GAMES

O U R  G A M E S

Kakapo Run

The Kākāpō are in danger!

In the Kākāpō Run game, you explore the wilderness to find the kākāpō and bring them safely to Sanctuary Island. Avoid any predators that block your way, knock them out or jump over them to keep the kākāpō out of danger! The kākāpō, a flightless parrot, is an endangered species endemic to New Zealand and in this classic endless-runner style game, they need your help!

Kākāpō Run is a FREE game where players must get the kākāpō to the safety of Sanctuary Island. Each level starts with the cry of the Haast’s Eagle, a huge raptor that was the main natural predator for kakapo, but is now extinct. The kākāpō freezes in place, a classic behavioural response to avoid being seen by its natural predators, but to survive from invasive predators, the kākāpō must start running for its life.

To stay alive in the game, players have to run, jump and dodge the different obstacles on their path and knock out, or evade, predators like rats and stoats, which alongside dogs and cats, are key predators for the kākāpō and its chicks.

FEATURES:

Currently Rated 4.8 out of 5 Stars on the Apple AppStore


Download NOW! -

Kakapo Run Developer Diary 

It's our first game! 

Towards the end of 2019, remember those days? I was pitching concepts for a Runner Game featuring the flightless parrot, the Kakapo. By the end of Feburary 2020 the deal was signed - I had the worst head cold ever too! (not COVID) ...

Thanks to the support of Playstack we managed to get me booked on a flight to Costa Rica so I could kickoff the project with the team. On the 6th Of March 2020 - yeah I managed to get the 10 day trip done just before shit really hit the fan with COVID. 

Then the bleak days rolled in, everyone was working from home - I'd been doing so for 5 months so I was well settled in to the home working routine by then. Working remotely with a team in another time zone was also beneficial.

Lockdown sucked in a lot of ways but I managed to have one of the best times I've ever had making games, taking this concept from pitch to delivery. The awesome guys at Sunna were fantastic to work with, we had worked together for a number of years at Playstack but this was different, it was ours! 

By October we launched the game with some cool features like a Twitter CMS that allowed the social team at OTE to post tweets that would appear in the 'Globe View' in the game. This allowed the OTE team to reach players with information about environmental stories from around the world. 

Furthermore as a runner game it had enough uniqueness and polish to stand out in a crowded market, which is  dominated by some seriously big IPs. 

I'm incredibly proud of what we achieved especially as the world around us plunged in to COVID.

Sunna Team in Costa Rica!

Save the Purple Frog

Save The Purple Frog! As old as the dinosaurs, the Purple Frog is one of nature’s most weirdly wonderful creatures. It has a snout-like nose, squawks like a chicken and in real-life lives underground for all but one day a year … and it’s purple(ish).

This head-turner of an amphibian needs saving too, because it’s endangered in southwest India, its beautiful home.

Enter the Purple Frog’s world today by jumping into the FREE hit mobile game 'Save the Purple Frog'. It’s great fun AND helps save endangered species.

By playing the Save The Purple Frog game you’re helping raise awareness for biodiversity and protecting the Purple Frog in its real-life habitat. On the Edge, the developer, is a nature organisation working to save this species and others that are Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) — all around the world.

Jump into the Save the Purple Frog game and you’ll have to hop, jump and dodge the real-life dangers in nature that it faces — pouncing snakes, hungry owls, and more recently cars and trains — as it hops its way to the breeding ground where this curious and endangered species lay their eggs.

Power up by finding termites and collecting spawn. Purple Frog spawn is unusual, it’s white! Collect them for extra game time and remember the clock is ticking, you have Purple Frogs to save!

Purple frogs only emerge from their burrows for one day a year to breed. It’s a perilous journey through nature and a race against time. Just like in real-life, the future of the Purple Frog species depends on it.

FEATURES:

Currently Rated 4.4 out of 5 Stars on the Apple AppStore

Download NOW! -

Save the Purple Frog Developer Diary

Bigger, faster, stronger... it's complicated! 

Developed during lockdown too!

Save the Purple Frog represented much larger undertaking than Kākāpō Run and with it came many challenges. Also the target audience was less casual gamer and more core gamer.

Save the Purple Frog was initially a Frogger or Crossy Road clone... But the science folks at OTE wanted time to be a crucial mechanic with in the game as the Purple Frog IRL is only above ground for 24hours. Additionally the Purple Frogs underground activities in burrows were another really important aspect to the game mechanics.

During the pitching phase I came up with the idea of having the burrows represent areas inspired by the warp pipes in the original Mario game on the NES, these then evolved with a hint of Pacman...

It's complicated, we had two strong game mechanics that worked well in isolation but were not so great when combined together. 

After many iterations of both the above ground and below ground gameplay we finally nailed it. This was not an easy process but thanks to the patience and collaboration with OTE and the strong support from Sunna we did nail it. 

This review on the Apple Appstore made me chuckle and highlighted the 'core gamer' nature of the concept -