Raising awareness of the ocean’s fragile ecosystem through game play is behind a new mobile game – Dolphin Ocean Rescue – developed by Vancouver’s New Indigo Ventures Inc.
A kind of underwater Farmville for the iPad and iPhone, the game not only raises awareness about the importance of healthy reefs, it also raises money for marine environmental projects like the University of British Columbia’s Seahorse Project (http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca) through the donation of a portion of the revenue generated from the game. The game is free, but players can opt for power-ups by buying virtual currency.
Based on the Daniel Dolphin character from a book and animated film series by Peruvian writer Sergio Bambaren, the game comes as a free iPhone or iPad app.
Players build a reef and then must keep it healthy. In the process, they learn about marine habitat issues, like coral growth and managing fish populations. They also learn about activities that threaten a reef’s health, such as over-fishing, pollution and rising ocean temperatures.
New Indigo is one of 12 alumni of Wavefront’s entrepreneurship@Wavefront 12-month accelerator program, which was launched in September 2011 to support startups in the mobile wireless space. (See “Twelve startups accepted into accelerator program” – BIV Business Today, September 9, 2011.)
“The entrepreneurship@Wavefront program really helped us get our app to market faster, as it provided New Indigo with business services, office space, and the validation of our app using Wavefront's usability service,” said New Indigo partner Robert Eisses.
