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Updated October 2026
What a bonsai simulator should do
A bonsai is not a sculpture. It is a living tree that you persuade, over years, into a shape. So a virtual bonsai is only worth tending if the tree pushes back: if it grows where the light is, sulks after a hard cut, and fills in where you let it. Mojing is built around that. The tree is not a model you click into shape; it grows from a simulation, and your tools change what it does next.
How the tree grows
- Toward the light. Every shoot measures the light it gets. Sunlit shoots grow on; shaded ones weaken. Move the sun, or stand a screen to shade one side, and the crown leans away.
- Shaded limbs die back. An inner branch that sits in shade for years thins, greys and drops, as it would on a real tree.
- The tree keeps a store of strength. A hard cut leaves it weak for a few years, its leaves paler and sparser. Let it grow and it recovers. Starve it of light, or cut it back again and again, and it declines slowly and visibly, never suddenly.
- Seasons. Leaf out and blossom in spring, full leaf in summer, colour and leaf fall in autumn, bare branches in winter. One year passes in a minute at 1×; pause, slow down or run up to 5×.
The bonsai tools you shape it with
| Tool | What it does in Mojing | Why growers do it |
|---|---|---|
| Prune | Cut a branch back to its joint. A cut you regret can be undone while its season lasts. | Sets the tree's outline and moves growth to where you want it. |
| Pinch | Stop a shoot tip so the buds behind it wake. | Builds dense, short twigs (ramification) instead of long bare runners. |
| Wire | Bind a branch and point it; it sets in a season or two and keeps the bend. | Gives a young branch the angle an old tree would have. |
| Turn | Rotate the pot. | Evens out the light so the tree does not grow one-sided. |
| Chop and regrow | Cut the trunk low; the stump stays and sends up new shoots from below the cut. | The classic way to get taper and movement in a trunk. |
A garden in a tray
Bonsai is half the tree and half its setting. Lay out stones, moss and grass, choose a stone trough or a clay pot, and walk around the tree to find its front. Press H to hide the whole interface and keep only the painting. Placing stones around a tree is the step from bonsai toward penjing, the Chinese art of the miniature landscape, which is where Mojing's name comes from: 盆景 pénjǐng, "tray scenery", with the pot 盆 swapped for ink 墨.
Everything on screen is ink
The tree and the pot are drawn with ink shaders on xuan paper. The lettering is a font painted stroke by stroke with a digital brush, Chinese characters included; the tool icons, sliders and rings are brush strokes too. The music is nine solo guqin (古琴) pieces from qin handbooks of 1425 to 1876, played by Charlie Huang.
Other bonsai simulators and virtual bonsai games
There are not many, and they want different things from you. Some are realistic growth models, some are cosy shop or life games built around bonsai, some are puzzles, and some are picture makers. As of October 2026:
| Title | Where | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Tree Bonsai | Steam, 2019, $0.99 | An artistic plum life cycle: cut branches and graft through the seasons. 145 Steam reviews, 80% positive. |
| Bonsai | Steam, 2016, $0.99 | Grow, prune and train one tree to maturity. Reviews are mixed. |
| Prune | iOS and Android 2015, Steam 2025 | A stylised puzzle: grow a tree toward the sun by cutting it. Not bonsai, but a close cousin in spirit. |
| Bonsai Life | Steam, October 2026 | A cosy life sim: run a bonsai nursery, design a garden, meet the townsfolk. |
| Bonsai Island | Steam, announced for 2027 | A cosy shop sim: grow, shape and sell bonsai to animal customers. |
| Hasami: Moonlight Trim | Steam, demo October 2026 | A pruning puzzle on procedural trees: each cut slices whatever it crosses. |
| BonsaiSim | iOS, October 2026, free | A Japanese maple with a detailed growth model, by its listing: buds wake below cuts, wire sets over time, a 20-year timeline. |
| ZenBonsai | itch.io, browser, free | Adopt a tree that grows in real time over days, roughly toward the sun. |
| Bonsai Builder | itch.io and Coolmath Games, browser, free | A picture maker: choose the leaves, trunk and pot, and save an image. Nothing grows. |
| Virtual Bonsai | arcade.pirillo.com, browser, free | A procedural 3D tree generator with eleven cultivars; export an image or a video. No pruning. |
| Bonsai | Board game, dV Giochi, 2022 | Tile placement for 1 to 4 players. It is what Google usually shows for "bonsai game". |
Mojing sits with the growth models: the tree is simulated, not drawn, and what you do this year shows up in five. What sets it apart is that you can play it in a browser in seconds, it runs in real time at a year a minute, and the whole picture is Chinese ink.
Spotted a bonsai game we missed, or a detail that's out of date? Tell us on the Steam page's discussions.
Questions
Is there a free bonsai simulator I can play in the browser?
Yes: Mojing runs in any modern browser at mojing.garden, free, with no account. It grows a flowering plum (Prunus mume). The full game on Steam adds more species, each with its own way of growing.
How realistic is it?
The tree grows from a model of light: shoots reach for the sun, shaded limbs weaken and die back, pinching a tip wakes the buds behind it, and wire sets a bend over a season or two. It is a simplified model, made to behave like a tree. It will teach you to think in years and in light, but it does not replace practice with a real one.
Do my trees keep?
Yes. There are three slots; the tree saves itself as it grows and when you leave the page. On Steam, Steam Cloud carries it to your other computers.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The browser version has touch controls for turning, pruning, pinching and wiring.