Prehistoric Kingdom News

Welcome to June’s development update!

We’re back again with another monthly development blog post. The team’s eagerly been working on more behind the scenes planning and content in preparation for a certain convention in the US, so perhaps it’s time to reveal more about it. Tune in below, park builders!







After using our previous logo design for almost five years, we felt it was time to update the game’s identity and bring it closer to modern zoos with a simpler, more readable aesthetic. Showcasing our new iconographic sauropod, Crowny, she’s quickly become a fan favourite on our Discord server.

This logo will be present in all future media (both in-game and promotional), so with in-game environments taking on an inviting and colorful aesthetic, the updated logo better compliments the extended periods of relaxed park building gameplay amongst the island’s atmosphere and cheery music.





Thanks to our lovely friends at Crytivo, Prehistoric Kingdom is heading to PAX West this August!

Featuring a small playable build of the current game at Crytivo’s booth, attendees will be able to snag some physical goodies and meet our very own animal texture artist, Cindy! Tickets are running out quick so make sure to grab them while you still can!



To keep it brief, we finally fixed our issues with Unity and are now continuing to prepare our show floor demo for PAX. Please understand that all of our focus will be on PAX itself, so upcoming devlogs may not feature animation reels and lengthy content reports. Without our supporters and Crytivo, we wouldn’t be able to take on such massive conventions and we’re extremely grateful to receive offers like this because of that.

Not a whole lot has changed since last month from our milestone chart so we won’t show an updated graphic due to redundancy. However, basic animal AI is currently getting worked on, so please look forward to some early tests of the creatures walking around soon!





The continued implementation of animals in-engine was furthered with the introduction of basic animal selection, animation states, sound cues and particle effects!

Below is a quick test for a key behavior many of our animals are going to display – broadcasting. This is going to be employed as an effective warning/alert call, usually by the alpha member of a group. Bear in mind the effects and sounds are still WIP, and will be replaced with time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuVr1Uy3onw

This month we have started laying the ground work for animal locomotion – making sure AI navigation is not only realistic in the way it chooses its walking paths, but also looks good doing so. In order to be able to accomplish that, we have started looking into Inverse Kinematics systems (IKs for short) for our animals’ limbs, which should considerably reduce jitter while walking and running. While these developments aren’t ready to be showcased yet, you can be sure we’ll show more in the following months, as the AI and pathing progress.

Preparing not only for the PAX preview, but also for the first pre-alpha build, we started implementing some of the animals you’ll be able to play with. Here’s a preview of just 3 of them:





This month saw the reveal of four brand new species spotlights featuring unique habitat specifications. From the woodland dwelling Bos to the tight family packs of Yutyrannus – which one is your favourite?







Due to this month’s heavy workload when it comes to engine work and animation, we weren’t able to put much focus on map creation. Even so, we have readied all the assets needed for the 7th climate of Prehistoric Kingdom, the Temperate Oceanic climate. As one of the game’s most ancient looking climates, its foliage includes classic staples such as the towering redwoods and ground-dwelling ferns. Even the mightiest of sauropods are dwarfed beneath these trees!



Placed together, these vegetation assets make for great scenic environments, fit for the majority of your prehistoric exhibit needs!





Animation galore! We’ve got two brand new previews to show off this month featuring our slow rocky friend and a slightly more hairy critter. As with all of our animation showcases not every animation is shown so please don’t be alarmed to see things missing; they’ll definitely be there!

Kicking off with the promised preview from May’s DevLog, Mau finished up our Ankylosaur rig! Decorated with shoulder spikes and bony osteoderms, Sauropelta’s defensive nature allows it to ward off oncoming threats. Adapted to its heavy and tank-like build, this nodosaur is a formidable foe to any hungry carnivore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJ7Fsfu784

Through June, Nathan got to work on the elephant rig using a variety of real-world references. Arguably the most well-known of the ice age creatures, Mammuthus primigenius or the Woolly Mammoth, is a true titan of the Pleistocene epoch. Featuring sturdy tusks and an elegant trunk, this is one five star attraction that time didn’t leave behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_SZN7PEX-M





Proceeding with the feathers and hair overhaul, the Bos received a huge update to its anatomy to provide a correct restoration of the animal. In addition to the long-horned bison, the Mammuthus received some new shampoo and conditioner to tidy up the various body to alpha transitions and present a much nicer look!





Building across various islands around the world, it’s expected to come across some unfavourable conditions. Weather pushes the player to prepare for their environment by affecting the way the park responds due to changes in animal and guest behaviours.



Each island comes equipped with its own unique set of dynamic weather conditions. Naturally, normal weather events aren’t particularly damaging to the park but can alter the effectiveness of resource production, which plays into park management and layout e.g. solar panels are better suited to long sunny days than rain or fog. At the same time, wind turbines function better under windy conditions.





At launch, two natural disasters will be available: hurricanes and blizzards. These two events are all around pretty similar, but because they are based on varying temperature, they diverge the most when it comes to visuals. Regardless, these disasters pose a great threat for your park as they render it more inhospitable, scaring animals, exponentially slowing transportation, and putting power production to a halt.

Later on, we plan to expand our disaster roster across maps, with 2 new disasters: tornadoes and earthquakes. Once again, these are map specific (as there can only be one disaster type for each map). While shorter in duration than hurricanes and blizzards, these two extreme cataclysms have the opportunity to be more destructive, as they directly affect your buildings and fences.


Note that until the latter 2 disaster make it into the game, the existing maps are gonna use the first 2 disasters.



Reading this, you are probably left wondering: “What can I do to prevent my dear Scruffy Rex from being obliterated by a tornado?” While we want to fill the player with a sense of urgency during these events, we don’t want to render them as complete deal breakers, given the proper insight and preparation. We plan to include researchable items that can upgrade buildings, services and animals alike to shield them from especially bad weather. At the same time, smart park layout can be employed, assuring a constant input of energy by placing varying power options.

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Thank you for reading June’s Devlog!

Like mentioned above, July and August are going to be incredibly busy months for us as a team, as we have to prepare what is perhaps going to be the first playable version of the game, for a larger public. We might not as be as consistent with updates, but that shouldn’t take away from summer’s excitement! Until next time!

– The PK Team

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Welcome to May’s development update!

Featuring new content and previews for what’s currently in the pipeline, the team has prepared a variety of goodies to sink your ravenous teeth into. There’s much to come in the next few months, so let’s get straight into the discussion.



May brought a new host of exciting opportunities and development obstacles to overcome. Due to asset limitations of the Unity engine, we had to delegate time to finding solutions before being able to create new development builds. This was unfortunately a large and unforeseen issue, so efforts had to go into figuring that out if we wanted to be able to play the game outside of the engine.

Apart from looking into our main issue above, the crew’s had their own oddities and life to attend to during the month which is to be expected. We’re set to begin working on something pretty cool that’ll come to fruition in a few months, so we hope you’re looking forward to seeing that. There’s a lot of big things coming up and the team couldn’t be more excited!







Placed right in the middle of the temperature scale, the temperate continental island offers a generous amount of flat terrain around its centralized mountain range. With accents of color dotted around the map thanks to the native foliage of the climate – what better place to build your Prehistoric Kingdom?





During May we got started on basic visitor implementation ahead of the Management schedule for reasons we’ll reveal at a later date (wow, secrets!).

As a way to bring diversity and life to a park’s guest population, the randomization system is working extremely well to produce various results from an assortment of age demographics, body weight, height, ethnicities, and clothing options. Since this is our first pass on guests in the game, please understand that they’re very much a work in progress and aren’t completely representative of how they’ll look further in development.



In a few months we’ll start the next step of giving visitors basic AI navigation before they inevitably get their own needs during Pre-Alpha 2.



Big fidelity improvements were brought to animals this month with the development of a new animal shader. Scaly or feathered; this is the best the creatures of Prehistoric Kingdom have ever looked in-game.



Beyond the expected visual improvements, new support has been added for body wetness, reflective eyes, body translucency, and more.



Random skin colouring makes a return from the demo with individuals possessing variation in the darkness of their body when compared to other members of their species! This simple feature allows large herds of creatures to feel more individualised and helps to break up the monotony (in addition to random sizes between fully-grown creatures).



Over time we plan to add new features to the shader such as disease overlays, damage wounds, and battle scars.



Another month, another species spotlight! Showcasing the diversity of our climates, each animal has their own unique exhibit personality and requirements to meet.







Holding many familiar trees found all across the world, temperate continental includes common foliage such as bamboo, magnolias, oaks, and willow trees.



We can’t wait to see what parks and paddocks players create with these contemporary staples!



Although not initially planned (what were we thinking?!), we’ve added hedges to the game with two variants: tall and short.



Along with the green trimmings above, Nathan built two more asset variants for creative players to make use of: the rope fence!





During May, we weren’t able to get the Ankylosaur rig finished in time for this blog post. To put it simply, we were unable to complete the animation reel due to the time we’ve spent trying to fix the Unity asset bundle problems and complete additional work on other parts of the game. Instead of delivering a rushed and unpolished rig preview, we’ll be revealing the animation reel featuring Sauropelta during June.

Until then, thank you for understanding and we hope you look forward to having two animation reels next month!





In addition to developing new sounds for the Sauropelta, Byron began work on a new ambient piece! You can listen to a short excerpt of the work in progress below:

https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/preview-ambient-05

Since our posts leave little room for surprises in the final game, we’ve decided to keep future music track reveals to previews only. There’s a lot of content going into Prehistoric Kingdom, so we’d like to at least keep some of it a surprise!





Continuing the trend set by other feathered creatures like the Yutyrannus and Guanlong, Cindy revamped the textures for Thescelosaurus and Nothronychus! These herbivorous dinosaurs are appropriately fluffy and look far better than their original counterparts.





As a reward for providing proper care towards your prehistoric creatures, animals can be awarded with additional star ratings! More popular and attractive to guests, prestige is hard to attain but can be highly rewarding.



Prestige is earned by successfully keeping a creature’s mood above 90% for an extended period of gameplay.

Acting as a passive background reward, each additional star will multiply an animal’s popularity with guests and in turn help contribute more to your overall park rating. By introducing prestige, it allows early game animals such as Dryosaurus and Psittacosaurus to not become totally redundant with time as long as they’re highly satisfied with their conditions.



To qualify for prestige stars, the player must ensure that the animal has a high exhibit satisfaction and that all needs have been met. If these two conditions are reached, the animal will begin the gradual process of earning an additional five stars over time.



Every animal has its own internal stats behind the scenes that we use to fine-tune its effectiveness in the park, so no, a five star Coelophysis will not have equal worth to a five star Tyrannosaurus.



On the flipside, prehistoric attractions can lose their star rating at the hands of poor management. In the event of… “visitor casualties,” the critter responsible for killing a guest will immediately accumulate negative prestige – reducing the number of guests that actively view the paddock containing the animal.



The longer an animal is left ill with disease or escaped from their exhibit, all additional stars will begin to disappear entirely. Some diseases and weather conditions are prone to freaking out dinosaurs and mammals alike, so be sure to research vaccines and check the weather forecast!

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If you would like to check out our previous blogs, you can head to the official one here!

Welcome to April’s development update!

We’re back with another DevLog showcase to discuss recent ongoings and everything that the team’s been up to! Without further delay, let’s get right into it.



Contrary to other months, April was mainly spent working behind the scenes on necessary parts of the game such as automatically setting visual quality on initial startup and ensuring that things like terraforming work as intended in the built game. Whilst we started adding the backend support for animals, the team also got their hands on a fresh new development build!

For this reason, we partly focused on documenting potential quality of life improvements from our internal testing to minimise issues early on. From here on, we assessed the next focus areas of development to bring new usability improvements to the game.







Whilst not as hot as last month’s island, the team thinks our next map is pretty cool! Packed with trees and exceptionally long in its terrain, the boreal environment is the second coldest climate in the game.



From the towering peaks to the flat, gravel-filled shorelines, this map allows for a variety of ways to build your park on its sloped, diverse terrain.



Working alongside Byron to implement one of the most important pieces of UI in the game, Mau painstakingly developed the Nursery during April. With a fresh look and visual-functionality that completely blows the demo’s design out of the water, this is by far the most complex menu currently implemented in the game due to all of its functions under the hood.



When an animal is selected we showcase an animated 3D model that corresponds to the skin that’s been chosen for the creature (yes, you can still spin it around!). This area in particular has become far more visual than the demo and is something we’re quite proud of.



Adding new animals and their skins to the Nursery is a breeze thanks to the dynamic nature of Mau’s system. Climates, habitat statistics, and skins are easily defined while all animals can be sorted into five specific filtering options; clade, climate, period, diet and rating! If you’re extra stuck or want to get specific, we’ve included a search bar at the top to find exactly what you’re looking for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGD3TgbAU_Q



In regards to animal growth, the new ontogeny system is roughly halfway done. This time we’re taking performance into account to try and reduce issues from the demo such as distance “popping” when moving away from a creature.



The new system allows us to set growth and size changes across animals and skins, meaning that alt. species can have a different physical appearance and drastic changes to sizing.



On the technical side of the game, our best boy Matt has been working hard polishing and reworking aspects of the game to improve both performance and the visual fidelity.

To achieve this we’ve began implementing impostors for many of our high poly in-game objects. Unlike traditional billboards, impostors use a series of images from multiple angles in order to create the illusion of a 3D model. It looks great, runs great, and becomes virtually indistinguishable from actual geometry at a certain distance. Don’t believe us? Check out our “hotels” in the video below!



(high quality version: https://gfycat.com/oddoccasionalirishwolfhound )

This technique carries over into the foliage, too! Distant trees will always appear full and fluffy in order to provide players with constant eye candy; no more weird shadows and shading!



The game’s grass received some love for the first time in a while! This newer iteration offers neat visualization for grass height blending between climates along with smooth transitions to other textures like sand, dirt and rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un5SNx4X4zQ

In addition to all of the above, certain buildings requiring the water’s edge will snap directly to the shoreline when placing them.



(high quality version: https://gfycat.com/poorevergreenhyena )



The team spent a lot of time with the game in April: building, creating and trying to find trouble spots within what we have so far. Thankfully for us, it’s going well! With some requests and changes from developers noted, we all greatly enjoyed building basic parks across the four Early Access maps.



Created by Mau.



Created by Nathan.



April flew by as we revealed another four of our creatures’ requirements. Including our first few tropical wet and dry animals as well as the showing of our first in-game feathered creature, we hope you enjoy this month’s species spotlights.







Beneath the peaks of our snowy mountains sit a variety of pines and bushes – the classic selection of a colder boreal environment.





Over the past few months we’ve been adding brand new climates with relative ease; so much so that we’ve changed our minds! With the original four climates now finished, the team is happy to announce that all eight climates will be coming to Prehistoric Kingdom at launch!

It’s important to understand that this change will not increase development time beyond our internal schedule. The addition of four new climates has very little impact on our workload and would open up even greater design opportunities for our players.



Now including 8 islands, 32 paintable terrain textures, and 64 unique plants at release, we’re sure that there’s enough here to satiate your creative desires.



Like other buildings from past DevLogs, the Gift Shop got a quality enhancement to its model and textures.





During April, Nathan prepared the Small Ornithischian rig for a highly adorable … cactus… thing.

Measuring in at just over 2.5 meters, Prenocephale is one of the smallest creatures found within the roster. With a uniquely fruit-filled diet, this prickly dinosaur is equipped with a signature dome-shaped skull.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k03kmv5HMjs





Apart from adding alarm and broadcast calls to the original Prenocephale soundset, Byron remixed the game’s audio levels to achieve a better sound balance. Everything’s far more accurate to where it should be and we’re glad to have done this early on before introducing even more audio files.



Chicken Mimics is a new animal introduction track that’s used for a variety of small-medium herbivorous dinosaurs. Creatures like the Prenocephale and Psittacosaurus will use the light version of the music (heard in this animation reel), whilst larger animals will get the full mix.

https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/chicken-mimics-herbivore-theme





Over this past month, Cindy was tasked with altering our feathered animals with a new technique in order to get even better results. We’re incredibly happy with how these new iterations have come out and we’re sure that you’ll agree. With some proper fluff and feathering, take a look at Guanlong wucaii and Yutyrannus huali!



For anyone who’s played our old demo, you’re probably familiar with the “gorgeous” Dryosaurus. Like other old critters, Mau’s given our long-legged friend an adjusted model and brand new designs based off the older skins. Thanks to Cindy’s handy work, the team is delighted to reveal our revamped Dryosaurus altus.



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Thank you for reading April’s Devlog!

This has been an incredibly fulfilling month, bringing every system a step closer to being finished. In the upcoming months we are going to look into implementing the first animals in the game, and getting some basic AI going! Exciting stuff!

– The PK Team

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If you would like to check out our previous blogs, you can head to the official one here!

Welcome to March’s development update!

The Prehistoric Kingdom team have been working consistently this past month to continue making our game the best it can be. With some revitalised energy, let’s get into one of the chunkiest updates yet.



March was a great month of consistent work that ultimately allowed us to make fantastic strides with implementing new assets, improve visual fidelity and tidy up the existing systems.

At this point in the time, we’re working on getting fences and terraforming (water/tree painting) completely polished. Ensuring that the process of building exhibits is a great user experience is one of our biggest priorities for the project.

Over the coming weeks, Matt will be developing advanced path and monorail systems while Mau adds in functionality for the Nursery in addition to a pretty new main menu. Once everything regarding creation itself is out of the way, we’ll be moving onto the animals in order to get them moving, roaring and needing!







We don’t like to gloat, but the next map is pretty hot. Roughly half the size of Tropical Wet, our Semi-Arid island is currently the smallest map in Prehistoric Kingdom. Despite this, there’s still a lot of space to build freely! We’re sure that players who enjoy a challenge will find the more limited size appealing to work around, not to mention the sunsets are gorgeous.





Moving onto further functionality, Matt polished up the vegetation painting so that it works across all climates and feels great to work with.



As a base, each climate comes standard with 8 types of paintable vegetation that can be individually placed or grouped together to quickly paint a large forest. It’s super easy to use and the ability to change brush intensity for placement and removal makes perfecting your landscapes just that little bit easier.

https://youtu.be/R0EojkEQzvw



Much to the delight of our Baryonyx and wetland lovers everywhere, water painting is here! Equipped with fidelity and three paintable types of water in addition to editable depth; what’s not to love?



The addition of water painting opens up an entirely new realm of creative possibilities for exhibit design that we cannot wait to see played with by the community. Keep in mind that it’s a work in progress, but to “wet” your appetite, here’s a little preview:

https://youtu.be/k1OV7IjRRLA



After getting pushed back for a while due to more important programming matters, selection and demolition finally progressed further towards their completion. While removing fences and paths will come once they’re finished, Mau’s gotten buildings to function as intended.

https://youtu.be/s2NUTmP0nAw



Throughout March, we continued to tweak and refine various parts of the game’s visual fidelity. As you can see in the comparison between now and last month, we’ve made great strides in improving the shadows, foliage rendering and terrain shader!





With the combined efforts of Nathan’s modelling, Mau’s programming and Byron’s sound design, the Shipping Harbor is in the game! This is by far the largest building in Prehistoric Kingdom and rightfully one of the most detailed.

You can preview the cargo unloading effect below, currently just a simple visual effect that is eventually going to be linked up to shipping management mechanics.

https://youtu.be/WfvYg3lEKoA

For additional detailing, Nathan’s buildings and plant pots received their various shrubs, bushes and trees from selection of our climates so far. Although slight, the greenery amongst the structures is a definite welcome.





If you’re already following us on Facebook, Twitter, or Discord, you’ll be familiar with our recent species spotlights that are released once every Thursday (EST).

These infographics feature the animals inside their respective climate alongside the in-game environmental needs of the presented species. With four down and another forty-six to go, please enjoy this menagerie of some of our Semi-Arid and Mediterranean creatures!







With the implementation of feeders in the game, Nathan has whipped up some new habitation assets that’ll certainly be of interest to all players. If there’s one thing that you won’t run out of, it’s fences!



Basic yet durable, the wooden chain link fence is a staple of any park tycoon’s first exhibits. Although suitable for quite a few creatures, we recommend upgrading along the way.



The concrete wall is a great tool for designing private exhibits and fleshing out your general park environment with alleys and walls. Including a glass panel variant, this wall is great for more skittish creatures, however its skinny nature might prove difficult in containing larger behemoths.



With three different texture variants (brick, sandstone, cobblestone), the stone wall is a thick and sturdy ally for a secure park builder. As a bonus perk, we’ve found it to perfectly suit our semi-arid island.



A classic staple of any modern zoo, the electric steel pole fence is perfect for containing medium and large animals due to its electrified cables.



Although animals can drink from painted water in their exhibits, the small water dish and artificial watering holes are ideal for small enclosure designs and a necessity for creatures that aren’t too fond of having water in their paddocks.



As the second of a few vehicles coming to Prehistoric Kingdom, the Ranger Chopper is essential in tracking down and subduing escaped creatures.



During March, Mau worked on animating the tall sauropod rig. Due to its colossal size, it was important to capture the sheer weight and enormity of these creatures.

As a true titan of the Jurassic, Brachiosaurus is one of the largest animals in Prehistoric Kingdom. With a neck that cranes along the tallest trees, this is truly a five star specimen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=froV0uFdt6Q



In terms of sound design, Byron primarily worked with Mau to integrate new sound effects and variations for both the demolition system and vegetation placement. Since the demo, we’ve developed a heavy emphasis on including feedback and interaction sounds for the player’s input and interaction with the world.



In addition to more feedback sounds, we began implementing ambience for all maps and climates. Thanks to a lot of nifty programming from Matt, the game is able to recognize dense foliage and play the forest sound of a painted climate if it’s thick enough! Areas close to the ocean will of course sound like an ocean (now with 100% less seagulls) and a flat prairie will sound as expected.

https://youtu.be/ESGp5gE9bQw



Presenting the player to the creatures of Prehistoric Kingdom, Creation was written specifically for the animal selection menu that appears right before entering the island in challenge mode. What kind of park will you create? The choice is yours.

https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/creation





Cindy painted up a handful of the last new skins for our more toothy bestiary; theropods! There’s some still additional creatures to go after this month, but please enjoy Ceratosaurus nasicornis, Carnotaurus sastrei and Acrocanthosaurus atokensis.



In addition to its larger cousins, Dilophosaurus received a much needed update to its default skin and model!





Home to most of Prehistoric Kingdom’s bestiary, North America holds a total of 31 different creatures (including alt. species). From terrible tyrants to longhorn bison, this continent is the go-to place for dinosaurs and mammals.





Since we’ve last spoke about animal habitation and enclosures, quite a lot has changed! Whilst everything here can be disabled in sandbox, it’s important to consider the environmental conditions of a given species within Challenge mode.





To begin, every component of animal habitation makes up an individual’s total exhibit satisfaction. By doing this we can ensure that purposely ignoring something like foliage density for the sake of paddock design will not cause an animal to rampage by itself but will contribute to lowering the mood of the creature.





Every animal species has its own minimum recommended paddock size. Within the UI, players can also see the enclosure’s population – a percentage that fills up as creatures of different sizes are added into the paddock. If the player exceeds 100%, the exhibit will be deemed too small and its inhabitants will try to escape to find more space given enough time.



Foliage and water density allows us to better represent an animal’s unique environment or living conditions despite sharing its climate with the modern world. From a gameplay perspective, it’s the difference between a swampy mediterranean for Baryonyx and the drier, coastal mediterranean of Plateosaurus. As developers it allows us to present a unique challenge to players for every creature whilst still offering creative flexibility in designing the paddock.

Within the context of the game, an exhibit’s foliage and water density will always be calculated in direct relation to the size of the paddock; something that’s visible to players while terraforming.





The social group of an animal corresponds directly to its own species, nothing else within the paddock. If an enclosure is larger than its base value, the social group tolerance of a species will scale alongside it to compensate – meaning that groups will retain their original herd size regardless of exhibit space.



Juveniles/offspring are not included in the social group until they reach sexual maturity or need to counted in order to satisfy the group needs of a lone adult.



To calculate privacy, an exhibit accounts for the fence types used and any attractions that may be placed in, alongside, or through the paddock. If a player builds their enclosure with a highly visible fence and includes an attraction such as a safari tour, they’ll need to satisfy the independent privacy value of an animal with sufficient shelter coverage, better fencing or intelligent attraction placement.



Placing an elevated path over a paddock will also lower the privacy within an exhibit.



If an animal’s security recommendation is less than or equal to a fence’s security value, it’ll be able to escape the paddock when rampaging or stressed. Always consider the materials you’re building with to ensure the safety of your park.



Thermal Modulators are a minimalist range-based enrichment object that can be placed to raise or lower a paddock’s temperature to better match the preferred climate of any creatures within the enclosure. By default, an exhibit’s temperature is set by the climate of the map the player uses, meaning that the more extreme a map is the more challenging it’ll become to maintain upkeep from Thermal Modulators.

Animals are able to live within a temperature range from their preferred climate that’s visualised by a thermal falloff in the UI.



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Thank you for reading March’s Devlog!

We all worked incredibly hard this month, but there’s no time to rest: we look forward to polishing existing features throughout April, as well as adding ulterior functionality to paths and monorails. Stay tuned!

– The PK Team

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If you would like to check out our previous blogs, you can head to the official one here!

Welcome to February’s development update!

While this devlog isn’t as gameplay-filled as last month’s, we still have a lot of in-game goodies to keep everyone hooked! Ready to dig in?



February saw the celebration of Prehistoric Kingdom’s 5th birthday anniversary; something that seemingly came out of nowhere!



The team and project alike have changed greatly since its inception in 2014, altering and evolving to get us to our current goals and work environment. The love and support of our fans, backers and oldest prehistoric veterans means a lot to us, so thank you for sticking with us along the way.

Behind the scenes we’ve mainly been working on polishing up currently implemented features and continuing to improve the user experience but of course there’s always more to that!







Since finalizing most of our Tropical Wet island, Mau started work on the next climate; Mediterranean!

This time around there’s dozens of tiny archipelagos to the north of the island, with sloping hills and flat terrain across the main surface. With a few buildings placed around the park it’s easy to see how much building space there is!



Once we get the game into your hands, our Greek archipelago is sure to lend itself to some creative monorail tracks and park layouts!





Seeing a bit of development love from our coding wizard Matt, the path system is currently in its early days. There’s still much to do in the way of polishing and making them look nicer with borders, however, it’s a good start!



Like we did last month for the terraforming and fences, we’ll be sharing a demonstration video once we’ve made them nicer to use. Stay tuned!



Much to our composer’s delight, ambient tracks will now morph between full or light versions of a given piece depending on the time of day. Thanks, Mau!

https://youtu.be/wxGVclkCheA

Due to the length of month cycles and music frequency in testing, we’ve had some amazing sunrises accompanied by our own swelling orchestra. Since this system is so flexible, we plan to give the same functionality to animal introductions and breakout music.





Although there weren’t a whole lot of new structures this month, our shipping harbour got a total makeover to better suit the quality of recent buildings using Nathan’s excellent workflow techniques. Cleaner and sharper than ever, we’re greatly looking forward to creating its in-game animations and UI!



The Visitor Dock received some extra love with higher quality textures, more detail and an adjusted mesh that now includes lights and benches!





Since the release of SpeedTree 8 we’ve been able to get a hold of some excellent tropical and mediterranean foliage assets to populate our islands with. Big palms, little palms – we got ‘em!

Tropical Wet Foliage



Mediterranean Foliage



Some climates like the Tropical Wet will naturally include ferns on their grass surfaces to better match their real world counterparts and get auto-generated when terrain painting with the right texture.



Like last month, Mau and Nathan both worked in unison to successfully create the animations for the dromaeosaur rig. With its intimidating size and large sickle claws, Utahraptor has quickly become one of the most fascinating species in the animal roster.

Cunning and full of bird-like influence, we hope you enjoy February’s animation reel!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP7h6e3XwCY



In the sound department, Byron’s been working on brand new sounds for our Utahraptor in addition to new tracks for various parts of the game. Across all title pieces, ambient tracks and event cues, the game is going to have quite a bit of music!



Straight from our last animation video, Chaos Theory is a new track that will play (and loop) during an animal breakout! Loaded with percussion and some feisty brass, your guests will be running in no time.

https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/chaos-theory

Bronto Burgers is another of our bespoke looping pieces written specifically for a building in the park. As the title suggests, this funky food theme can be heard from Fast Food Kiosks while they’re active.

https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/bronto-burgers-extra





Before jumping into the last handful of theropods and oddities, Cindy prepared the remaining alt skins for our defensive Thyreophorans; Miragaia longicollum, Edmontonia rugosidensis, Sauropelta edwardsorum and Ankylosaurus magniventris.



In addition to the thyreophorans, Utahraptor received its final skin from September’s DevLog!





With the second largest number of dig sites available on a single continent in Early Access, Asia features a diverse range of extinct fauna from the Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Quaternary.





The inbox is where you’ll find all your incoming messages from the outside world and get a monthly summary of how your park’s operating.



Offers make a return from tycoons of the past as a way for players to complete optional objectives and earn rewards for their accomplishments.

Organisations, museums and other eager entities may approach your park with requests to see certain animals or different objectives completed in order to present the player with a variety of benefits like money, science points and even positive park reputation.



Some excavation teams and museums can even offer their excess findings in favour of adding living, breathing specimens to the park!





Once a dig team has finished, their findings from an active site will be sent to the player’s inbox.





In addition to an on-screen popup, the park rating recap shows all new unlocks and available research.



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Thank you for reading February’s Devlog!

March will oversee the near completion of one of the first large builds of the game, one we’re gonna make sure to showcase as soon as it becomes available.

– The PK Team

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If you would like to check out our past blog posts, you can head to the official one here!