Ecogames Ocean Education Aboard Arka Kinari's Epic Voyage

Arka Kinari is a 70-tonne sailing ship built by artists Filastine and Nova to carry environmental education and music along Indonesia's old maritime trade routes.

During its tour through Java, the crew pilot tested games designed by Ecogames, the educational games studio under Alam Santi, that bring ocean and climate education to children in remote coastal communities along the way.

The games featured were Operation Ocean, Octoputs and MuZe Cubes, all developed by Alam Santi's Ecogames team for exactly this kind of setting: places with limited resources, mixed ages, and little existing exposure to environmental education.

In the Pesantren schools Arka Kinari visited, where maritime life is central to daily experience, the games gave children a hands-on way to express themselves and to learn about topics like marine life and plastic pollution, without needing a classroom or trained facilitator to lead the session.

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Children were invited aboard the majestic ship and played the games directly with the crew. These games are built around cooperative play, so beyond the environmental content, the sessions also built teamwork and a shared sense of responsibility among the children taking part. These values are particularly relevant in small island communities most exposed to climate impacts.

Arka Kinari's mission extends well beyond these school visits. By day, the ship runs workshops and skill-sharing sessions along its route, including maritime skills, local cooking, and an introduction to solar and wind energy systems. By night, it becomes a performance space for Filastine and Nova, who combine traditional Javanese music with electronic production to reach audiences with a message about the climate crisis.

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The ship's slower, deliberate route echoes an older Indonesian maritime network, one that once connected communities, languages and ideas across the archipelago long before modern shipping. Arka Kinari's residency programme places particular emphasis on supporting Indonesian women at sea. The ship also hosts Laut Loud, a series of short streaming concerts celebrating Indonesian music, curated by local artists.

Ecogames' relationship with Arka Kinari goes back to 2021, and has developed into an ongoing collaboration built on mutual support. Arka Kinari now hosts educational events aboard the ship, and has become something of a floating beacon for Ecogames, a place to pilot test new games with children and communities across Indonesia's island nations before they're rolled out more widely.

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This kind of partnership reflects Alam Santi's broader education work, designing tools and curricula that hold up outside a conventional classroom, from island schools to disaster response contexts.

If you're working with communities where environmental education needs to travel light and work anywhere, get in touch to talk through how Alam Santi's Ecogames and educational tools could support your work.