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Mystic Forest Field Guide & Quest App, Build Plan
An offline-first nature field guide and scavenger-hunt game for the Klamath redwood coast. Campers download it once on the camp Wi-Fi, then it works with no signal anywhere on the property and trails. It powers the stewardship funnel (creatures, tokens, journeys) and becomes a licensable product for other campgrounds.
Why a web app first
A Progressive Web App is the cheapest, fastest path: one build for iPhone and Android, no app-store friction, installable to the home screen, and it caches data, photos, and audio for offline use. A native app is the later upgrade once it is proven.
Core features
- Species entries for every observable local species across trees, plants and ferns, fungi and lichens, mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, insects and inverts, ocean and tidepools, and river fish. Each carries photos, sound, look-alike differentials, a rarity marker, where and when, ID, ecological role, a delightful fact, and a safety note.
- Scavenger hunts, three levels (Child, Adult, Expert) on the Deepen, Orient, Transform rhythm, each earning a creature token.
- Pin a sighting that captures GPS, notes, and photos, saves on the phone with zero signal, and syncs to the camp host on Wi-Fi. Rare finds gently invite others to explore that area, respectfully, with distance rules around nests and dens.
Community photo gallery and verification
Guests’ pinned photos flow back into the app as a per-species gallery, so the next hunter sees what others found. A two-stage QR-stake loop turns sightings into permanent markers: a guest pins and photographs a find, the host gets an email, and a second guest plants a pre-printed QR stake at that spot. Scanning the stake opens the species entry, and the place joins the verified map.
Respect & safety baked in
Protected and threatened species (spotted owl, marbled murrelet, snowy plover, coho) are flagged; rare-find suggestions never reveal exact nest coordinates. “Look, do not taste,” bear-safe food storage, and tidepool etiquette are surfaced throughout. Indigenous Yurok and Tolowa cultural content is presented respectfully and must be sourced directly from the tribes, never invented.
Productize
The species data and design are templated so the whole guide can be re-skinned and sold to other campgrounds, paired with the stewardship report.
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