INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
On Friday, the Kenyan augmented reality game developer Internet of Elephants launched its latest game in partnership with the conservation
science experts from the Borneo Nature Foundation, Goualougo Triangle Ape Foundation, Zoo Atlanta and Chester Zoo.
The new game, called
&Wildeverse&, uses AR to create a virtual forest that players can explore to find certain animals — or clues to an animal
whereabouts.
Though the game was intended to be played outdoors, the COVID-19 crisis forced the team to pivot, creating an option that lets
people move about virtually using in-game controls, or walk around in more confined spaces.
The game starts with a chat-based segment
introducing players to the gameplay and setting up some context around the virtual environment players will be exploring
Its graphics aren&t focused on recreating a completely immersive jungle environment, but create an abstracted forest and canopy of trees
A timer keeps track of how long a player takes to complete a mission, which involve identifying certain animals or looking for traces of
their presence in the AR-created forest.
Once a mission is complete, the player runs through a scripted interaction with an actual
conservationist who helped the Internet of Elephants game developers come up with the concept for the game and provided research assistance
and support for the actual animals represented in the gameplay.
Image courtesy of Internet of Elephants
The game can be played on any iOS
or Android device that support ARKit or ARCore.
Challenges range from searching for the animals themselves or their footprints, food
leftovers or poop to looking for illegal human activity and threats to the habitat of four real orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas and
gibbons.
To make the game, Internet of Elephants developers led by company founder Gautam Shah, actually went to the jungles of Borneo and
Congo to speak with conservationists about their work and scout for wildlife to use in te game, the company said in a statement
The game developers tracked several families of monkeys
&Ape populations are being decimated across the world
Wildlife protection will only become a global priority if enough people take an interest
Conservationists on the ground are fighting an uphill battle with the support of only a handful of people,& said Shah in a statement
&We are on a mission to turn the 2 billion people playing games today, into wildlife lovers and supporters of conservation efforts.&
For
Shah, the newest launch for Internet of Elephants continues the company mission, which began in 2015 when the American-born Shah forsook a
career in consulting to launch his AR-based gaming company
Other members of the Internet of Elephants team have equally interesting stories, including product lead, Jake Manion, who had spent six
years as the creative director for Aardman Animations, the Academy-award winning studio behind Wallace - Gromit and Shaun the
Sheep.
Internet of Elephants uses AR to get up close to endangered species, turns their migrations into a game
Shah sees three primary
conservation elements to the Wildeverse game
First, he says, it creates a link between players and the conservation societies that the company works with, giving people a better sense
of what conservation organizations actually do
The game also forces players to confront issues like forest fires, illegal logging, poaching, and the challenges surrounding conservation
work that are exacerbated by development and human consumption changing the composition of the jungles these animals call home
Finally there an educational element to the game.
&You really really do learn a lot of juicy stuff and we don&t shy away from getting
&All that collectively is about creating a connection between you sitting in St
Louis and someone in Borneo trying to study orangutans,&
Originally, the game was meant to be played outdoors, with a thirty-meter radius of
space to get the full sense of the gameplay, but it can work in a small studio apartment in Los Angeles equally well, given the
modifications the team made before the game launch.
The text component of the game is informative and gives players a chance to learn about
the foods orangutans eat, their habitat and their lives in the jungle
The script is slightly clunky, but not tiresome, and is based on conversations with the actual conservationists working in these different
forests.
Ultimately Shah hopes to expand the number of habitats and the breadth of the game so players can explore different geographies and
learn about endangered species on every continent.
There no monetization in the game yet and it will remain free-to-play, but Shah hopes to
add some revenue-generating elements as development continues along with multi-player features, he said.
Ultimately, the game is about
connecting and educating a new generation to the wonders of nature conservancy through the newest tech tools and gameplay.
&We want to make
wildlife a positive, exciting topic of daily conversation for millions of people currently unconnected to conservation
We want to make Fio, Buka, Chilli and Aida celebrities, just like Kim Kardashian, Messi, and Donald Trump,& says Shah
&People attention matters so much more than they think.&
