These days it’s not that often you will see games with a completely new concept, but when you do you have to enjoy the moment. In Venture Africa your task is to create ecosystems. On each level you have a goal, for example having five zebras and two lions in a working ecosystem.

To achieve the goals you need to make sure that it rains so that a waterhole is created. You need to plant trees to provide shadows and food for the animals and so on. All though the concept has borrowed some from Sim Life it still feels completely new.

Venture Africa is built around a pretty neat 3D engine. The graphics look very nice for an independently made game. I especially love the lighting effects and the fact that the animals fit into the engine perfectly.

The game has a story to take you from level to level. You get to travel with two wildlife researchers Dr. William Willoughby and Miss Julia Carrilou. They help you through the game through pop-ups but also evolve the story.

The pop-ups are a great way to learn the game but they can get a bit annoying for mature players since you usually tend to figure out how things work with out them. For kids playing the game they might be a good help.

It is possible to control the animals, for example if you want a giraffe to move from one water whole to another you just click and move the mouse. However it would have been better if you could just click a location on the map you want the animal moved to, currently you have to scroll through the whole landscape which gets tedious.

Venture Africa includes a number of animals such as giraffes, lions, rhinos, crocodiles and much more. They are all neatly modelled, but the real experience in the game is the system they create together. All of the animals have their own characteristics; for example if you have more crocodiles than there are other animals they will die out. This kind of system is very logical but extremely neat to see a computer simulation of.

Overall Venture Africa feels like a fresh concept. The game was one of the finalists on the Independent Games Festival 2006. It’s nice to play for the whole family and has great value for at least months to come.