mountain bootsThe Cairn Gorm plateau, safely.£120
Thermal monocularWarm bodies glowing in the dark.£950
Pro mirrorlessSilent shutter, superb in the dark.£1,800
600mm f/4 primeMaximum reach. The dream lens.£3,400