# Speciesquest 2026

Here’s a game I’m playing with my internet friends in 2026.

This is designed to be multiplayer and played across different regions. It will definitely work better if a bunch of people are playing in the same area based on the same list, but since we’re not, whatever, it’ll probably be hella unbalanced in unexpected ways. Note that the real prize is the guys we found along the way.

The game is developed using [iNaturalist](https://www.inaturalist.org/) as a platform. You can probably use a field guide or a platform like [eBird](https://ebird.org/home) too.

PHILOSOPHY
==========

First, I watched a bunch of [Jet Lag: The Game](https://www.youtube.com/c/jetlagthegame), and talked with my friends about competitive game design using real-world environments. Then we watched the 2025 indie documentary [Listers: A Look Into Extreme Birdwatching](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-wAqplQAo), which is amazing, and free. It’s about two dudes who are vaguely aware of birds and decide to do a “Big Year”, a birdwatching competition of who can see the most bird species in the lower 48 states. And I thought *wow, I want to do something like that. *

Nature is cool and I want to learn more about it. But I’m not personally that worked up about birds. Also, my friends and I all live in different places, many on shoestring budgets. So we were going to need something else.

This is my attempt at that: **SPECIESQUEST**. It’s a deeply experimental, distributed, competitive species identification game. It’s very choose-your-own-adventure – designed so that players can choose a goal that seems reasonable to them and then play against each other, making bits of progress over the course of a year (or whatever your chosen play period is). Lots of it relies on the honor system. It might be totally broken as is and I’m missing obvious bits of game design as well, so we’ll call this **V1.** 

SETUP
=====

There are two suggested ways to play: **Local %** and **Total Species**.

In **Local %,** you’ll try to find as many species (within whatever category or categories you like) as possible, that exist within a specific region you spend time in. I suggest this if you want to get to know a place better.

In **Total Species,** your goal is to maximize the # of species you observe and record on iNaturalist, potentially within a specific category of interest (herbaceous plants, fish, whatever). I tentatively recommend this if you travel and want to play while in other places, or want to be maximally competitive, or find the checklist-generation process for Local % too confusing.

(It’s pretty easy to switch between them later in the year if you feel like it.)

Local %
-------

To play Local %, you’ll come up with a checklist of all the species known to exist for your region. Only observations within that region count.

### The Checklist

First, come up with your CHECKLIST. 

You can find a FIELD GUIDE to your area and use everything - perhaps in some given category - as your LIST.

But this is the modern age, and in [iNaturalist](https://www.inaturalist.org/), here’s how I did it: 

1.  Click “Explore” to look at existing observations.
2.  Choose a region. I chose the county I live in. The bigger it is, the more you might have to travel to find candidates. I believe there are ways to create your own boundaries too in iNaturalist, but I’m not certain.
3.  Go to “Filters”. Narrow down the phylum/candidates you want.
    1.  E.g. to get to “lichen”, I clicked the “fungi including lichens” box, then I added “lichen” in the description.
4.  I strongly recommend specifying “wild” observations. See the **Wild vs Domestic** section under **Everyone should think about scoring** further down.
5.  Select the grade of observations you want to include on your list. “Research grade” will return sightings that very clearly identify the species, IE of species that are really likely to *actually* be in your area.
6.  Play with these until you have a goal that seems reasonable to you.
7.  Once you have a list you’re happy with, save it. This is your CHECKLIST.
    1.  Here are [iNaturalist’s instructions on downloading the OBSERVATIONS your search comes up with](https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169670-how-to-search-inaturalist-observations), from which you could probably extract the species list by using spreadsheet magic.
    2.  You can also copy and thus save the search terms as in [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=false&iconic\_taxa=Fungi&photos&place\_id=1916&q=lichen&subview=map&view=species](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=false&iconic_taxa=Fungi&photos&place_id=1916&q=lichen&subview=map&view=species), to get that specific search again later.

### To play

Search your area and identify species over the course of the year.

If you’re in your area and observe a species that’s NOT on your checklist, e.g. there is no iNaturalist existing info about it in that area, you *can* still count it. You DO have to identify it. That means **it is possible to get a score of over 100%**. 

You can play in multiple categories at once. Just add them up to score. (e.g. if your region has 10 birds and 25 trees, your final score will be out of 35.)

Total Species
-------------

Go out and identify as many different species as possible.

**Optional:** In advance, choose a category to play within. If you’re really interested in birds, this might help you avoid some failure mode like “I was hoping to get more into birdwatching but I keep racking up all these plant identifications because it’s so much easier to find them and they *stay still.”* You’re playing for the Total Bird Species crown.

Roll your own?
--------------

Feel free to choose some other species-counting scoring criteria. Your SPECIESQUEST is your own.

Everyone should think about scoring in advance
----------------------------------------------

### Which observations count?

Think about this now. “Clear enough to identify the species” is the general heuristic.

*   I guess in the birding scene the proof of existence is photos and calls. If you are playing with lichens, probably the call will not be relevant. 
*   “Clear observations on iNaturalist” is a pretty easy one to keep track of.
*   You can also choose to honor-system it and if you know in your heart that you saw that one dragonfly, that’s good enough.

### Wild vs. domestic

I suggest **only playing with wild observations**. It doesn’t have to be a “native” species – it can be a weed, feral, etc – and I understand that there are edge cases, but try to use “a person did not place this here on purpose and it’s not clearly an escapee from the garden six inches away” as a heuristic. 

(But if you’re playing in a very urban area and want to study, idk, trees, you might not have that many, say, wild trees available. Most urban parks are planted on purpose. You can choose something else for criteria - just maybe think about it in advance.)

**I** ***really*** **recommend not counting zoos,** botanical gardens, pet shops, or other places designed to put a lot of rare species all in the same space. Your SPECIESQUEST is your own, however.

Decide how long your game will last for. You can do a shorter one - or maybe arrange shorter “sprints” within your longer game. I am planning to play over the course of a year. 

![](https://eukaryotewritesblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/speciesquest-2.png?w=625)

PLAY
====

Go out and document some guys.

Note:

People CAN join partway through the session, or dramatically switch their goals. They’ll be at a disadvantage, of course.

SCORING:
========

Local %
-------

At the end of the time period, everyone determines how many SPECIES on their CHECKLIST they observed. Report your score as a %.

Total Species
-------------

Bigger number = more victory. 

Crowning Victors
----------------

*In theory,* all the Local % players should be able to compete directly against each other - highest % wins. All the *Total Species* players should be able to go head to head with others playing in their categories (“Most Bird Species Seen”, etc.)

In practice, probably some of the categories are way harder than others - the choose-your-own-approach is meant to deal with this by letting you set your own limits, but maybe you have a player who is like really into mammals and deems this setback an acceptable price for motivation to go look for mammals, and only identified 4/10 species of weasels that live in their region, but you want to acknowledge them anyhow because that’s still a pretty impressive number of weasels to see, let alone identify. Maybe none of your Total Species players have the same categories. Maybe one of your crew was technically a Local % player but made an impressive showing at total iNaturalist observations over the year… I suggest handing out trophies liberally.

(If you DON’T want to be generous handing out trophies, tailor your SPECIESQUEST league so that everyone is playing with the same ruleset, or something.)

Note:

*   You can just play on your own, without a league, as a personal challenge.
*   If you find a species that is unknown to science, that counts for 10 observations for scoring. But you have to be *really* sure that it’s actually new.
*   The real prize is the guys we found along the way.

Go out and enjoy SPECIESQUEST 2026. Let me know if you’re playing and/or starting a league with your own friends.

* * *

This post is mirrored to [Eukaryote Writes Blog](https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2025/12/31/speciesquest-2026/), [Substack](https://eukaryotewritesblog.substack.com/p/speciesquest-2026), and [Lesswrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SpJnkLSaTy6TQg6z4/speciesquest-2026).

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