Guest or account?
As a guest you play with free demo coins that reset every visit — fun, but nothing is saved and you can’t hold a place on the leaderboard. Create an account for real CrayCoins, saved progress and a spot in the rankings. You can ask to join just to play; admins approve you as a community member — you’ll be able to explore the platform, with full data access kept for verified contributors.
CrayCoins, WoC® Tokens & your tier
CrayCoins are the free arcade currency. You draw them against your WoC® Tokens 1:1 — your tokens are never spent. How many tokens you have is set by your contributor tier, which grows with the real, validated crayfish records you add:
- Bronze · 0–49 records → 50 tokens
- Silver · 50–199 → 200
- Gold · 200–499 → 500
- Platinum · 500+ → unlimited
A brand-new account with no data sits at Bronze — about 50 tokens to play with. Asking for extra tokens isn’t the lever: the way up is real data. Read the guides, head to Contribute, or pull occurrences from the literature via check-IN. As your validated records climb, so do your tier and your tokens.
Low on coins? Build first, gamble later
The first game you’ll see, CraySlots, is pure chance — jackpot ×400, but you can lose it all. Fun in small doses; not the way to grow a thin wallet. If you started fresh with ~50 coins, play to accumulate before you risk anything:
- CrayCollector — explore the world and collect crayfish species. Every capture pays out, and full-range coverage pays big. No bet, nothing to lose. Chase the rare species by hand, too: only a capture you make yourself, on a rare or endemic crayfish, can yield a 🧬 Golden Sequence — an exceptional stretch of DNA that is filed with its locality and host on your academic profile in theGame, to be analysed later. One rule: after each expedition flight you’re grounded until you log at least one real, validated record — so keep contributing.
- PinchyArt — spot the crayfish hidden in the world’s art. Every correct call earns CrayCoins, with bonus rounds for extra. Even better, turn Curator: pin a crayfish you found in art and earn when an admin accepts your find — and you help build a real cultural-heritage database.
Once you have a cushion, try the games that reward real crayfish knowledge — most let you bet coins, and a wrong answer loses your stake:
- CrayGuess — name the species from its real distribution map.
- CrayRank — which species ranks higher on a metric? Build a streak.
- CrayChallenge — climb an 8-rung knowledge ladder up to ×400; safe havens lock in part of your winnings.
- CrayRescue — take a real threatened species and try to recover it. No stake, pure upside (up to ~800 coins for the hardest saves), but you’ll need to know your conservation.
- CrayRaid — a fast reflex run down a crayfish river. No stake: pick your crayfish, dodge the hazards and grab pickups — the further and cleaner you run, the bigger the score. Skill, not luck; rarer classes multiply it.
The flagship — World of Crayfish®: theGame
theGame is the long game that ties the arcade together. You found a research institute on the real globe and grow Knowledge from the actual biodiversity around it; forecasting real trends on CrEx and adding your publications feed it, and progress unlocks perks across the other games. It’s not a quick coin grab — it’s where your whole arcade habit adds up.
What you build becomes a 3-D city you can walk through — and its landmark, the Institution tower, rises with your real H-index, so no amount of coins buys you another floor. Every facility you unlock also does a real job on live data (survey the crayfish around you, store specimens, analyse one in the lab, synthesise the state of the world). And you get a life outside the lab: a house you upgrade, a vehicle unlocked by academic rank rather than by your wallet — and a Town Hall that expects its taxes. Ignore those and the neighbourhood starts to look it.
How the leaderboard works
Each game remembers only your single biggest win (or best run) — not your total. So once you’ve banked a big score in a game, playing again only moves your rank if you equal or beat it: a smaller win never lowers your standing, but won’t lift it either. Chase your own high score in each game to climb.
The real win
The arcade is here to be fun and to make you sharper on crayfish biodiversity. The biggest win is becoming a genuine contributor: your data powers the whole platform, lifts your tier, and funds bigger play. Have fun — and do something serious while you’re at it.
