Welcome to the Wolves of 2008

Welcome to the new year. 2007 was a great year for this blog and its author. I look forward to 2008. The coming calender year will be the final full year for my PhD which means a lot of hope work over the coming months. I am hoping going to defend my thesis in the first half of 2009 but this means 2008 will be a time of writing and little else for me. The other projects I need to organise/control for the next few months are teaching a half time course (14 hours of lectures and an exam) and working with Second Life (HUMlab Island and Second House of Sweden). However, to open the proceedings for the new year, a new game:

WolfQuest (Free Download)

Learn about wolf ecology by living the life of a wild wolf in Yellowstone National Park. Play alone or with friends in on-line multiplayer missions, explore the wilderness, hunt elk, and encounter stranger wolves in your quest to find a mate. Ultimately, your success will depend on forming a family pack, raising pups, and ensuring the survival of your pack.

The WolfQuest experience goes beyond the game with an active online community where you can discuss the game with other players, chat with wolf biologists, and share artwork and stories about wolves.

Explore four square kilometers of alpine wilderness on the slopes of Amethyst Mountain in Yellowstone National Park, running across open meadows, through dense fir forests, and along sheer cliffs. Hunt elk. Follow scent trails to locate elk herds, then sneak up on the herd, find the weakest one, and begin your attack. Pursue your prey and sap its strength while dodging its counterattacks, to make the kill. Harass coyotes who try to eat elk carcasses, or just for the fun of it. Chase and eat snowshoe hares. Earn Experience Points for bragging rights with other players.

I have not yet played WolfQuest but it reminds me of Endless Forest; the anthropomorphic story line of animals in an organised system with a development that seems to suit human concepts of time.