Impact Games Landscape — Research by Max · Feb 21, 2026 (v2)
No meaningful competitor to CHORUS exists. The impact game space is fragmented between donation tools with thin game mechanics (Freerice, ShareTheMeal) and genuine games with vague impact (Forest, Kinder World). No existing app runs a closed loop connecting rewarded ad revenue to a specific, confirmed, $2-per-unit charitable outcome.
Malaria specifically is unserved — the only malaria game (Nightmare: Malaria, 2013) was a one-shot awareness game with no revenue loop, long since defunct. CHORUS sits at the intersection of: village-builder engagement mechanics, rewarded ad monetization, day/night real-time urgency, and the most cost-efficient preventable disease on earth. That intersection is empty.
Three signals for Gin to evaluate:
n=16 apps/platforms. Sources: App Store, Google Play, BestApp.com, CommArts.com, Amazon Appstore, MalariaConsortium.org. Confidence: Medium-High on catalog completeness.
| App | Category | Platform | Charity Mechanism | Monetization | Rating | Active? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forest | Focus/productivity | iOS, Android | Real tree planting via Trees for the Future (coins → redemption) | Paid ($3.99) + IAP | 4.8★ (16K reviews) | ✅ Yes |
| Freerice | Trivia game | iOS, Android, web | WFP: 10 grains rice per correct answer (ad-funded) | Ads (WFP-run) | 4.3★ (610 reviews) | ✅ Yes |
| Kinder World | Cozy plant game | iOS, Android | Mental health / wellbeing (not traditional charity) | IAP (cosmetics); raised $6.75M a16z | Not published | ✅ Yes |
| Charity Miles | Fitness tracker | iOS, Android | Corporate sponsors donate per mile walked/run | Sponsor model | ~4.0★ | ✅ Yes |
| ShareTheMeal | Micro-donation | iOS, Android | WFP: $0.50/meal, family matching feature | Direct user donations | ~4.5★ | ✅ Yes |
| Nightmare: Malaria | Action platformer | iOS, Android (defunct) | AMF: one-time download = awareness + AMF spotlight | Paid download / awareness | N/A | ❌ Defunct |
| Ecosia | Search engine | Browser, iOS, Android | Trees planted from search ad revenue | Search advertising | ~4.3★ | ✅ Yes |
| Tab for a Cause | Browser extension | Chrome, Firefox | Multiple charities from new-tab ad impressions | Ad impressions | N/A | ✅ Yes |
| Habitica | RPG habit tracker | iOS, Android, web | Charity drops in-game, optional guilds | Subscription + IAP | 4.7★ | ✅ Yes |
| Coin Up / RoundUp | Micro-donation | iOS, Android | Round-up spare change to 350+ charities | Transaction fees | 4.5★ | ✅ Yes |
| Be My Eyes | Volunteer app | iOS, Android | Assist visually impaired users directly | Freemium | 4.9★ | ✅ Yes |
| MalariaSpot | Crowdsourced science | Web/academic | Players identify malaria in slides (diagnostic crowdsourcing) | Grant-funded | N/A | ⚠️ Limited |
| End Malaria | Awareness game | iOS (2013) | Awareness only, Malaria Consortium spotlight | Awareness campaign | N/A | ❌ Defunct |
| Tree Story | Nature game | iOS, Android | Tree planting via gameplay | IAP | ~4.0★ | ⚠️ Limited |
| Karmafy (SDK) | B2B platform SDK | Embedded in other games | Developer routes % of ad revenue to player-selected charity | Ad revenue share | Platform | ⚠️ Limited |
| PlayToFund | Web + mobile charity game | Web + mobile | Player activity funds NGOs/charities via ad model | Ad revenue | N/A | ✅ Active |
n=6 apps with extractable review sentiment. Sources: JustUseApp (610 Freerice reviews, NLP-analyzed), AppSamurai Forest analysis (Feb 2025), Kinder World coverage (trendwatching.com), Reddit r/forestapp. Confidence: Medium — review sentiment is directional, not statistically controlled.
Users love seeing something happen right now. Forest's growing tree: "I get excited once I plant something." Freerice's grain counter. ShareTheMeal's family matching: "I absolutely adore matching to actual families." CHORUS's net accumulation progress bar will hit this same nerve — people need to see the meter moving.
Forest: "Gamifying time off my phone is a fantastic way to retrain my brain." Freerice: "Great idea — I feel smart AND helpful." Kinder World: "I feel like I'm taking care of myself." The apps that stick make users feel better about themselves, not worse. CHORUS plays into "I'm literally saving lives while playing."
Kinder World built for 2-minute sessions, designed to reduce anxiety, not create it. Forest works in 10-minute increments. Apps that demand 20+ minutes to feel meaningful get abandoned. CHORUS's check-in loop (day visit, night defend) maps well to this.
Users explicitly cite "I don't feel guilty spending time on this because it's helping." This is strongest in Freerice and Forest reviews. For CHORUS: time spent = nets funded. The guilt removal is built into the loop.
"If you think about the psychology behind the phrase 'The tree will be killed if you leave this app' you will see that the effects are amazing." — AppSamurai, Feb 2025
Forest's dead tree when you pick up your phone creates genuine loss aversion. The emotional weight of virtual consequences drives behavior — which is exactly what CHORUS's "mosquitoes attack at night if nets aren't placed" mechanic delivers.
"I find unlocking tree species more motivational than saving for a real tree. It's a focus app with a charity twist, if I only wanted to plant actual trees I could have just donated." — Reddit r/forestapp (multiple upvotes)
Implication for CHORUS: The game loop must be compelling independent of the impact story. The AMF connection is the emotional closer, not the hook. Players who discover real-world impact mid-play and then stay for it are the best users.
n=6 apps. Confidence: Medium.
"Game freezes and I lose hours of progress." Freerice's 4.3★ rating with a JustUseApp safety score of 33/100 is almost entirely driven by technical reliability failures. One crash = one lost player. CHORUS needs bulletproof streak/progress persistence.
ShareTheMeal: "Only 62% of your donated dollars go toward actual meals." Reddit r/EffectiveAltruism has multiple threads questioning ShareTheMeal's efficiency. Tab for a Cause and Ecosia face similar skepticism. This is the #1 unmet need across the entire category — and CHORUS's biggest opportunity.
Forest: "The price could definitely be off-putting since you can't try it before purchasing." Users resent paying upfront before experiencing the value proposition. Any CHORUS paywall on the core loop would be high risk.
"Became very slow when it comes to progress in order to level up, there is no interaction activities other than waiting 12hrs to water plants which is boring." — Kinder World, AppBrain review aggregation, Jan 2026
Freerice: "Gets boring after a while." Users need new things to find. CHORUS's seasonal events, rare village items, and disease progression events could address this.
Kinder World's core breakdown: earned currency earns too slowly, store items cost too much, meaningful progress requires real money. (AppBrain, Jan 2026 — n=dozens of reviews making the same complaint.) Players resent advertising free while behavior is pay-gated. CHORUS's core loop must never hit a wall where free play stops feeling meaningful.
r/EffectiveAltruism removed ShareTheMeal from their recommended charities entirely. AMF is GiveWell #1 — this is CHORUS's biggest competitive advantage vs. every charity app in this list.
Apps that make users feel bad for not playing instead of good for playing create churn. Punitive loss mechanics backfire at scale. CHORUS should lean into "you did great" over "you failed."
n=4 malaria-adjacent apps found. Confidence: High on completeness — this is a thin category.
n=8 models reviewed. Sources: yango-ads.com (Q4 2024 eCPM), bidscube.com (2025), Tapjoy 2024 study, pubscale.com. Confidence: High on eCPM data for US market.
| Model | How It Works | Strengths | Weaknesses | CHORUS Relevance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rewarded video ads | Player opts in to watch 15–30s video for in-game reward | 95%+ completion rate; 78% opt-in rate; iOS $19.63, Android $16.49 eCPM (Q4 2024) | Requires volume (DAUs × sessions) | Primary — the CHORUS engine |
| Offerwalls | Player completes surveys/app installs for premium rewards | Tapjoy 2024: avg $400 eCPM, peaks $1,500+ | UX disruption, trust risk | Secondary / optional |
| IAP (cosmetics) | Sell avatar skins, rare village aesthetics | No pay-to-win risk, high ARPU ceiling | Requires emotional investment first | Good for CHORUS — rare village items |
| IAP (skip timers) | Pay to speed up progress | Revenue-efficient | Creates pay-to-win resentment | Low priority — conflicts with impact integrity |
| Subscription | Monthly access to premium features | Predictable revenue, LTV clarity | Churn risk, hard sell without proven value | Post-launch "impact membership" concept |
| Direct donation | Users choose to donate extra | High trust signal | Thin at scale | Nice-to-have, not core |
| Sponsor/corporate | Companies pay per action (mile, search) | No user cost | Limited scale, sponsor dependency | Possible partnership tier, not MVP |
| Hybrid (ads + IAP) | Ad revenue + cosmetic IAP | 4 in 5 developers cite as optimal; maximizes LTV | Complexity | CHORUS model |
Sources: nudgenow.com, moldstud.com (July 2024), storyly.io, avow.tech (July 2025), segwise.ai (Dec 2025). Confidence: Medium-High — broadly validated across multiple industry sources.
"The simple act of showing up daily has become one of the most powerful retention tools." (Storyly) Duolingo, Forest, and Freerice all use it. Users don't want to break the chain. CHORUS's daily net-building contributes naturally — but loss of streak should be forgiving (recoverability matters more than punishment).
Watching something grow (Forest tree, Kinder World plant, Freerice grain counter) creates investment. The longer you play, the more there is to see. CHORUS's village growing from huts to community center to vaccine clinic is a strong compounding visual. This is the retention spine.
"A seamless, engaging, and intuitive onboarding flow can increase retention rates by up to 50%." (avow.tech) Guided interactive tutorials dramatically outperform text explanations. First session retention is the highest-leverage single decision in the game.
Games with real-time environmental responsiveness (Animal Crossing being canonical) create organic daily check-in behavior. The world feels alive and changes without you. CHORUS's malaria threat increasing at night is mechanically true to the disease and creates urgency without artificial time gates.
"Community engagement through forums, social media, and in-game events enhances player retention by fostering a sense of belonging." (nudgenow.com) Shared village milestones, leaderboards for nets funded, visible impact numbers create social accountability.
Tailored content increases engagement by up to 40%. (moldstud.com) Custom village names, named nets, specific malaria stats — all increase felt ownership.
Losing all progress after missing one day causes abandonment spikes. CHORUS should frame missed days as "your village needs you back" not "you failed."
Nearly all charity apps see D30 retention collapse. Without new content, events, or goals, habit breaks. CHORUS needs a 90-day content calendar pre-launch.
If players have to pay to see their impact grow, they disengage and feel manipulated. CHORUS's core loop (watch ad → net progress) must remain fully free.
Habitica's RPG depth is its strength and weakness — onboarding is steep. CHORUS needs to feel obvious in 30 seconds.
AMF's public net tracking and GiveWell's #1 ranking are CHORUS's competitive moat. Use them visibly — ideally in-game, not buried in an FAQ.
Research synthesis — all strategic implications flagged as Gin's calls.
Forest plants trees but it's mediated by coins and a redemption step. Freerice's WFP connection is real but the impact is diffuse (grains of rice, not trackable units). CHORUS would be the first mobile game where: watch ad → $0.02 credited → progress toward $2 net → AMF confirms distribution. That's a new category.
Malaria kills ~600,000 people/year, mostly children under 5. GiveWell's #1 cause for cost-effectiveness. Almost entirely absent from the "impact game" space. Nightmare: Malaria proved AMF will partner — but proved paid/awareness model doesn't sustain. CHORUS is the product this moment has been waiting for.
The village builder (Farmville, Clash of Clans derivatives) is one of mobile gaming's most durable formats for retention. No one has applied it to a real-world impact cause at this level of specificity. There is no "build a village in Sub-Saharan Africa and actually protect it from malaria" game.
Malaria mosquitoes (Anopheles) bite at night. Bed nets protect during sleep. CHORUS's day/night cycle is not a game design flourish — it's epidemiologically accurate. No other impact game has a mechanic this coherent between gameplay and real-world science.
AMF publishes every net distribution publicly at againstmalaria.com. This level of transparency is unprecedented in the charity gaming space. ShareTheMeal, Tab for a Cause, and Ecosia all face credibility questions. CHORUS + AMF = the most verifiable impact in the category.
Parents who feel bad about screen time. Adults who feel unproductive gaming. CHORUS converts that guilt into impact. "Every minute I play, I'm protecting a child." That's a new marketing angle no competitor has built around.
1. Nightmare: Malaria download data — How many downloads did it get? Any revenue data from AMF or Psyop? Would help benchmark what a paid/awareness model achieves. No public data found — could ask AMF directly when Gin sends the outreach email.
2. Forest's real-tree redemption rate — What % of players actually redeem coins for real trees vs. just playing? Tells us how much the impact backend matters to retention. Not publicly disclosed.
3. Kinder World's engagement metrics — Lumi raised $6.75M from a16z but hasn't published DAU/retention data. Not publicly available.
4. Rewarded ad eCPM in developing vs. US markets — If CHORUS's player base is Western (higher eCPM) but impact is in Sub-Saharan Africa, the math may be even better. Research-confirmable — Gin to confirm target player geography.
5. What does CHORUS show the player when a net is confirmed distributed? — This is the killer feature no competitor has. The answer needs to be designed before launch. Strategic/design decision — Gin and team.
6. AMF's appetite for a game partnership — Nightmare: Malaria shows AMF has done this before. Draft outreach is ready (amf-outreach-draft.md). Gin sends. Blocked on Gin.
| Source | What It Informed |
|---|---|
| BestApp.com (2026) | App catalog, charity app landscape |
| Voxelhub Forest review (Dec 2024) | Forest mechanics, pricing, user sentiment |
| JustUseApp Freerice (610 reviews, NLP) | Freerice praise/criticism, bugs |
| JustUseApp ShareTheMeal | ShareTheMeal praise/criticism |
| Trendwatching.com Kinder World (2022) | Kinder World mechanics, funding, design |
| AppBrain / Kinder World (Jan 2026) | Kinder World negative review aggregation — currency economics critique |
| PocketTactics Kinder World interview (Sept 2022) | Lumi Interactive research on dropout rates |
| AppSamurai Forest analysis (Feb 2025) | Forest retention psychology, "tree will be killed" mechanic |
| CommArts.com Nightmare: Malaria | Malaria game design, AMF partnership history, awards |
| Amazon Appstore Nightmare: Malaria | Game description, AMF GiveWell ranking |
| Yu-kai Chou / Gamification (updated 2025) | Nightmare: Malaria social gamification analysis |
| Pocket Gamer Nightmare: Malaria review (Dec 2013) | First published review of malaria-AMF game |
| MalariaConsortium.org End Malaria | Second malaria game, Zebbu partnership |
| AWS Public Sector Blog MalariaSpot (2022) | Academic malaria crowdsourcing game |
| Yango-ads eCPM (Q4 2024) | Rewarded video eCPM benchmarks |
| Bidscube.com (2025) | Offerwall eCPM data; Tapjoy 2024 study |
| Reddit r/EffectiveAltruism | ShareTheMeal skepticism, charity trust |
| Reddit r/forestapp (Sept 2021) | Forest user sentiment; charity opt-in behavior vs. gameplay |
| Nudgenow.com retention benchmarks | Retention mechanics industry data |
| Moldstud.com (July 2024) | Personalization impact on engagement |
| Storyly.io | Streak mechanic psychology |
| Avow.tech (July 2025) | Onboarding impact on retention |
| Segwise.ai (Dec 2025) | Retention strategy synthesis |
| Andrewchen.com | Mobile user retention benchmarks |
| Pubscale.com (March 2024) | Rewarded ad opt-in behavior |
| Forbes (Sept 2020) | Rewarded ad ecosystem history |
| Karmafy.com (2025) | B2B charity SDK platform for games |
| PlayToFund.org (2025) | Charity game platform comparison |
Reviewed by Max QC · Feb 21, 2026 (v2)