Primeval News

🔹The deciduous forest map has been recreated with higher terrain detail.

🔹Larger plants can now be seen from further away.

🔹Edible plants in the deciduous forest map have had their size adjusted.

🔹The player now gains a lot more experience points when growing to the next growth stage. This is to help compensate for the increased experience cost each time a stat is increased. Juveniles gain enough experience to take a stat from 0 to 5. Sub-adults gain enough experience to take a stat from 0 to 10. Adults gain enough experience to take a stat from 0 to 20. Elders gain enough experience to take a stat from 0 to 40.

🔹A new music track has been added to the deciduous forest biome.

🔹The smelling highlight and outline will disappear from food and plants when they are eaten from by the player.

🔹The smelling highlight and outline will disappear from dinosaurs if they attack the player or are attacked by the player.





🔹Fixed more places where grass and plants were not being placed on some terrain.

🔹Small rocks no longer cast shadows.





🔹Adjusted the size of grasses and plants throughout the different biomes.

🔹The ferns and white flowers in the coniferous forest are once again visible.

🔹Adjusted the color of some plants.

🔹Added small rocks to help break up the repetition of the ground textures.

🔹Fixed where grass and plants were not being placed on some terrain.

🔹Added a new grass to the prairie biome.





🔹Smelling now works differently for the player. Press the Q key to smell for nearby nests, food, and dinosaurs, they will be highlighted for a short time. If you instead hold the Q key down you will cycle through nearby dinosaurs one at a time. When the dinosaur you want to track has focus, release the Q key and that dinosaur will remain highlighted for a time.

🔹When a nearby AI pack leader dies, the player will no longer become the new pack leader.





🔹Now there is a system message for if you aren't close enough to your nest and you try to open your nest inventory.

🔹Now there is a system message for if you haven't built a nest yet and you try to open your nest inventory.

🔹There are now three kinds of edible trees in the deciduous forest, coniferous forest, and the jungle.

🔹The player now collides with trees and rocks while walking or running.





🔹The correct amount of twigs/mud or seaweed/sandy soil are now used when building a nest and the system messages display the correct amount as well.

🔹Fixed a performance decrease that happened after building a nest.

🔹Fixed a glitch with the UI that happened after building a nest.





🔹The hoard and nest inventories no longer open or close when typing into the chat input field.

🔹Dinosaur health has taken a tuning pass.

🔹Dinosaur damage has taken a tuning pass.

🔹Dinosaur health regeneration has been reduced.

🔹Player dinosaurs no longer have twice as much health as AI dinosaurs, they now have the same amount.

🔹Elder dinosaurs can now spawn in the wild.

🔹Elder dinosaurs AI now has 10 times more dominance, health, and health regeneration.

🔹Elder dinosaur AI now does 5 times more damage.

🔹Elder dinosaurs are 5 times more likely to drop loot.

🔹Your dinosaur now regenerates 2.5 times more health while resting.

🔹You now get hungry from walking and running.

🔹The mouse cursor no longer permanently disappears when your dinosaur dies. (That glitch was introduced with the new hoard and nest inventories)

🔹The damage overlay effect now disappears after your dinosaur dies.

There are now two new types of inventories for you to use to collect and store items:

"Hoard". Each dinosaur species now has a shared inventory called the hoard. Items can be acquired by killing other dinosaurs and by using the scavenge ability. This inventory is saved and loaded and persists across play sessions and different dinosaurs of the same species. Access to the hoard is granted once your dinosaur reaches the juvenile growth stage. You cannot acquire items for your hoard until you reach the juvenile growth stage. You can open the hoard anywhere by pressing the "H" key. Hoard items can be destroyed one at a time by dragging an item onto the Destroy slot on the left side of the hoard window and then pressing the Destroy button. This permanently deletes the item!

"Nest". Each dinosaur species now has another shared inventory called the nest. Some types of items can be transferred here from the hoard and transferred back to the hoard. This inventory is saved and loaded and persists across play sessions and different dinosaurs of the same species. Access to the nest is granted once your dinosaur reaches the sub-adult growth stage. You can only access the nest after building a nest and by being within interaction distance of that nest. Items can only be transferred to and from your nest when within interaction range of the nest. You can open the nest by pressing the "N" key. You cannot access the nest inventory during the demo version of the game.



There are now two new abilities:

"Scavenge". The player now has the ability to scavenge for items once they grow into the juvenile stage. You can scavenge at some objects, like a tree stump or a nest, to search for useful items. If anything is found it is placed into your hoard. You cannot scavenge items from your own nest.

"Build Nest". Upon reaching the sub-adult stage you unlock the ability to build a nest. A nest can be built where you're standing once all required items are gathered into your hoard. You can only have one nest built at a time, building an additional nest will replace the previous nest. Terrestrial nests require a certain number of twigs and mud and aquatic nests require a certain number of seaweed and sandy soil. Build a nest by pressing the "B" key. Player nests grant their nest bonuses to nearby dinosaurs of their species, including themselves. You cannot build a nest during the demo version of the game.



Types of Items:

"Stat Enhancement (Temporary)". Right-click this item to use it and gain a temporary stat enhancement for your dinosaur for 30 minutes, each bonus has its own timer. Temporary bonuses are saved and loaded with your dinosaur.

"Stat Enhancement (Permanent)". Right-click this item to use it and gain a permanent stat enhancement for your dinosaur. Permanent bonuses are saved and loaded with your dinosaur. You cannot use Permanent Dinosaur Enhancement items during the demo version of the game.

Crystals. "Nest Range Boost". These items, when placed in the nest, will boost the range that nest bonuses will reach away from the nest.

"Nest Stat Bonus". These items can be transferred to the nest from the hoard and back to the hoard by right-clicking them. Once in the nest they will be able to grant their bonus to nearby dinosaurs.

Fruit. "Egg Spawn-Rate". These items be scavenged from nests and found from some dinosaurs and they grant a bonus to the spawn-rate of eggs when placed in the nest. Egg Spawn-Rate up to 100% increases the chances that an egg will spawn in the nest and also if that egg will be fertile. Egg Spawn-Rate also reduces the time between egg spawnings and increases the amount of eggs that will spawn at one time.

Stones. "Egg Hatch-Rate". These items can be scavenged from nests and they grant a bonus to the hatch-rate of eggs when placed in the nest. These items increase the chances an egg's hatch timer will count down to its hatching state. This bonus also decreases the time it takes for eggs to hatch.

Insects. "Egg Enhancement (Stat)". These items, when placed in the nest, will boost the stats of fertile eggs that spawn in the nest. Egg stat enhancements will be inherited by the hatching dinosaur. These items can drop from dinosaurs, nests, and tree stumps. Nests drop three different types of insects. Deciduous tree stumps drop one type of insect, coniferous tree stumps drop one type of insect, and jungle tree stumps drop another type of insect so you'll need to move between maps if you want to make finding specific insects easier.

Eggs. Eggs can spawn in the nest inventory and the fertile eggs can be used to hatch AI dinosaurs. Place fertile eggs into the egg slots on the right side of the nest window to hatch AI dinosaurs. The player egg slot of the nest is now locked until that feature becomes available at a later date.



Other Updates:

Due to performance reasons the game no longer uses DirectX 12 but uses DirectX 11 again. I'll try to use DirectX12 again in the future but for now there were performance problems that we don't need to deal with.

Now as you put more points into advancing a stat with experience points the experience cost goes up.

The multiplayer chat log now doubles as a system messages log that is also available during a single-player game.

The system messages log is now cleared when a new dinosaur is selected for play.

Upon starting the game, the camera is less likely to be zoomed into the ground.

Upon starting the game, main menu announcements are now hidden by default.

Deciduous and coniferous trees are now four times larger than previously.

Jungle trees are now two times larger than previously.

The smelling outline effect on dinosaurs has been improved.

Nests now have a highlight fill of brown. Your nest has a pink outline color. Other nests have a yellow outline color.

The player can now attack while the system log / chat window is open as long as they aren't typing into the input field.

Onchopristis and quetzalcoatlus now have three times more flesh.

Hatchlings do not drop items upon death.

The coniferous forest biome has been redone with all new trees, plants, and grass!

The jungle biome has been redone with all new trees, plants, and grass.

The beach biome has been redone with all new trees and plants.

The prairie biome has been redone and has all new plants and grass.

The deciduous forest has been redone and has all new trees, plants, and grass.

The desert biome has been redone and has all new plants.

The jungle biome has a new ground texture.

The deciduous forest has a new ground texture.

All of the stones have been replaced with new models.

There are some patches of terrain that are bare of plants and grass (and they shouldn't be). This will be fixed in the near future when I recreate the island terrain.

Dinosaur attacks are now synchronized during a multiplayer game.

During a multiplayer game experience can now be gained by killing someone else's dinosaur (ai and players).

Weather updates for clients after a client joins the server and the weather changes should now be working properly on those clients.

Dinosaurs should now be the correct size during a multiplayer game.

Networking code had to be custom written for sending and receiving data.

Players can only join a server if their game version matches the server's game version. You won't even see a server listed on the server list unless your game version matches their game version.

When creating a server you can now add a server description that is displayed next to the server in the server list.

When creating a server, an optional server welcome message is able to be entered. This message is displayed to all users that connect to the server.

When joining a server, if you are not on the server's map you will be switched to the server's map.

All players now connect to the US region and host servers through it. This way everyone can see everyone else's servers.

Dinosaur AI and players now have basic data synchronized across the network. (Position, rotation, size)

Dinosaur AI and players now have their animations synchronized across the network.

During a multiplayer game the first player to come within range of an AI dinosaur will activate it and it will be processed on their computer as if they were playing a single-player game. Processing will halt when the dinosaur goes out of range and then another player can start processing it when they come in range of it. This could potentially lighten the load of processing that the server needs to do, which could potentially allow more players to join a server.



Switching maps is now disabled while in a multiplayer game.

Resetting a map is now disabled while in a multiplayer game.

The 'Singleplayer' main menu button becomes the 'Play' button when in a multiplayer game.

The 'Multiplayer' main menu button becomes the 'Server' button when in a multiplayer game.

The chat input field and chat log are now 75% of their previous width.

The mouse cursor will now show when the chat window pops up and will hide when the chat window disappears if no other user interface is open.

While typing in the chat input box you will no longer send commands to your dinosaur. (Walking, eating, roaring, etc.) Left-clicking to attack still works while typing in the chat input box because clicking on the screen takes focus away from the chat input box. (Unless you click on the chat input box)

Selecting an already selected server from the server list will now deselect it.


Terrestrial dinosaurs and aerial dinosaurs were mixed together in a spawn group and there could be a random amount of either of them, up to 400 in total. Now aerial dinosaurs have their own spawn group.

Up to 300 terrestrial dinosaurs can be spawned at once. (Down from 400)

Up to 25 amphibious dinosaurs can be spawned at once. (Same as before)

Up to 300 aquatic dinosaurs can be spawned at once. (Up from 200)

Up to 50 aerial dinosaurs can be spawned at once. (new)

Quetzalcoatlus now has five times more flesh.


Will Dodson created a new music track for the prairie biome!



Fixed player size not being correct for other players.

Fixed the new multiplayer UI not scaling properly with different screen resolutions.

I've begun the process of adding multiplayer functionality to the game.

Players of the full version of the game can create or join a server and then chat with other server members while they play the game in single-player mode.

Members of a server will be notified when a player joins or leaves the server.

Foggy weather is more likely to occur on maps other than the desert map.

It no longer rains on the desert map.