Hello everyone,
Over the past year @radtklau and I have built a game to practice plant identification. The game is called PlantID Game and you can try it here: https://plantidgame.life/
Right now it’s completely based on iNaturalist data. It is also free to use. The page is still in active development and we have a lot of ideas for future improvements and new features. We are thankful for any feedback that helps us to improve the game.
A couple of key features are that every round pulls from all relevant iNaturalist data (based on your selections) and is therefore unique. You almost never see the same round twice when using the same settings (if there are enough observations). Throughout the game there are different interesting statistics regarding the genera and species. Also, next to the normal mode where you can select different genera and then decide if you want to guess the genus or species, there is a game mode to guess genera or species from different countries. The appearance of common vs more rare species can also be set. At the end of the game you can see an overview of your performance. On the start page we also present a genus of the day.
We hope you have fun with our game.
Hello,
I have tried it and I have few comments for you:
- It may be good to avoid what happened to me. I have chosen to ID only on genus level and on 2 consecutive steps (immediately following), I have got the same species (both Acer pseudoplatanus). Yes, this must have been just a coincidence, but I believe it would be good if this would be avoided.
- I have selected ID by country and chose Germany. Link was https://plantidgame.life/game?rounds=10&session=835a14b4-ea6f-4694-a6c4-cc144aff60d9&guessMode=genus&mode=country&country=Germany, so I have certainly not made mistake when selecting country. Still, I was asked to ID image from this observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5416895
Yes, species occurs in Germany, but observation is from US. So this might be a bug, but if you choose by species distribution, then it should be OK I believe.
I hope my comments will be helpful and wish you a nice day.
Wouldn’t it be better for people to just learn by identifying real observations on iNat and thereby (a) help shift observations to RG and (b) develop real-life relationships, including for ID mentoring?
IDing for fun with many errors would make damages to the data quality of real observations, but not in an ID game.
I’m not a plant person, but I am familiar with the plants of my city and am interested in learning more about local plants. Unfortunately, being restricted to limit geographic range to country doesn’t really allow that, as there are thousands of plants in the USA that aren’t found anywhere near the Sonoran desert. Being able to refine the geographic scope would turn this into a very valuable tool in my opinion
ID quality won’t be reduced if people respond to input from others. If “for fun” you mean “sloppily”, then the game also trains people in bad habits.
I was looking for something like this recently with little success. I’m happy with this game and hope y’all continue working on it. It’s nice to have a relaxed practice to help train the eye. I do also use the identification feature on iNaturalist for more formal practice, but it can get a bit tedious. Thank you.
I’m in a similar position. Being able to filter by state or province for large countries with many ecoregions would be very helpful. This is game is a great idea with a lot of potential.
I’m not very good at it (I’m gonna practice more) but I love it. Thanks for sharing!!
As you are from Germany I was a bit dissappointed you cannot choose the language or lexicon of the common name.
Hi, thanks for your feedback!
As for your first comment, the genera are randomly sampled from the selection. Especially when the selection is small, it is normal that the same genus appears twice in a row.
As for your second comment, the intention is to include all observations of a species native to the selected country (regardless of whether they were made there or not). We have decided to do this to ensure that there are always enough photos available. However, we will look into this again and may limit the observations to the respective country in order to improve user-friendliness and make the system more consistent.
Thank you for the nice reply!
Thanks for your reply! We are already thinking about redesigning the guess-by-country mode so it is more flexible and allows free selection of geographical regions. We will post about any updates to come so stay tuned :)
Super fun game! Had a great time testing my knowledge. Thanks for making it :)
@afdexter @attilalengyel
This game is not intended to compete with identifications on iNaturalist. Based on our understanding, the identification function on iNaturalist is primarily meant to improve data quality rather than serve as a practice tool, although it also provides opportunities for users to learn through participation.
We developed the game to practise identifying species. It can, for example, help users add identifications to observations on iNaturalist with greater confidence when used thoughtfully.
At the same time, it is clear that more identifiers across a wide range of taxa are needed to keep up with the growing number of Needs ID observations, as well as to improve verification and overall data quality. For this game, however, we rely on observations that are already Research Grade, since these are more likely to be correct. This helps ensure that the answers shown in the game are as reliable as possible and supports a more consistent learning experience.
We are already planning to release a feature that allows you to choose the language of the common names.
Thank you! We’re glad to hear that. :)
In what way, if any, does this game aim to support the core goals of iNaturalist?
Whether the game is “intended” to compete with giving real-world IDs is beside the point if it has that effect. What it seems to do is reinforce the idea that you can practice enough to get your answers “right” and then, if you haven’t scratched the itch enough already, do “tedious” (actual quote from a player) ID work on iNat.
Real-world identification isn’t like ticking a box to get an obvious answer “right”. It involves, at times, difficult conversations, time-consuming research, examination of ambiguous evidence and a need to revisit things you think you knew. It isn’t clear that your game serves any of that skills development.
Hello, I can’t see the imagens. I’m using a cellphone, i don’t know if this game is designed from computer, but i had this problem.
Hola, no puedo ver las imágenes. Estoy usando un celular, no se si el juego está diseñado para computadoras, pero yo tube ese problema.