In recent days, Sony Online Entertainment has released a new building title on Facebook, Wildlife Refuge. Unlike many other city-building games, Wildlife Refuge integrates the theme of wildlife rescues into the building title. As the name implies, players save the endangered wildlives, build an animal refuge, and take care of them. In the game, the ultimate aim is to release the offspring back into the wild. Focusing on building a refuge for the endangered species, Wildlife Refuge tries to educate people about the threat of animal extinction in Africa.
Although the place is a small campsite with few animals and buildings at first, players have the responsibility to explore the wilderness for the wounded animals as well as set up a refuge for them. Besides purchasing animals from the store, Wildlife Refuge requires players to go out to African savannah for rare species. When players go on safari by jeep, there will appear to be animal tracks marked as a paw print by searching the exotic trees, small dens, or large rocks. Following the tracks, an exotic animal such as a Hyena, a Rhino, or a Giraffe can be found and brought to the refuge for a further care. Like the treasure hunting genre, players consume fuel to not only search for the animals depending on the level but also obtain coins, XP and collections. Sometimes, poachers or hunters will appear to hunt those cute animals. With the effort to drive off them, players can get the map of animal track dropping by them.
Of course, the refuge is one of the main parts in Wildlife Refuge. After finding an animal, players can put them into the refuge. However, ecosystem rating is closely related to the capacity whether players are able to place the animals discovered from the wilderness. 
Animals require certain ecosystem rating to live in the refuge. If the rating cannot support the animals at the moment, players are not allowed to place them into the refuge. Therefore, it means players need to increase the ecosystem rating by decorating the refuge right now.
There are three types of decorations: décors, plants and buildings. Firstly, players can directly buy the décors to increase the ecosystem rating, for example, large rocks, tourist tent, watering hole and so on. And then, players construct buildings like windmill to improve the ecosystem rating as well. Finally, plants are also important to the ecosystem rating. Players can either buy the decoration plants to add the rating or grow and water the crops for more bonuses.
Don’t just place the animals and leave them alone. All the animals, trees and plants in the refuge need the tender care to grow up. If players tend the rescued 
animals from time to time, they will soon go to the next stage until they can be released to the wilderness. Furthermore, players can contact with friends when the animals are ready to find a mate. As a result, they will breed offspring. In fact, the refuge is a virtual world which accurately represents the hardships and efforts of those who are constantly dedicated to the endangered wildlives. Maybe this is the central part which both SOE and others want to tell us.
In order to have a basic understanding of the endangered animals living in the savannah, players can open the scroll of Animal Almanac which records the habitat, threats, current status and rarity. Also, players will have an ecosystem bonus lasting for 7 days after the animals are released. Additionally, there are two charity events in the game regarding the cheetah conservation. One is Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which is dedicated to protect the cheetahs and their ecosystems; the other is Cheetah Kids, which arouses kids’ sense of the wild cheetah as well as other endangered animals on the earth. If players use the virtual currency to purchase the items of Cheetah Statue and Baby Cheetah from the in-game store, they not only offer extra XP, fuel or energy but also donate part of the proceeds to the charities.
Perfectly mixing the animal searching part with the refuge-building gameplay, Wildlife Refuge is more than just a casual game on Facebook. Whether the animals or the decorations, the anime-style graphics are delicate and lovely. It lies in all of us to breed new lives to improve the ecosystem for both the game and the real world.
