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Playing for green: Bryan conservationists create environment-themed board game

Bryan conservationists created an educational board game that pits players against one another in a race to develop the most successful ecosystem.

On a recent Monday afternoon, Corey Batson and Dillon Jones crouch over a coffee table cluttered with red, blue and black tokens, several decks of cards and an ever-changing tileboard. They are playing VIXIV: The Game of Survival. Nearly 20 minutes into the game, Jones places a card down on the board, pauses, slaps his knee and looks up at his longtime friend. “I think I get the strategy now,” said Jones. 

This is not the first time the pair has played VIXIV. Not by a long shot. Collectively, Jones and Batson have played this game several thousand times, all over the past the three years. 

“It’s addicting,” said Jones. He should know. He designed the game along with Batson and good friend Andrea Lloyd. 

After three years of development, thousands of stress tests and several iterations of the game, the trio can hardly believe they finally completed their passion project. 

“It’s so surreal,” said Jones. “I have it sitting on my shelf and it’s kind of like ‘I built that.’ It still doesn’t actually hit me that I made this with my friends, you know? It’s just so cool to me.”

The game - whose name Batson describes as a “nonsense name” but which references an ongoing project in the story line of VIXIV - is a multiplayer competition that simulates an internship with a fictional wildlife management department, with each player acting as an intern running VIXIV. The interns attempt to out-compete one another by conducting research, managing ecosystems and securing academic mentors. Players do this by using their hand of species cards representing 17 different North American animals. Along the way, there are tornadoes, viral outbreaks, wildfires and animal fun facts. 

Batson and Jones said the game combines their shared passions: gaming, wildlife and education. Batson is the executive director of The Urban Interface, an environmental education nonprofit in Bryan, TX. Jones is a Belize-bound wildlife biologist with an affinity for reptiles and amphibians. 

“We have a passion for gaming but we also have a real passion for education and for wildlife so we really kind of try to tie those two things together,” said Batson. “We wanted to make a game that would be fun, that would be competitive and great to play and then maybe teach you something along the way.”

Since its launch in early January, a prototype of the game has raised more than $600 on Kickstarter

Credit: KAGS

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