Virtual Femme

  Coral reefs make extremely exciting areas on games because they can be filled with color, variety, and all sorts of interesting creatures.  In the real world, coral reefs play a very important part of our ecosystem, and the amount of diversity in this biome rivals that of the rain forests.  Thus, a designer can actually go crazy in creating strange beings for a coral reef, and it takes very little suspension of disbelief for a player to be involved in the area or to accept the area no matter how fantastical it may be.  Knowing the basics of how a coral reef exists and the purpose it serves in our ecosystem will allow one to build a better, more believable world.

The children’s book, A Home on the Coral Reef, is a great place to start researching.  It’s simply written, pack with interesting tidbits, and  covers the basics of the biome.