Tiger Trail
- Brand
- Tiger Trail
- Year
- 2014
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- RED Interactive Agency
Objective
San Diego Zoo Safari Park needed to drive attendance for the Memorial Day 2014 debut of its new paid exhibit, Tull Family Tiger Trail. Alongside ticket sales, the park wanted to spotlight the plight of the Sumatran tiger — a critically endangered species with fewer than 400 left in the wild, threatened above all by poaching — and turn that awareness into action, in the words of San Diego Zoo Global's Debra Erickson, inspiring players to "learn more about tigers, share their knowledge, and spur them to join the fight to help save this endangered species."
Solution
Players guide a Sumatran tiger across a jungle built entirely from cut-paper, storybook-style scenery. Moving through the levels, they forage for food to keep the tiger fed and strong while dodging poachers' snares and outrunning advancing forest fires. Each obstacle mirrors a real threat wild tigers face, so the danger registers as something the player navigates rather than reads about. A run ends when the tiger is caught by a trap or fire, or makes it safely to a protected reserve. The game launched free on the App Store for phone players, with a separate desktop version at tigertrailgame.com for anyone playing from a computer.
- 1
Players enter the game either as a free iOS app or through the desktop web version at tigertrailgame.com, both offering the same experience.
- 2
The game is rendered as a paper-craft world of Sumatra, with jungle, wildlife, and the tiger itself built to look like cut-paper collage.
- 3
Players control a Sumatran tiger moving through a level, collecting food that builds up the tiger's strength as a survival resource and gathering power-ups that boost it further, all while maneuvering around poachers' traps and through burning sections of forest.
- 4
A level is won by guiding the tiger safely to a protected reserve, the game's central objective and environmental message.
- 5
Later levels raise the difficulty, requiring players to master specific maneuvers to get past recurring obstacles like a fixed trap placement.
- 6
Throughout play, the game surfaces facts about threats facing Sumatran tigers, including poaching and the species' population dropping below 400 in the wild.
