In recent times, there has been a growing awareness of the profound impact humans have on our beautiful but fragile blue planet. As the global population continues to grow and we as individuals aspire to attain higher standards of living, the consequences of our actions to meet our needs are becoming increasingly evident, posing substantial environmental challenges on local and global scales.

Over the years, individuals, as organizations have been actively implementing various strategies to reduce their environmental footprint. These efforts range from promoting recycling and transitioning to renewable energy sources to adopting responsible waste management practices. Presently, one of the most widely discussed concerns revolves around the extensive issue of plastic pollution in our oceans. The harmful effects extend beyond marine life, affecting the delicate balance of the food chain and ecosystems as a whole. While many companies today have embraced social corporate responsibility policies, which foster an awareness of their impact on all facets of society, including the environment, there is still significant progress to be made collectively.

In 1990, the 20th anniversary of International Earth Day was commemorated, marking a significant milestone in the annual recurring global event aimed at mobilizing support for environmental preservation. The anniversary served as a catalyst for heightened recycling efforts on a global scale, further amplified by extensive media coverage and backed by significant financial investments. The widespread coverage reached across the globe, bringing more awareness to the facing challenges than ever before.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sierra On-Line proactively adopted measures to minimize its ecological footprint. This included experimenting with the recycling of floppy disks and using recycled paper for all office purposes along with the exploration of recycled materials, such as paper, for certain products like boxes, and manuals.

Amidst the increased awareness of the environmental challenges and with Sierra co-founder and CEO Ken Williams keen on entering the educational software market, the fastest-growing segment of the industry at the time, it was an ideal opportunity for the company to capitalize on its expertise in adventure game development by integrating environmental and educational content.

In 1991 game designer Gano Haine and her team started pitching ideas for the new educational game. Haine, a former teacher, had prior worked at a children’s summer camp where they, every Wednesday, would go to the beach for the kids to enjoy the sand and water. The following season, the same beach was covered in litter and the water was filled with human sewage. The upsetting experience would become the determining factor for the topic and the team decided to develop a game that would educate kids on the value of preserving Earth’s most valuable resource, the oceans.

Haine was assigned Jane Jensen as co-designer, both women had been hired by Sierra around the same time and cemented the company’s policy and willingness to employ female workers, at a time when the industry was almost completely male-dominated. Haine and Jensen were not new to games, both were gamers and loved adventures. By utilizing the interface and general gameplay that other Sierra adventure titles employed, they assembled an adventure with an educational environmental twist. The game was made with a focus on accessibility allowing for a more streamlined and less frustrating experience, with no dead-ends, unreasonable puzzles, or sudden deaths. The team worked with the Marine Mammal Center of Sausalito, California, ensuring the scientific accuracy of the project, and Sierra agreed to donate a portion of the profits to the organization.

Haine and Jensen created a young protagonist, Adam whose father, an ecologist, spends his working life traveling around the globe dealing with various environmental issues. Adam tags along, and while lonely he discovers companionship among the animal inhabitants of the places they visit.
Adam gets recruited by one of his human-like animal friends, a dolphin named Delphineus, to search for Cetus, the great sperm whale whom all of the other undersea creatures look to for guidance, but now mysteriously has gone missing.

EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus was published on October 30th, 1991, and would employ the same fully mouse-driven interface and 256-color VGA, the fifth installment in Roberta Williams’ King’s Quest series had introduced a year earlier.

EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus was initially released in the Autumn of 1991. The following year it was re-released on CD-ROM with full voice-acting. The new release would also come to be included in the newly launched The Sierra Discovery Series, aimed to combine entertainment with learning

In 1992, Sierra launched the Sierra Discovery Series, an initiative that sought to merge entertainment and education through a diverse range of subjects and topics. The CD-ROM version of EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus with full-voice acting was re-released as part of the series.

The CD-ROM version from 1992 came with full voice-acting, enhancing the overall game experience, making it even more suitable for the younger audience it targeted

EcoQuest spawned the 1993 sequel Lost Secret of the Rainforest. Jane Jensen was on to new adventures, literally speaking, as she had started working on what would become the first title in the Gabriel Knight series. With Haine missing out on her co-writer to assist with the story, plot, and character development, Lost Secret of the Rainforest lost some of the distinctive charm and soul the first title had embodied. The game leaned more toward the conventions of contemporary Sierra point-and-click adventures. While the game still integrated educational elements to drive the narrative, they were relatively subdued compared to the first title in the series.

Sierra released Lost Secret of the Rainforest In 1993, as part of the Sierra Discovery Series. Unlike the title it superseded, it didn’t carry the EcoQuest label

Lost Secret of the Rainforest feels bigger in scope but loses out on some of the charms and special feel the first title had. Unfortunately, it was released without voice acting

While Sierra was well aware of some of the environmental and sustainability challenges prior to EcoQuest, the research, and development the title spawned led to a greater focus on the subject within the company.

In its relatively brief lifespan from 1991 to 1993, The Sierra Discovery Series came to include 12 released titles, each offering compelling and educational content. While many of the titles didn’t achieve significant commercial success and have, for the most part, faded into relative obscurity, they represent Sierra’s commitment to creating engaging educational content.