The Naturalist's Challenge

The Naturalist’s Challenge, an online game application, educates participants on sustainable habits related to diet and consumption while giving structure to enable the successful integration of new habits into the player’s everyday life. It leverages the innate sociability of games to create a community that expands the positive environmental impact and spreads through social networking to help combat the climate crisis.

Unlike others of its kind, The Naturalist’s Challenge, directly approaches issues within our global food system to educate users about things that can be done at an individual level to help reverse global warming. A vital aspect of the project is that it aims to inspire, create a sense of individual agency, and bring hope. Its key precedents are carbon tracking apps, behavioral modification apps, and cooperative simulation games.

Climate change is an ever-impending issue that our world is in the midst of grappling with. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which documents the progress of global warming, just released a report that we have entered into ‘Code Red for Humanity’. However, when talking about climate change, many people feel hopeless that any individual action can make a difference. The good news is that things can still change and understanding the options is the first step.

The food, agriculture, and land-use sector contributes a whopping 24% of all greenhouse gas emissions. This is an area where individuals can make the most difference. The Naturalist’s Challenge targets this sector and related consumer habits. It combines it with the theories of learning through play and behavior modification through gamification to create an engaging, educational structure for individual and community change.

The premise of The Naturalist’s Challenge is that the player plants trees and other crops and in order for these plants to grow, the player must do and learn about sustainable actions in real life and then track the actions in the app. When players connect with each other, they can see each other’s trees in their forests. The more people the player connects with, the more flourishing and full their forest becomes. Each week the player plays the game, a real tree is planted to help with carbon offsetting. At that point, the player can then add a new tree or another crop to their forest. 

The forest space is a 3d modeled interactive environment. The player can walk around and learn about the trees and vegetation they have planted. They can collect fruit and harvest other edible plants. This video shows examples of the forest space at different stages of growth. 

This forested space metaphorically illustrates the player’s stewardship of the earth as they become more sustainable. It is emblematic of the world rejuvenating through a more conscious relationship with it. 

It is rewarding to watch their trees and crops grow over time and to interact with them. And it is satisfying to know that real trees are planted as they play the game to help with carbon offsetting. 

Here is a mockup of the introduction to the game. As the player scrolls through it as it states:

Our actions matter, by challenging yourself and your habits and connecting with others to do the same, we can solve the climate crisis and share a better future. 

The intro uses a few keywords related to the mission of the app: 

Action, Challenge, Connect, Share

These are the proponents of the game and are the main spaces in the app as well. 

Once the player picks their tree, the sapling is planted in their forest. The first time the player plants a tree, the app will walk through how to navigate the 3d space and the app as a whole. 

Navigating in 3d on a mobile app includes using an onscreen icon as a directional pad to allow the player to move as if they had a joystick or a game controller. 

Navigating the app as a whole includes the introduction to each page in the app from the navigational bar on the bottom of each screen. This is accessed through a swipe-up method and can be accessed at any point in the game. 

Each tree and crop choice will have multiple educational pages that include chunked information and facts alongside short 2d animatics. For example, in this video, the player can learn about companion planting for orange trees. They can learn about the basics of the carbon cycle for all trees. And they can learn about the importance of deep root systems created by perennials like the orange tree.  

Once the player has finished exploring the animated facts about their tree, they can select to plant it or to choose another. If they plant it, the app will take the player to the forest space and show the sapling planted. If they choose again, they go back to the options screen and can select again and learn about another plant.

Here are the main pages in the App:

The Challenges page is where the player navigates and learns about sustainable acts and habits. The player will be presented with 1-5 challenges a week depending on their answer to the questionnaire. Each week they can choose to accept the challenges or not. The Challenges’ difficulties increase as the player continues throughout the game.

The Actions page includes the current weekly challenges that the player has accepted. The player simply clicks the action when they’ve completed it to record. If it is a one-time or once-a-week challenge, it will be removed from the challenges list once checked off. If it is a daily challenge, it will reappear each day of that week to be checked off daily. Once it is checked off for the day, it appears under “Today’s Completed”. When permanently checked off, it appears under past challenges. 

On the past challenge page, they can see how many real trees they have planted and their progress towards the planting of their next real-life tree. They can also create their own challenges. Each action will have its own individual icon. And the player can set the icon of their own challenges when they use the create your own page.

The Connect page is where players invite other friends into their forest network. The player can invite friends through their phone contacts, their email, or their username. It also features the map which is a straightforward feature that offers a big impact. The map functions as a reward system as well. The more people who play the game, the greater the sense of achievement. The player can zoom in and out of the map and even connect with people via the map. 

The Share page is where the player can chat about sustainability, post about the actions they’ve accomplished, create groups, and read news and articles about current environmental issues. It functions much like social media, but for sustainability.