Word Safari: The Friendship Totems

Players control an African animal as their protagonist on the Serengeti. The Sacred Watering Hole has dried up and must be replaced with another spiritual totem. Legends foretell a youth who is said to have the power to restore it. The protagonist's goal is to prove themselves as the legendary chosen ones by completing the trials sent to them by their tribe's Spiritual Totem.

The game comes with a currently inactive GXB Rewards program. Players were encouraged to create a user ID on GXB Interactive's website. If they used it when they start their game, they could have received codes to exchange merchandise. The GXB ID exchange also unlocked players' progress reports and supplementary practices on the company's website.

Main Story

Protagonists

At the start of the main story, players can choose their preferred animal protagonist by pressing up or down at the Sacred Watering Hole. This option is only available during the tutorial stage.

For most of the story, players use only one animal protagonist. Players can switch between animals at the end of the game by pressing R.

World

Graphics are two-dimensional, and the world is viewed from a top-down perspective. Players move around their protagonist with the directional pad. Characters can move to another area by moving to the edges of the map. Platforming is limited to animals with the Jumping ability; failing to make the jump sends the protagonist back to the ledge with no penalties.

Story progression is achieved by completing quests from NPCs, or Good Deeds, and collecting Wisdom Tokens. Quest givers are animals with an exclamation point hovering over them. Simply talk to them and fulfill their stated request to complete their quest.

Wisdom Tokens are primarily earned by completing mini-games. Mini-games act as random encounters seen in most RPGs. Difficulty for these mini-games vary based on the percentage of correct answers players achieve. Normal is the standard; Hard is 60%~80% and Pro is 90%~100%. On Normal difficulty, the player can reread the chosen word and have it be repeated by pressing R. Harder difficulties will make moving obstacles faster and restrict the player to audio only readings.

Characters have an Energy meter. On the main map, this is indicated at the upper right hand corner. During mini-games, these are represented as red Energy Hearts. Players start with three and can earn up to eight. If players lose or quit mini-games, they will lose one Energy Heart as a penalty. If players lose all of their Energy Hearts, the game will automatically send the player back to their previous save point.

Players can view the world map and check their progress and inventory by pressing SELECT. They can save in this screen any where on the map. Nine main areas are available.

Africa Facts

Fun Fact Kiosks are scattered across the world map. These yellow huts provide endless trivia about Africa and African wildlife which are topics presented by wandering random animals. If the protagonists makes contact with them, they will challenge the player with a multiple choice quiz.

If players visited a Fun Fact Kiosk that said the answer to the question, they will win one Wisdom Token and lose two Wisdom Tokens if they get it wrong. Should the players be quizzed on a topic that hasn't been covered at a Fun Fact Kiosk, they gain two Wisdom Tokens for getting it right and lose one Wisdom Token for wrong answers.

Africa Facts encountered by players are stored in the Status Screen in the Menu screen. Players can repeatedly visit the same Fun Fact Kiosk to obtain every possible fact in the game.

Practice

Players can practice the main story mini-games any time from the main menu screen. The mini-game type, content type, and mini-game difficulty can be manually altered to players' preferences. Animal protagonist can be selected for most of these exercises. All readings and spellings are done in North American English.

Press up on the difficulty setting screen for the hidden Pro difficulty.

Bees		Platforming challenge. Hurl stones at the bees with the correct letter to spell the word. Players lose if they run out of energy or stones to throw. Can only use Baboon.
Falling Words		Catch the correct word. Harder difficulty settings has the baboon throw coconuts and bananas to obstruct players. Players lose if they run out of energy (catch the wrong word or trip).
Flies		Flies fall down the screen. Catch the right letter to spell the word. More flies are added on harder difficulty settings.
Migration		Throw a banana to trip the herd animal with the correct word. Players lose if they run out of energy or bananas to throw.
Trap Floor		Highlight the correct letter and press A to spell the word. Energy can be lost by selecting the wrong letter.
Rocks		Platforming challenge. Avoid the rhinos or crocodiles in between the letter rocks to highlight the correct letter. Press A to use the letter for spelling the word. Energy can be lost by selecting the wrong letter or being hit.

Content Type

• Spelling
• Base Words
• Contractions
• Nouns
• Homophones
• Antonyms
• Synonyms
• Prefix Suffix
• Pronouns
• Sight Words
• Verbs

In this mode, it is possible to customize the words that can appear. Players can create and save them in the Custom creation option. Saved custom words will be stored underneath the Custom tag in the subject selection screen.

Players can check their progress for every mini-game they complete in the View Results screen.