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A gnome sets off

Help Wonnel fill his empty pantry shelf.

€1.99 once. No ads, no in-app purchases, no tracking.

One tap, that’s all

Wonnel runs to the right on his own. A tap makes him jump. It does not matter where on the screen the finger lands.

That is all there is to the controls. There is no small button at the edge of the screen that a child has to hit, and nothing to swipe or hold down. A two-year-old still learning to tap gets through here just as well as a five-year-old already watching for the golden acorn.

How fast it all goes is up to your child. There are three speeds, and a wide strip at the top of the screen switches between them.

Who Wonnel is

Wonnel is a forest gnome. He wears a red smock and a long green pointed cap that swings along behind him as he runs. He lives in a treehouse high up in an old oak.

The treehouse turns up in the game as well. In most runs it appears at some point, one of the landmarks in the forest. Children who have been told that Wonnel lives there know it when they see it.

The game carries his name for a simple reason: a child remembers the character who does the running long before it can read a title.

Why he runs

Below a round window stands Wonnel’s pantry shelf. Everything he finds over the summer goes on it.

This year he slept a little too long. He looked out of the window this morning, and there was the first fog lying over the forest. Fall is coming, and his shelf is still completely bare.

So Wonnel picked up his basket and set off. Not for a stroll. At a run.

Those few sentences are enough to read aloud. Afterward no child asks why Wonnel cannot stop. He is in a hurry.

Two worlds

There are two worlds to choose from. In one the forest is bright, in the other it is dark. A tap on either one starts the run. There is nothing more for a child to work out here, and nothing to read either.

By day

Wonnel gathers acorns, berries and walnuts. Every so often a golden acorn is lying by the path. He finds one of those rarely, and at home it goes right at the front of the shelf, because it is beautiful.

At night

The forest is pitch black. Wonnel carries a lantern in his hand then and catches fireflies. Each firefly pushes the circle of light a little wider, and the farther he sees, the sooner he spots the holes in the path.

Without a single word

There is not a sentence anywhere in the app, no label and no instruction. Nothing to read in a menu, no voice telling anyone what to do. Whatever there is to understand, children take from pictures, color and sound.

For your child that means starting the game alone. She taps the picture she likes, and the run begins. Numbers do turn up, on the counter at the top left and on the end screen, but nobody has to be able to read them. How much is in the basket shows as a tower of fruit. The higher it stands, the more is in there.

Because the app contains no sentences, it is the same game everywhere. A child in the United States and a child in Mexico see the same picture and get equally far with it.

Wonnel walks through the daytime forest toward a low green bush with brown thorns sticking out of the top. Behind it an acorn sits on a tree stump, a hedgehog trots through the grass beside it, and a pink flower stands at the edge of the path. At the top left a board counts fifteen acorns.

Nobody loses

There is no opponent. Nobody chases Wonnel, nobody means him any harm. The forest is peaceful.

A thornbush, a puddle or a pile of leaves will trip Wonnel up. Three of his finds hop out of the basket, then he runs on.

It gets serious in exactly one place. Where a tree has come down, a hole gapes in the path, and whoever falls in is finished for that run. This one danger can be seen coming from a long way off. At night as well, because the lantern always reaches far enough for about two seconds of warning, however little has been collected by then.

Afterward the end screen shows two towers of fruit side by side. The pale one on the left stands for the best run so far, the colorful one on the right for the run that just ended. If the new one was the best, a crown flies over in an arc and settles on top. Which tower is higher, a child sees at a glance.

What parents want to know

Before an app lands on your child’s device, you want to know what it does. Here it is.

  • One-time purchase

    Wonnel costs €1.99 once, on the App Store and on Google Play, and after that no bill ever comes.

  • No ads

    No video before the next run. And no banner at the edge that opens something else entirely when a child taps it away.

  • No in-app purchases

    There is nothing to buy later on, so there is nothing a child can buy by accident.

  • No tracking

    No account, no sign-up, no analytics tool: the best score and a handful of settings stay on the device.

  • Works offline

    The app needs no internet connection. Airplane mode, no Wi-Fi at all: it runs exactly as it does at home.

  • Parents’ area

    Language, the privacy policy and the legal notice sit in an area of their own that a child cannot open.

Pictures from the game

Real screenshots from the game.

  • Wonnel’s start screen: the word Wonnel stands above a fir forest, and below it two large pictures side by side, the left one showing the forest by day with an acorn, the right one the same forest at night with a firefly. At the right edge of the screen the gnome runs through the grass.
    The start screen. Pick a world.
  • Wonnel runs past a stack of wooden crates in the daytime forest, with a walnut floating above it. At the top left a small board with an acorn keeps the count, at the top right sits the pause button. On the right the ground breaks off into a gap.
    Crates are there to jump on. The walnut counts double.
  • The same forest at night, dark blue-green and still easy to make out. Wonnel walks through the grass with a burning lantern in his hand, one firefly floats close beside him and two more glow further to the right. A bat crosses the sky. The board at the top left counts fireflies.
    At night the lantern glows, and the counter at the top left fills up with fireflies.
  • Wonnel in midair, just short of a pile of leaves at the side of the path. Below him a frog sits in the grass, with a flower beside it and berries further to the right, and a butterfly flutters above him.
    One tap anywhere on the screen, and Wonnel jumps.
  • Wonnel runs toward a small campfire burning at the side of the path. On the left an acorn floats above a platform, on the right a mouse darts across the ground.
    The campfire is one of three landmarks. One comes along about every twenty seconds.
  • Wonnel’s treehouse in the night forest: a wooden hut in the crown of a broadleaf tree, with a ladder, a railing and a round window with warm light in it. Wonnel walks past in front of it with his lantern, and two fireflies glow in the grass below him.
    Wonnel’s treehouse at night.
  • Wonnel runs toward a group of red fly agarics with white spots, with small brown mushrooms beside them. A frog sits at the left edge of the picture, and on the right a mouse runs along a fallen tree trunk.
    The mushroom clearing, the third landmark alongside the campfire and the treehouse.
  • The end screen on light paper: Wonnel stands on the left with his arms hanging down; in the middle a low pale heap of acorns, berries and walnuts, and beside it a distinctly taller colorful tower of the same fruit with a golden crown on top. On the right a large acorn stands next to the number 23. Confetti falls. Below it a button to start again and one to go back to the start screen.
    After the run: on the left, pale, the best tower so far, on the right the one from this run. The crown means it was a new best.

Common questions

What age is Wonnel for?

For children from 2 to 5. The little ones tap and watch what happens, and that is plenty. The older ones start watching for the golden acorn and trying to beat their own tower. Nobody has to read for any of it.

What does the app cost?

€1.99, once. There are no in-app purchases, no subscription and no expansion that costs something later.

Does the app need an internet connection?

No. Wonnel runs in airplane mode just as it does at home. On the train, in a waiting room and in the car, that is the difference between a calm child and a crying one.

Are there ads?

None. No banners, no videos, and nothing that pops up when a run ends. That works because the app is paid for once. After that it has nothing left to sell.

What data is collected?

None. There is no account, no sign-up, no analytics tool and no advertising identifier. The best score and the settings sit on the device and go nowhere. The privacy policy spells it out in full.

How long does a run last?

Five minutes at most. Usually it is over sooner, because Wonnel falls into a hole at some point. If a child really does keep going for five minutes, the sky changes color, to sunset red by day and to first light by night. A soft shimmer travels around the edge of the screen, and the run fades out. So it never stretches on for hours.

Can my child break something or set something off by accident?

No. A tap makes Wonnel jump, wherever the finger lands. There is nothing breakable on the screen, no link that leaves the app, and no buy button. Everything that concerns parents sits in the parents’ area.

Is the game available in English?

The game itself needs no language at all, there is not a single word in it. The parents’ area comes in English and German, and this website is available in Spanish and French as well.

Help Wonnel

The fog is already lying in the forest, and the shelf is still empty.

€1.99 once. Without ads, without in-app purchases, without tracking.