Crossy Bee — like Pokémon GO, but with bumblebees 🐝
Did you know that 4 in 10 insect species are projected to go extinct in the coming decades? (Sánchez-Bayo et al., 2019 — Biological Conservation)
That's a huge problem, especially when you consider that not only honey but also apples, pears, almonds, chocolate, and dozens of other foods depend on pollination to exist.
Pollinators — solitary bees, bumblebees, hoverflies, wasps, butterflies, moths — are the backbone of food production and biodiversity. 75% of the world's major crops depend on them, not just honeybees.
The main drivers: intensive farming, pesticide misuse, habitat loss, light pollution, and invasive species.
Making things worse: we don't have enough data. Over 23% of insect species assessed by the IUCN lack sufficient information to evaluate their extinction risk — and studies suggest more than half of those are likely threatened. On top of that, between 5 and 7 million insect species are estimated to exist but remain completely unknown to science.
Imagine biodiversity as a house on fire. Through the window, you see the living room burning. But you have no idea if the kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom are already ash. That's our current situation.
We know the decline is serious, but we lack the data to understand how serious it really is.
Crossy Bee is a citizen science app that turns scientific research into a fun game.
Most citizen science apps are used by biologists. Crossy Bee is built for everyone else. By combining gamification with real scientific data collection, it turns casual curiosity into meaningful research — and teaches people why pollinators matter while they play.
Photograph an insect you encounter. The app uses AI to identify the species and returns a card with its name, habitat, behavior, and more.
Each observation is archived in Darwin Core format — the international standard for biodiversity data — complete with GPS coordinates and timestamps.
To keep the insect in your personal collection, you play a mini-game where your bug faces real threats: cars, pesticides, artificial lights. It has to make it through all of them — just like Crossy Road — to reach its habitat. Survive and the species is yours. Fail and it's gone. (Don't worry — your observation is always submitted to the scientific record, even if you lose)
Photographing a real pollinator earns you Pollen, the in-game currency, which you can use to learn more about biodiversity. Spend it on card packs featuring bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies, rare species, and endangered ones — each pack contains 4 cards, each with a photo, a rarity score, and a fun fact.
A shared biodiversity map lets you see what others are finding around the world.
React + TypeScript · Google Gemini 2.5 (species ID) · Darwin Core (data standard) · Canvas 2D (game engine) · Docker + Google Cloud Run