When a “WolfQuest” player takes control of a young wolf and roams the hills of Yellowstone National Park, it’s easy to see why the Minnesota-made educational video game has stayed relevant 17 years after its initial release.

Later this year, a new version of the wolf-simulator game will be released with an aim of keeping it relevant for new players into the future. The game’s producer, who said the original has been downloaded about 5 million times, is adding improved graphics and game play for players who assume the role of a wolf, raising families of pups and chasing down prey in the wild.

“I just thought, ‘This is the most successful project I’ve ever done, it would be crazy just to let it fade away,’” producer Dave Schaller said in an interview Monday from his home in St. Paul.

Schaller and his wife Susan Nagel’s educational video game company Eduweb released the original “WolfQuest” in 2007 along with the Minnesota Zoo, which partnered with the game company and assisted with its creation. Players control a 2-year-old wolf as it learns to hunt, find and court a mate, and raise a pack of pups that must be defended from predators including coyotes, cougars and rival wolves.

Eduweb programmed the game, but Minnesota Zoo assisted by providing wolf experts who informed Schaller’s team on how the animals would act in real life. The goal was to accurately depict the animals of Yellowstone and teach kids about wolves in a fun way outside of a classroom setting or a zoo. This meant adding all aspects of wolf behavior, including how parents will sometimes regurgitate prey for their pups’ consumption.

“We would have meetings where it was like, ‘OK. Hunting elk. How does it really work? And how is this going to work when we distill it down into a game?’” Schaller said.

The game was initially free, thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, and the original version is still available for purchase online along with a free demo. When the partnership with the zoo ended roughly a decade ago, Eduweb kept updating the game, and began developing “WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition” in 2017.

An early version of the anniversary edition was released in 2019 and is available for purchase through the online game distribution platform Steam for $20, but the complete updated game is not expected to be released until later this year. Unlike the original, the anniversary edition allows players to continue growing their wolf pack past the one-year mark. The new game also increases the size of the environments and gives players 7- by 7-kilometer sections of Yellowstone to explore.

Though the game was intended for middle schoolers, many adults have become devoted fans. Fan videos posted on YouTube, often just footage of the game being played, have racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Some players add backstories for the wolves and narrate the animals’ lives in dubbed-over audio, making up their own lore as they go.

A collaborator on the original game was Grant Spickelmier, the former assistant educational director for Minnesota Zoo. Now the executive director of the International Wolf Center in Minnesota, Spickelmier helped write the initial grant for the first game. The game’s release in 2007 coincided with a rise in popularity around online forums where young players could bond over fascination with wolves and wildlife.

“We discovered there was a huge demand for people who wanted to live their lives as animals and who were interested in them,” Spickelmier said.

With the early version of the game already out and the full edition on the way, Schaller said he’s hopeful the game can continue to attract new players and teach kids about wolves and how they act.

“The biggest idea of the game was [combating] the misconceptions about wolves as these ferocious, dangerous animals,” Schaller said. “It’s like, ‘No, they’re family animals, mate for life depending on how things go, and they care about their kids.’”

Minnesota United might say that they’re not using player absences as an excuse during their five-game losing streak — but they sure sound like they can’t wait for it to be over.

Asked what the club needed to change, manager Eric Ramsay said, “To be honest, I think it’s as simple as welcoming players back from injury, welcoming players back from internationals, and getting back to how we felt prior to all this having taken place. And that’s, I think, a very realistic take on the situation. Obviously, we look at this period with real regret and real disappointment that we haven’t picked up points that perhaps we could or should have done. But ultimately, there’s a big set of circumstances around that, which has made that really difficult, and those set of circumstances are about to come to an end.”

The Loons are beginning to turn the corner, in terms of player availability. Midfielder Alejandro Bran, who played the final twelve minutes for Costa Rica last night in Austin, Texas, caught a flight and was in the starting lineup on Wednesday night. Minnesota is targeting Sunday’s game against the LA Galaxy for the return of Teemu Pukki from injury.

Canada, which plays Venezuela on Friday, could be the final domino to fall; if the Canucks lose Friday, Minnesota could get Dayne St. Clair and Tani Oluwaseyi back for Sunday’s game as well.

Even beyond that, the MLS transfer window opens July 18. One new player, forward Samuel Shashoua, has already been training with the team for a few weeks, and the Loons will clearly be looking to bring in others as well — hopefully for them, as quickly as possible.

“I’m sure Eric [Ramsay] would like some decision headaches on who he’s putting in the lineup,” defender Michael Boxall said.

‘Back to basics’ defensively

Ramsay came in preaching defense, and for a few months, it worked. In his first 14 games in charge, the Loons gave up more than two goals only once.

Over the past four games, though, the Loons have given up twelve goals — including five against Dallas, three against Portland, and three more against Vancouver. It left the manager frustrated, and ready to go back to the beginning with the team’s defensive focus.

“It’s back to basics, to an extent,” he said Tuesday. “When we were at our best this year we were very well organized, very disciplined, very hard to play through, in particular. And whilst we’ve seen that in spells, we’ve just started to look uncharacteristically easy to pull apart.”

The Whitecaps might have scored three goals Wednesday, but oddly, it did look like one of Minnesota’s better defensive performances this month. One of Vancouver’s goals was a defensive mistake from Boxall, one came from disastrous set-piece defending, and the third was a world-class strike by Sebastian Berhalter. Apart from those, Vancouver had only one shot on target.

“I don’t think we gave away nearly the number of chances that we have done in recent weeks,” Ramsay said. “That is partly to do with how we attacked, how we sustained attacks, how we played the game. We were largely in the opposition’s half, which has obviously been a problem of ours over the course of the last four or five games.

“I think you’ve got to take the game as a whole, in that sense. We haven’t given up really good quality chances in any sense today. Obviously, each of the three goals you look at as being very, very avoidable. So that again is a step forward.”

A growing goalkeepers’ union

With St. Clair at Copa América and Clint Irwin out injured, it meant a first-ever MLS appearance for goalkeeper Alex Smir. The University of North Carolina product has played 18 times for the team’s MLS NEXT Pro affiliate, MNUFC2, but Irwin’s injury put him in line to be the third Loons goalkeeper of the year.

Smir said he’d found out he was starting a few days prior to the game. “It’s been a wild couple of days,” Smir told the team’s radio broadcast.

Prior to Wednesday’s game, Smir was probably best known for winning the “Goalie Wars” competition that was part of the All-Star Game festivities at Allianz Field in 2022. And despite that he’s now an MLS goalkeeper, he was still willing to have that claim to fame. “It was a great experience,” he said. “I love that that’s kind of my catchphrase, so it’s awesome.”

Minnesota had to work quickly on Wednesday to fill in the rest of the club’s goalkeeping roster, too. The club signed Oscar Herrera, a former Augsburg University player, to be the equivalent of an NHL emergency backup goalkeeper. At the same time, they signed Francesco Montali as a keeper for MNUFC2.

Montali, who was taken in the third round of the draft by Philadelphia in the offseason, has the higher profile — but since the Union drafted him but did not sign him, they still hold his MLS rights. And so unless the Loons acquire those rights, he can’t be signed to a short-term agreement as a first-team backup — opening the door for Herrera, also technically a MNUFC2 signing, but one who was eligible to also sign a temporary contract with the first team.

Montali made his debut for MNUFC2 on Wednesday as well, giving up four goals in a 4-0 loss to North Texas SC.