Every civilised South African will agree that rhino poaching is an abhorrent crime against nature that needs to be stopped. However, southern Africa is a large place and rhino conservation efforts continually struggle against the poachers out to make money from sawing the horns off the poor animals.

With an awareness campaign in mind, and the hopeful goal of donating profits to a rhino conservation charity, a team of Cape Town-based South African developers has set out to create an iOS game to do just that.

Rhino Rumble is planned to be a “forward runner” iOS game that put players in control of Rufus the rhino and his yet-to-be-named human girl companion as they set out to rescue Rufus’ kidnapped baby from poachers.

The game has taken the ambitious approach of using a fully 2D animated game engine with randomised level elements to keep gameplay fresh.

The project is seeking US$95,000 to get Kickstarted, with 30 days on the clock at the time of publication. Developer Tony Scott states that the game will take about six months to develop.

The team is comprised of a 30-year veteran and award-winning lead artist, Riccardo Capecchi, who boasts work on video games The Lion King, Donald Duck in Maui Mallard, and Gargoyles.

The coding, development, project management, and marketing side of things are being taken care of by Tony Scott, Margarida Rainho, and Rogan Louwrens. More about the team can be found on their Rhino Rumble bio page.

A charity and donation percentage should the game prove profitable has yet to be disclosed by the team. Rhino Rumble is a collaboration between Rogue Works LLC (based in the USA) and Capechino Animation (based in South Africa).

To investigate the KickStarter project for yourself, head on over to the website: Rhino Rumble – an iPhone/iPad game with a twist! by Rhino Rumble — Kickstarter

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