KATOA: Oceans 4+

This review is less so for fellow players, and more so for the team behind KATOA. This game is really quite a joy to play, the graphics are very cute and the gameplay is intuitive and not *too* repetitive. It’s not challenging to play, which may make it more mundane for older players but very easy to get into for anyone looking for a relaxed experience. The new addition of a leaderboard also adds a fun layer of competition. The game sends its message well, which may make it a great option to get young people involved in protecting our marine environments from anthropogenic destruction. I absolutely do recommend this game, I truly do, yet I do not give this game 5 stars due to one glaring problem: The primary aim of this game, besides education of course, is to raise funds for three (so far) real-world initiatives. And on that front it really doesn’t do well at all. It raises funds through in-app purchases for the game’s premium currency, Stars, which in turn can be used to buy plant/coral seeds and fish invite tickets, and to speed up various processes. However, there is absolutely minimal incentive to actually buy Stars because the game gives you plenty through Daily Quests and log-in rewards. At one point I had close to 300 banked up because I simply did not need them, and although I’m now down to 29 after speeding up some Rare tickets, I really am under no pressure for more. Even still, if you did buy a lot of Stars, you’d find your progress coming to a screeching halt pretty quickly because you can only expand your reef once every couple of days by completing Daily Missions, and these expansions are small and only add 3 slots for new aquatic friends at a time. This means that you run out of space to put your seeds and tickets pretty much as soon as you expand. And some reefs can’t expand at all and are very small. I have at least a dozen spare of every category of plant/coral from the daily missions because you receive so many of them and have such few space for them. On the one hand, this makes the game great to play because progress isn’t locked behind a paywall, which indeed will encourage people to play for longer. On the other…. it just doesn’t deliver on the “SAVE THE WORLD” half of it’s slogan. Furthermore, the amount of money that actually goes towards the initiatives is really quite sad. 10c per $2 (AUD). If I spend $29.99 on Stars, a mere $2 goes towards the initiative of your choosing. Spending $129.99? Only $8 goes towards the initiative. I completely understand that there is a whole team of people behind this game that need to get paid for their hard work, and I absolutely support that, but it feels like such a pathetic amount. You really might as well just donate to the initiative directly (which, dear reader, is absolutely recommended). I don’t mean this to bash the creators who very clearly put a lot of love into this game, but I hope you can understand how these numbers make anyone’s impact feel really quite minimal. Perhaps the addition of cosmetics, extra decorations or customisation options, or something of the sort that gives players extra reason to donate but doesn’t lock game progression behind a frustrating paywall would help. It’s obvious that this game is still raising money, I love seeing the progress bar tick up on the seagrass initiative, but I feel like we could be raising so much more with added incentive. And perhaps the % of money that goes towards the initiative is so small right now because the team need time to gather funds to remain on their feet, and in future the % will rise to much more than ~6%. Truly I don’t know, I’m just a humble player. But I couldn’t remain here without saying at least something. Thank you for making this game, it’s such a pleasure to play and I know it’s only young, I just want to see it used for its full potential.

What the title says! Downloaded it a week or so ago and it’s become a relaxing part of my daily routine, and one I especially look forward to as an animal bio scientist! The premise is delightful and I love seeing all my little sea critters every day, and watching how, gradually, the reef is flourishing with all the different flora and fauna!

One improvement I would ask for is giving players more ways to increase their Guardian Level. Right now, you can only get it from daily quests, and while it’s easy enough to complete, you then can’t get more until the timer resets to the next day. This eventually makes it tedious to keep trying to expand the reef. Also, please give us more unlockable areas!

However, it’s otherwise amazing. Really hope it will continue being updated and is not abandoned, because it’s such an awesome way to help with oceanic conservation.

This is one of those games you can only play for a short period of time. It has limitations. I only have two reefs and they are both finished and I cannot for the life of me find any explanation on how to unlock any of the others. I keep winning more beacons and corals and plants but I can't do a thing with them? What's the point? It was fun at first but now it's just taking up space on my phone. I was happy to put in some money for a good cause but I think it was a waste since the good cause only gets a teeny tiny fraction of it and the game actually goes nowhere...