The Mapinguari Game

The Mapinguari Game is a point and click game for Windows. In the first of three parts, players must plan an expedition to the Amazon. In the second part, they must organize their expedition in the rain forest and establish relationships with the indigenous peoples. In the final part, players collect photographs, video, audio recordings, samples of droppings, and DNA and blood samples etc. as evidence of Mapinguari's existence, hoping to persuade the world community to protect the animal by protecting its habitat - the tropical rainforests - and, therefore, saving the forest's indigenous peoples and their cultures. On daily treks through the forest they play mini-games in which they face hostile ranchers, farmers, loggers, and gold miners, tropical diseases and infestations of parasites and insects, campaigns by skeptical scientists to discredit them, floods and fires threatening their camp, and attacks by anacondas, jaguars, and piranhas. If players accumulate sufficient points, they select the evidence and arguments to use in a presentation to the United Nations, which decides Mapinguari's - and the Amazon's - fate. The game has a comprehensive glossary and numerous sources of information on the Amazon and related environmental issues.