About Lichen
Lichen is a bare, dark rock and four colors of living branches. You plant a seed, and thin glowing tips start to wander outward, splitting as they go. The result looks like frost on a window, coral, or tiny lightning, drawn one pixel at a time.
It is a toy with no way to fail. You choose where the seeds go and how many species share the rock, then let them grow into each other.
How it works
Each seed sends out four sprouts in different directions. Every sprout is a tip that moves forward in small steps, wobbles a little, and sometimes forks into two. A tip stops growing after a set length, and branches that fork many times get thinner.
The four species have their own personality:
- Frostwork is blue to ice white. It grows in tight, precise arms and forks often.
- Coral is crimson to warm orange. It wanders in waves and forks into wide, tree-like shapes.
- Mycelium is green to bright lime. It is the most erratic and makes web-like threads.
- Mineral is violet to pale lavender, somewhere in between the others.
When a branch of one species reaches ground another species already owns, it stops with a faint warm spark at the edge. Because tips stop after a while, the game quietly plants new sprouts along existing branches every few seconds. That keeps the rock slowly filling.
Choose a species from the row at the bottom, then tap or drag on the rock. You can place up to twenty seeds in total. The rain button gives about ten seconds of faster growth. The speaker mutes sound. At 90 percent coverage you see a short “Rock Colonised” note, and then you can keep growing.
Tips
- Use all four species. The final message changes if every one took part.
- Put Frostwork on one side and Mineral on the other and let them meet. The sparks mark where the borders form.
- You only get twenty seeds, so spread them out early. Clustered seeds block each other fast.
- Try one species alone first. Seeing a single type fill the rock shows you how different each one is.
- Use rain when many tips are alive at once. The speed-up is easier to see on a busy rock.
- Seed Coral near the edge of the rock and let it wander inward for the largest curves.
Why it feels calm
Growth here is quiet and steady. Each tip carries a soft glow, so you can follow it as it travels, and colors shift gradually from deep at the root to bright at the tip. The sound is a faint crackle that gets a bit busier when more tips are alive, like frost forming, along with a soft blip when you plant and a gentle chime at each milestone. The rock itself is dark and grainy, which makes the bright branches stand out without feeling harsh.
Questions
Why can’t I place any more seeds?
The rock holds twenty seeds. Once those are placed, new taps on the rock do nothing.
Why did a branch stop at another color?
Branches stop when they reach ground that belongs to a different species. That is how the borders between colonies appear.
What does the game do after I reach 90 percent?
The completion note fades after a few seconds and you can keep growing. Nothing resets.
Last updated November 3, 2026
