Hi there, we are the husband and wife team that is QuestaGame.

We're building a mobile adventure game that gets kids outdoors and learning to enjoy (and help conserve) our native wildlife. The game will be available on the iPhone and Android devices.

Version 1.0 is called QuestaBird. It rewards players for sighting, identifying and recording birds in the wild. QuestaBird follows the "adventure game" model that young people are accustomed to playing online -- with quests, maps, equipment, gold, supplies, life-points, special powers, and all the other goodies and challenges that make adventure gaming so much fun.

We are launching Version 1.0 in the ACT and Queanbeyan region, and seek to expand to other regions of Australia, as well as to other categories of wildlife.


The concept behind QuestaBird is something we've been thinking about a long time. We couldn't help but notice how easily kids today can identify hundreds, if not thousands, of types of swords, shields, monsters, characters, magic items and so forth from their favorite online adventure games. We realized that not only are kids learning detailed taxonomies, they're doing it because it's fun. They're not even trying!

We thought -- would it be possible, using the latest mobile technology, to build a game that's as fun and engaging as any online adventure game, but in which kids learn detailed information about their natural environment? One of the more notable features of the environment are the birds; they're noisy, colorful, and relatively easy to identify. Could we design a game in which going on quests outdoors to identify birds -- be it in the outback, or a local park, or even one's own backyard -- could be as entertaining as going on a quest in a popular online game such as Runescape or World of Warcraft?



So we designed QuestaBird, which uses real, dynamic data from the Canberra Ornithological Group (COG) and the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) to reward players for spotting and identifying different species of birds. The level of reward varies depending on the rarity of the bird sighted in a given place, at a given time of year.

The game is also designed to be scalable (100 players or 100,000) and to produce verified, scientifically useful data. All data collected is vetted by verified experts and submitted to both the ALA and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, using the international Darwin Core Standard (DwC). In this way, we not only educate kids about birds, but we have more eyes on the ground to help us record and protect our precious biodiversity. We can even use the quests in the game to help map areas on which data is sparse, or more information is needed.

Ultimately, the goal is for QuestaBird to start our kids on a lifelong quest to better understand and value the amazing diversity of life around us. Because the game is fun, and the adventure is real.

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One of the major challenges with QuestaBird is the photo submission process. Birds can be difficult to photograph, unlike other types of wildlife, such as insects and plants. Also, while the gamification of anything (in this case, observing birds) motivates more people to participate, it also results in players trying to "game the system."

So a major risk is that people will struggle to submit photos of birds, and that we will struggle to verify the photos they submit.

We have a variety of ways to address this issue. We will start small -- say, with backyard birds such as magpies, cockatoos, rosellas and so forth. Most importantly, we will ensure the software is flexible and easy to upgrade, so we can quickly adapt to issues as they arise.

We've done this with other systems before (including one which had 500,000 registered members), so we know the importance of iteration and scalability when building multiplayer applications.

Another risk, of course, is that players will not respect the wildlife; that they may cause harm to the birds. To help address this risk, the game will ensure that players read and agree to a "Behavioral Guidelines" before they begin playing.

Lastly, setting item prices and managing the "gold economy" will be critical to ensuring the game is neither too hard, nor too easy, but challenging and rewarding. We've worked with online currencies before, so we're familiar with how to monitor and adjust this activity as more players join.