Analysis of browser game Mangrove-The Unbelievable Bears

Recently, I have played Mangrove-The Unbelievable Bears, I found something interesting and beneficial aspects of this game which may deserve our attention.

The aimed player should be adolescent and children because of its fairy tale like graph style and full of educational aspects, as protecting mangrove is the theme of game.

This game full of a variety of mangroves and animals which are fascinating with children. When I played first time, I found WOW, it is interesting. The beautiful mangroves and animal all are cute, I want to know more about that. So it let me have the desire to learn through playing game, and the knowledge itself is interesting which we often overlook in game. The knowledge points scatter in many different places such as Collection and pop up interface when unlocking a new spices.

Another aspect of the interesting point of this game is the imaginary world. Main characters are bears who are fighting with rogues to protect mangrove where they live. They behave like human, and full of individuality. Unlike real world, the mangroves need energies which are produced by animals living under the mangrove. They are induced by the bails that you grow in the mangroves. I fell that anti-real world setting are imaginary and humorous. That is game’s unique advantage.

What the unique feature of this game is that it also combine the environment causes and game. The game company will plant your mangrove tree in an island with local organization if you meet the threshold of play. Those are level of player or play time accorded by different player situation. So why not bother playing more to protect the real mangroves？ It give us a reason to play. This game is full of educational sense.

Some advice for modification

The important change points should be displayed by UI, like when you can level up your mangrove, the graph of the mangrove somewhere should display that change to remind you to act.

When in storytelling cut scene like quest talks, the hotspot for clicking should be all screen not just a little button or icon. It is subtle but important, saving players time.

This game integrate gameplay with theme well for using mini bear to visit friends place. I think it may be a good idea to seed external messages like E-mail using this method to keep player back.

When player leave game for a long time we could punish them with accident, but also give them prize when they come back. I think the closed boxes maybe a good method. We put them in the conspicuous place but they cannot be open them until the given time, so they are inducement to players. And the danger signals are for punishment if player do not come back at the given time, the unwanted outcome may come, like a raid by enemy. But if they come back, or use items, they could avoid that.

How about setting a board for friends to white something, which not only you can see, but also your friends who visit your place can see. We all are happy to receive greeting and may want others also see that. Like in real life you may see many wish lists in shop’s board those are written by customers or visitors. I think that can enhance interaction between friends.