Minnesota-made video game ‘WolfQuest’ celebrates anniversary with updated edition

[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: Do you recognize that music? If you're one of the fans of the cult classic computer game "WolfQuest" can probably see animated wolves roaming Yellowstone in your mind's eye as you hear this title music. "WolfQuest" was created in partnership with the Minnesota Zoo back in 2007 as an educational tool for children.

But since then, to the surprise even to the game's producers, it's exploded into popularity all over the world amongst children and adults alike. The producers released an anniversary edition of the game in November and a huge expansion of the game on Monday. "WolfQuest" producer Dave Schaller is here to talk about its popularity over all these years. Thanks for being here, Dave.

DAVE SCHALLER: Hi. Well, Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: Well, I got to tell you, I grew up about a mile from the Minnesota Zoo, and I never heard about this until today. And I'm so glad to hear about it. Can you tell me a little bit about how "WolfQuest" got started?

DAVE SCHALLER: We started-- it's about 20 years old. I had had an idea. My company, Eduweb, develops interactive games and such for museums and zoos over many years. And we've done work for Brookfield Zoo and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, for example, and was thinking about other types of games about animals.

And thinking about multiplayer games as well, at the time. This, again, was 20 years ago. And realized that wolves are social animals. They live in packs. And humans are social animals, too. And so that seemed like a good fit for a game. And it took a few years, but we then partnered with the Minnesota Zoo for another game about tigers. And then we decided to tackle a game about wolves.

NINA MOINI: It's so fun. I checked it out and I checked out your website, but for people who haven't heard of "WolfQuest," tell us a little bit about what the players do in the game. How does it work?

DAVE SCHALLER: You play as a wolf. You start off as a two-year-old wolf, which is about the age when wolves disperse or leave their family pack to strikeout on their own and find a mate and start their own family. And so you have to learn how to survive, which primarily means how to hunt-- elk are the main prey for wolves in Yellowstone-- and how to find a mate and interact with other wolves in courtship activities to find a mate.

And then once you do that, you establish a territory. You have your first litter of pups. And then have to keep those pups alive against all the threats and hazards that face them.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And it's an extremely popular game worldwide, right? I mean, it was downloaded originally, I read, more than 5 million times. Were you surprised when it took off like it did? And why do you think it did?

DAVE SCHALLER: We were definitely surprised when it took off. Back in 2007 with that first version of the game, really, our players found, as it turns out, there were a good number of people who wanted to play as a wolf in a video game. And there really wasn't much out there scratching that itch.

Wolves are a common trope in many video games. If you're playing a medieval fantasy game and traveling from one town to another, you're probably going to have to fight off some fierce, bloodthirsty wolves a few times along the way. But even the games that are about playing as a wolf are generally pretty basic fighting games. They're not trying to put you into the life of a real wolf.

But that's our goal with "WolfQuest." The tagline of the game is "Live the life of a wild wolf." But really, our goal is to get players to think like a wolf, to see the wolf, see the world as real wolves do. How do you find prey? How do you-- what tactics do you use? How do you identify the weaker prey? What are the threats to your pups and to your survival? And how do you find ways to survive against all those hazards of the wilderness?

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And there's also a lot of educational information and it's really fascinating. And I understand you had to do a lot of research, travel even, to learn more about wolf behavior so that the game would be accurate. Tell me a little bit about that research. What did it look like?

DAVE SCHALLER: Well, we've been very fortunate from the start to have some of the top wolf biologists as our advisors, starting with Dr. Dave Meech, who's been studying wolves for over 60 years, I think. And the fundamental research that informed the game from that very beginning was that wolf packs are generally just families, two parents, a bunch of offspring.

And so the infighting and dominance conflicts that biologists had observed in captive wolves at zoos are an artifact of these unrelated wolves being thrown together. But in the wild, wolf packs are families. Wolves, they mate for life, if they're lucky. And they raise litter after litter, helping their pups become good wolves who will go out there, disperse from the family pack, be successful, get their own packs going and keep the line going.

NINA MOINI: You know, maybe we'll switch gears. I did feel like the game was, like, really peaceful. There's so many different types of video games-- violence, guns. But this made me feel-- even the wildlife, they have their own dramas. It felt very peaceful. What do you think about that? What is the feeling of the game?

DAVE SCHALLER: Well, we-- again, we're trying to put you in the life of real wolf. And there's a lot of action, hunting elk. Elk weight five times more than a wolf does. So it's dangerous. It's dangerous activity. And all you've got are your teeth to attack them with.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

DAVE SCHALLER: But there's also a lot of family time. Again, packs are families. And so you're hanging out with your pups, you're socializing. And so I think we have a nice, broad range of moods in the game. And it gives it some nice variety, changes of pace. You're hanging out with your pups, everything's chill.

And then a grizzly bear comes in and your pups are a threat to them as competitors, and so wants to kill a couple of pups there if they can. So suddenly you've got a couple of minutes of some intense action.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, the real deal. So let's fast forward to now, when you've put out this updated anniversary edition. What is new about it? And why was now the time to do that?

DAVE SCHALLER: So actually, the anniversary edition has been out for about five years now, and it's a remake of the original game from 15 years ago. We needed to just start over and make a fresh start, have a really modern game foundation.

NINA MOINI: OK.

DAVE SCHALLER: And that's then let us expand on that to release what we call the "WolfQuest Saga," which is what we just released earlier this week. It's a free update or expansion. And this is what we call the rest of the game. Because it finally expands the game so your pups-- the game is always stopped in summertime when the pups are [AUDIO OUT] months old. Now it just keeps going. The pups keep growing past the summertime. In the fall, you have to get them out into the field.

NINA MOINI: Before I do let you go, I just want to know, what's your favorite part? I do know people who are like, I've been playing this for 20 years since I was a kid, and I still love it. Like, what makes you happy about this game, "WolfQuest"?

DAVE SCHALLER: Well, it's really exciting just to work on it every day and figure out how can we take these real animals, which are fantastic-- fascinating and fantastic, but the real lives, their real lives, and how can we try to recreate that in a way that humans can, again, get kind of in the mind of a wolf? And think about how they-- the challenges they face and how they survive.

And then watching our amazing player community. We have an amazing community of players. Watch them interact with the game, talk about the game, what they're learning and what kind of experiences they're having. It's just really fun and gratifying.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on with us and sharing about this and for all your work. I was very fascinated to learn about it and wish you well with this new iteration.

DAVE SCHALLER: Thanks so much.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. Take care. That was "WolfQuest" game producer Dave Schaller, based in St Paul.