"We were delighted and impressed with the level of creativity and technical expertise displayed by Masabi. In Silverback they have created, from scratch, a game which perfectly suits our requirements and will help bring awareness of the plight of mountain gorillas to a new audience."
- Ken Banks, Project Technical Advisor, Fauna & Flora International
background
Founded in 1903, FFI is the longest established international conservation group, and is currently supporting conservation through 300 partners in more than 60 countries world-wide.
The charity has a joint venture with Vodafone Group Foundation and Vodafone UK, named wildlive!, which promotes conservation issues.
the project
After extensive brainstorming together to set the ground rules, FFI gave Masabi free reign to design the flagship game for wildlive!.
After two months of creative collaboration Silverback was delivered, an educational yet enjoyable game immersing players into the real life plight of mountain gorillas.
the solution
Silverback is an arcade game in which players take on the role of a baby gorilla negotiating forest life, avoiding poachers, natural dangers and finding enough food to survive.
As the game progresses the baby grows into an alpha male Silverback and builds a family, who must all be protected and cared for.
Released at the launch of wildlive!, Silverback was sold on Vodafone live!, the world's most popular mobile content portal, and featured in the Vodafone life! magazine.
It has been re-released in 2008 with wider handset support to highlight the growing danger gorillas are facing in the wild.
press coverage
- Free game hopes to save gorillas
- BBC News (29th April, 2008) - I Am A Gorilla
- Water Cooler Games (28th April, 2008) - Silverback talk on TheWorld.org
- Clark Boyd's blog / TheWorld.org (24th April, 2008) - Mobile
boost for conservationists
- BBC News (12th December, 2003) - Vodafone
teams with FFI for charity content
- InfoSyncWorld (11th December 2003)
the sequels
Masabi also delivered classic puzzler Ribbix and platform game Lynx, based on the world's most endangered cat.
Masabi builds secure applications for mobile phones.
The company is the leading developer of transactional software for today’s mass market mobile handsets, with experts in the fields of mobile usability and security across all devices.
14th November 2007
EncryptME Wins IET Security Award
Encryption software for mobile phones which makes e-commerce much more secure has won a prestigious global award for innovation at the IET's annual Innovation in Engineering Awards.
