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NATURESIMS

About UsOur Work

NatureSims is a virtual reality design team creating new nature simulations that are part game, part documentary and all kinds of educational and entertaining. We build VR experiences that allow users to see the world from the viewpoint of diverse living creatures—highlighting their beauty and the challenges they face as climate change and other factors affect their ecosystems on an ever-increasing basis.

What we do

A Documentary in VR

NatureSims combines biological, psychological and ecological research with inventive virtual and augmented reality technology to create enjoyable and educational VR and AR experiences.

The Goal: to allow players to defy the limitations of their own bodies, to experience the world from the vantage of other living creatures—a vastly different and mind-expanding reality. Step outside your perspective and look at the world in an entirely new way.

First Person Experiences

See the world through the eyes of our animal cousins. Confront the challenges they face as a matter of course. Experience their highs and their lows as they wind their way from one challenging stage of life to the next.

Building Empathy For Nature

Connect with non-human living beings in a way not heretofore possible in a format that is part simulation, part video game. Now, you can live the nature documentary as an active participant.

Our Process

The key to our work is translating academic research into immersive nature simulations suitable for all ages.

research

Before development begins on a project, we work with some of the top researchers in the world to build a deep understanding of the flora and fauna involved. This can take six months or more, but it is absolutely necessary to plan and develop thoughtful and accurate simulations.

partnerships

In addition to partnering with individual researchers, we also look for nonprofit organizations with a similar focus to partner with, such as wildlife conservation organizations like Monarch Joint Venture. We value the feedback and support we receive from our partners and want our experiences to contribute to their work.

technology

We make use of a wide variety of technologies to develop our simulations, ranging from cutting-edge software and hardware to custom camera rigs to simulate some of the unique attributes of animal visual systems, like the monarch butterfly’s ability to perceive ultraviolet light.

Experimentation

Our development process involves a lot of testing and experimentation. While the core of our process is to simulate the lived experience of a particular animal as faithfully to the research as possible, the gameplay also needs to be intuitive, engaging and fun to capture the imagination of our players.

In the end, our work is only successful if the simulations result in players feeling more of a connection to nature

Who We Are

We are a growing team of educators, researchers, 3D artists, and programmers, all with a passion for the natural world and dedicated to reimagining the nature documentary for the metaverse.

Meet our team

We Are DevelopersWe Are Nature LoversWe Are EducatorsWe Are Designers

— reimagining the nature documentary for the metaverse—

Projects

What is it like to be a bat?

This is the famous question posed by American philosopher Thomas Nagel regarding the limitations of consciousness and the mind-body problem: the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body.

MonarchVR and our other nature simulations explore this issue in an entirely unique way, combining academic research with virtual and augmented reality technologies to help players experience the world as other animals do.

Every animal possesses unique abilities and survival methodologies, such as the monarch butterfly’s ability to see ultraviolet light or a bat’s ability to hunt and navigate a twilight world using echolocation. Every animal also faces unique challenges, from the quotidian—daily searches for food and shelter—to the remarkable—continent-spanning migrations and life-or-death encounters with predators.

Our simulations are designed to explore both, providing players with the highs and the lows of an animal’s experience, and highlighting the ways in which human activities can worsen the challenges they face through habitat destruction and climate change.

We currently have one public prototype, Frogworld, and are in the process of creating our first free public demo, MonarchVR featuring the Monarch butterfly.

We are eager for feedback from the VR gamer community, as well as educators and others who share an interest in our work. You can join our beta program for MonarchVR or contact us below!

Monarch VR Demo

Be The Butterfly. Connect with wildlife like never before by transforming into a monarch butterfly in the midst of making its’ fabled annual migration from north to south in this gamified nature simulation. It’s like playing your own part in a thrilling nature documentary. You call the shots, you cover the miles, and you pay the price for making the right (or wrong) decisions.

Monarch VR Demo

Is MonarchVR a game? An app? A nature simulation? Really, all the above. We like to think about it as an experience first and foremost—a chance to gain more understanding of nature and the monarch. To keep moving forward, players will feed on multiple types of flowers to gain sustenance but will also deal with mortal enemies like the web-spinning garden spider. The evolution of MonarchVR and planned follow-up releases will depend on you. Interested in more documentary-style narrative or ready to get straight to the video game action?

Sound interesting? Learn more here or join our closed beta!

Frogworld Prototype

Frogworld, developed in 2019 through the Oculus LaunchPad program, was our first public prototype.

Experience a day in the life of a common bullfrog trying to find a new home in an increasingly polluted world…

Frogworld Prototype

Our first animal perspective-based VR prototype, Frogworld, was created through the Oculus LaunchPad program in 2019.

Frogworld, allows players to experience time spent as an American bullfrog jumping, crawling and swimming its’ (your) way through the natural world. Hunt flies for sustenance, survive busy road crossings, and avoid predators with long snouts and sharp beaks.

Learn more here

Join Our Closed Beta

Now Accepting Applications for MonarchVR Beta Program

Be The Butterfly…Beta Tester! Connect with wildlife like never before by transforming into a monarch butterfly in this gamified nature simulation.

The evolution of MonarchVR and planned follow-up releases will depend on you. Interested in more documentary-style narrative or ready to get straight to the video game action?

Become a Beta Tester and let us know!

Apply Today

Click here to apply.

Learn More

Read our announcement.

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Contact

Keep In Touch

we are an international team

with a distributed offce,

and Headquarters in maine, usa

[email protected]
www.naturesims.com