Hi members, I emailed iNaturalist about my game that uses the API and was recommended to post in the forum.
Goal of the tool: To get people out in nature and appreciating wild animals.
Niche it fills in the iNaturalist ecosystem: The game gets people outdoors in a fun way, encourages them to go outside and educates them about the animals & wildlife around them.
Is there a commercial component, or do you plan into include one in the future? Are donations requested? (yes/no, explain): Yes, there is commercial component. It’s a paid game, but currently some users get some free usage as part of a trial to experiment with increasing signup rate.
What sort of data (if any) does your app collect from its users?: Photos that are stored for 30 days for quality assurance / anti-cheating then automatically deleted, GPS location while playing for using the in-game map and recording encounter locations, in-game username. User account identifier is anonymous, no email, name or password is stored. Crash reports and anonymised telemetry data are collected for fixing issues & improving the game.
Link to your iNaturalist profile: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/rcwhiteley
Description: Animalis is a game designed to get people out into nature and appreciating wild animals, it is both fun & educational. Simply photo animals with your phone, similar to iNaturalist / Seek app, the game then identifies the animal and brings it up in game as a character that you can then battle and catch.
Catch animals to add them to your team, then compete with other players to take over Gyms in real world locations (one in every public park) and to battle your way up the animal kingdom tree against other players who are holding position. From species, to genus etc., all the way up to kingdom (Animalia), where there is a single player holding the crown for the whole animal kingdom.
The game is played mainly outside, you have to physically go out into nature to encounter & capture real wild animals, you can also catch pets and any other animals. To heal your animal team and buy in-game items you have to physically visit real world places of worship (churches, mosques etc.) and grocery stores. Every public park in the real work contains an in-game Gym, you have to physically go the park and battle other players to take it over.
I’ve been building the game for about 4 months full time and now there are around 500 players playing worldwide. Some cool stats: over 7,000 real animals have been caught in the game, over 2,000 unique species have be discovered and over 300 gyms are currently contested by players.
We also have seasonal events, based on real world migrations, mating seasons etc, where you get a notification when an event is happening in your current geographic area, e.g. flying ants are emerging or geese are migrating etc.
The game uses iNaturalist’s commercially available sound files for species (CC0 or CC-BY license), so when you encounter an animal in the game it plays its actual call sound, like a pigeon coo-ing.
For seasonal events, animal sighting dates & locations from GBIF (which includes iNaturalist records) are used through the GBIF API. These are used to set the event areas, e.g. Northern Europe, with the time of year when players can actually catch the animal.
iNatualist photos (CC0/CC-BY license) are also used for testing the identify model accuracy & reliability that is used by players in-game to identify and capture animals.
All credits are given in-game where required.
I have tried to make the game educational as well as fun, I have gone into some detail to try to be scientifically accurate, as far as a game can be. When you catch an animal, you can see its full taxonomy and a description of the animal. The game also identifies not just animals, but each growth stage of the species, e.g. caterpillar > chrysalis > butterfly, and some more rare variations found in nature, including dimorphic sexes, castes, colour morphs and breeds. I even preserve the correct gender ratio for species.
I am learning a lot, I even had to make non linear growth chains, e.g. ant larva can grow into workers, drones, queens etc, which was quite complicated to convert into a game format when players level up and grow their animals or identify wild animals.
Discussion questions or areas seeking feedback: I am looking for general feedback on the game or any idea ideas for other cool features that I could add. I include animal endangered status to dictate rarity in the game, which gives you more in-game rewards for capturing and teaches you about endangered species.
All gameplay is required to be safe, i.e. don’t try to catch a wild polar bear, don’t touch / interfere / interact with animals, observe from safe distances. More info is on the game webpage.
So far, the game seems to be achieving its stated aim as many people, myself included, are going out on walks, going to zoos or even driving to rural areas to catch & train their animals. The further you go from urban areas, the higher level (stronger) animals are.
I am open to any feedback, questions about the game and also currently I am focussing on increasing awareness. After developing the game for ~4 months, I think it is in a pretty good state, so I am open to any contact referrals or suggestions for organisations that would benefit from people playing the game, e.g. wildlife parks, museums, schools, environmental groups etc.
Here is the link, it’s available on Android & iOS: https://playanimalis.com/
