IT Brief New Zealand - Technology news for CIOs & IT decision-makers
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TwilioQuest! Defeat Legacy Systems and… plant a tree?
Mon, 9th Mar 2020
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Twilio is sponsoring the planting of trees in Australia in exchange for people playing its JavaScript training game in a novel approach to corporate social responsibility.

Twilio has launched the first instalment of its JavaScript Test Lab game, TwilioQuest – a set of fun challenges to introduce players to JavaScript.

Anyone is able to download and play TwilioQuest and, for each person who tries the new mission in the month of March will help plant a tree in support of reforestation efforts in Australia.

In the new JavaScript Test Lab mission, players work with a team of scientists researching the energy-producing qualities of ‘ducktypium', the mysterious source of JavaScript's power.

Throughout the lab, you will hone your JavaScript skills as the research team reaches a critical phase of their project.

The game is styled as an 8-bit, sci-fi dungeon crawler in which the player has to solve increasingly difficult JavaScript puzzles to defeat the nefarious Legacy Systems. Subtle.

It has a fun aesthetic and provides that indie-dev feel. However, it is super text-heavy; even the tutorial bot wants to exposition dump both the game's narrative and the gameplay.

You will also need to sign up for a free trial Twilio account to access all of what the game has to offer.

To help with reforestation efforts, Twilio is teaming up with OneTreePlanted.org to help repair some of the environmental damage Australia has suffered thanks to the continuous string of wildfires during the last several months.

During the month of March, TwilioQuest players can complete two specific mission objectives in TwilioQuest, and Twilio will sponsor the planting of two trees in Australia (up to 10,000).

Here's what you need to do in order to get your trees planted.

Download TwilioQuest and create a new character (or return once again to the Fog Owl with your existing character. Trees can be planted by new or returning players).

Once in the game, there are two locations where you can complete an objective to plant a tree.

Tree Objective #1 can be found in the Basic Training mission, on the western side of the map.

Interact with the Hacking Tool by approaching the red computer screen and pressing the spacebar.

For the tree planting objectives, all you need to do is click HACK, and Twilio will plant your tree!

Your second opportunity to plant a tree is found in the new JavaScript mission.

Follow along with the story until you are able to reach the botany wing (south wing) of the lab, where the research team is studying the effect of ducktypium on plant life.

There, you will find another objective where you can plant a tree.

This program will only be available through March of 2020.

As an individual player, you can only plant two trees - so make sure to tell a friend to pitch in so we can make that 10,000 tree goal in March.