There have been games that allow players to build their own aquarium pretty much since the beginning of video games, but a new title called Resilient Reef is one of the first we know of that lets players build their own reef. Currently the working prototype for Resilient Reef is a Virtual Reality game that doesn’t just want to teach people how the natural reef and its ecology work, but also promote environmental impacts and threats to these amazing ecosystems.
This VR game has a huge educational slant, teaching kids (and adults) about the relationship between corals and fish, growing habitats to attract fish with positive benefits to corals reefs and more. In the game you also have to manage issues that may arise like rising temperature and subsequent coral bleaching, crown of thorns outbreaks and even plastic trash.
One of the very neat features of Resilient Reef is that it plans to create a game that will generate funds towards real world action; say if you find a plastic bag in your virtual reef, an in-game purchase will get rid of it in your reef and go towards beach cleanup and plastic removal in the real world.
Eco Games, the developers of Resilient Reef received a seed grant from UNESCO to build the prototype and now they need crowdfunding to finish developing this very creative and actionable coral reef game slash teaching tool. They’ve already achieved AU$12,000 of their very modest AU$18,000 goal so if even a handful of reefers and aquarium companies chip in we could see Resilient Reef VR turn a whole bunch of people and aquarists in to virtual Reef Builders. [Resilient Reef]
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