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:
Keep on running in Endless mode
See if you have what it takes to rank in the top 10 of the Leaderboards
Share your score with your friends on social media and challenge them to beat you
Collect feathers and spend on the new gold and silver kākāpō!
Collect enough Rimu seeds to power up. Don’t have enough? Purchase some from the shop
Did you die before completing a game level? You can answer a quiz question and get to continue running as a reward
Real kākāpō facts
Select your favourite kākāpō sticker to add to your social post
No ads, no in-app purchases
Totally FREE
Hear the unique sounds of real kākāpō, from the unusual mating ‘boom’ to squarks
Four environments to traverse in an endless-runner game inspired by New Zealand's unique and varied landscape. From dense forests to idyllic coastlines and cities crammed with traffic terror
Oncoming obstacles, from predators to rolling rocks. Get Running, Jump, Dodge and Swipe to avoid them!
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:
Explore three unique nature environments in this fun frogger game: farmland, village, and forest areas of southwest India.
Cross roads, dodge traffic, hop and jump to evade predators in this family-friendly game
Move through the day as you travel: explore the farmland in the morning, the mountain village in the afternoon and look out for predators in the dusky forest!
At the end of each area, rescue the froglets and lead them to safety
Collect Purple Frog spawn for a time bonus
Eat three termites to activate the super burrowing power-up
Speed up your game progress by finding secret burrows hidden across all three environments
Real-life conservation impact
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 -