Most games invite us to escape from the world.
Spirits of the Realms invites us to restore our connection to it.
Now available on iPhone and Android, this fantasy strategy game connects players to real places on Earth — not just through screens, but through time spent outdoors, observing nature, and reconnecting with place.
So where does Spirits of the Realms fit among today’s genres of mobile games?
Games for Good?
These are games designed to promote social or environmental causes, raise awareness, or inspire change. The annual Games for Change festival highlights many of these — titles like That Dragon, Cancer, Sea Hero Quest, or PeaceMaker — which aim to foster empathy or illuminate global challenges.
But many games in this genre function like interactive documentaries: deeply meaningful, but still confined to the screen. They can teach, provoke, or simulate — but the act of playing rarely has a direct, observable impact on the world outside the device.
Spirits of the Realms takes a different approach. Rather than simulate change, it invites players to participate in the world around them. In fact, players can even play without opening the app — simply by paying more attention to their surroundings, making observations, and submitting to the game later.
In this way, the game’s core loop is grounded in attention, not persuasion. You don’t just learn about nature. You enter into a relationship with it.
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Screens from the game, Spirits of the Realms, available on iPhone and Android devices.
A Real-World Simulation Game?
The genre of real-world simulations or “digital twin” games includes titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator, GeoGuessr, Pokémon GO, and Earth2. These games turn a model of the planet into a playable surface — using satellite imagery, 3D terrain, or live data feeds to replicate the Earth.
Spirits of the Realms also uses a real-world map of Earth as its game board (it even has an AR viewing option). But unlike typical simulation games, the only way to progress in Spirits is by going outside and interacting with the planet directly. There’s no shortcut — you must explore your local environment, notice species, and document what you find.
This quiet reversal — encouraging less screen time and more embodied presence — is one of the game’s most distinctive features. The fantasy spirits you meet in the game are interesting and fun, but the most fascinating characters, you soon realise, are the wild creatures living right outside your door — the ones you’ve walked past a hundred times and never seen.
A Citizen Science Game?
Citizen science games invite players to contribute useful data to researchers or scientific institutions. Some early examples of this genre include:
Foldit, where players fold virtual proteins to aid medical research
Project Discovery in EVE Online, where players classify biological or astronomical images
Eyewire, where users map neural structures by solving 3D puzzles
Some are highly abstract, others visually rich — but they all aim to turn the crowd into a kind of research engine.
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Spirits of the Realms also contributes biodiversity data that helps inform real-world research, but that’s not the primary purpose of the game. It’s not just a tool for data gathering.
In fact, Spirits is less about serving any specific scientific project than about cultivating the mindset that precedes and inspires good science: curiosity, observation, careful recording, interpretation, and wonder.
It’s about understanding that the world reacts to us just as we react to it. That we are connected to the things we observe. That to explore the world is to explore the relationship between our habitat and ourselves.
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Real Economy Games?
In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of play-to-earn games — games where players can earn real-world value (often via cryptocurrency or digital assets) through in-game performance. These games promise empowerment and ownership, but they often operate in virtual worlds that replicate extractive models: mining tokens, flipping assets, or grinding for speculative rewards.
Spirits of the Realms offers something different — what we might call play-to-restore.
One of its most forward-looking features is its integration with GuardiansofEarth.io, a nature market built on BioScores, which track the health and richness of real-world ecological realms.
Players of Spirits can monitor how their actions contribute to a realm’s BioScore and participate in a system where ecological and cultural health is rewarded with BioCultural Units (BCUs), tradeable for fiat currencies. Thus, they are connected with an emerging real-world economy rooted in restoration, not extraction.
This is no small thing. Most game economies are based on imaginary gold, energy crystals, conquest points and so forth. Spirits points toward a future where digital actions support biocultural regeneration — and the value flows back into the environment.
Are There Other Genres to Consider?
Possibly. Depending on how you look at it, Spirits of the Realms also resonates with:
Ambient games — like Kind Words or Sky: Children of the Light, which focus on quiet, emotionally resonant play
Slow games / mindful games — where time, presence, and softness are the mechanics
Locative or AR games —Spirits has the AR for those who enjoy merging the virtual with the real, but it encourages less screen time in favour of post-play reflection.
But maybe these are just fragments of something new.
So Where Should It Sit Then?
Maybe Spirits of the Realms is best understood as pioneering something like place-based play — or perhaps even restorative gaming.
Whatever the case may be, it’s designed to be fun — and gets more fun as it continues to grow. It’s filled with collectible spirit characters, strategic game-play, and increasingly difficult challenges and learning requirements. It’s a fantasy world grounded in real-world wonder — a reminder that when we look closely enough, our local environments can take us on journeys as compelling as any game on the market.
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Spirits of the Realms is developed by Guardians of Earth, a diverse global team working to create a nature economy that rewards biocultural custodianship and raises the financial value of healthy habitats. The game is available now on iPhone and Android.