Welcome to December’s Development Update!

We hope everyone has had a happy holiday season and a safe New Years. Despite the current conditions, we did our best to push through 2020 as a small studio with the support of our publisher Crytivo, our dedicated development team and of course our fans.

We’ve changed a lot over the past 12 months, so it’s time to take a look at the past, present and future.



Part of our tasks in December involved rewriting the camera to provide greater flexibility when working with modular builds. Instead of simply following the terrain, it now adapts the central orbit point to wherever you’re looking once the camera stops moving. By making these changes and adding a togglable perspective mode, players can finally look upward and more easily navigate their parks.

On a different note, our sound implementation pipeline has moved into full swing with the addition of custom audio database tools. Implementing sound for the Microraptor and Edmontosaurus has proven to be a relatively simple task thanks to FMOD, providing our sound designer and composer Byron enough flexibility to implement dozens of audio events without a difficult workflow. We’ll be continuing to expand and improve our sound assets, so stay on the lookout for showcases soon.




It’s time to take a look at the tiniest of enclosures! In case you’ve missed it, Mini-Exhibits are prebuilt structures designed to hold specialized animals that otherwise wouldn’t be able to navigate a regular paddock.



Much like regular animals, Mini-Exhibit species have welfare needs. This means you’ll have to keep their food stocked up and their habitats climatized!



Habitat welfare can be further improved by adding enrichment items like the Avian House and Avian Feeding Tower! These actually provide your Microraptors with new positions and animations inside the Mini-Exhibit, making them more than simple decorations.



For our creatively driven players, we understand the desire to add your own personal flourishes to a Mini-Exhibit.

When first placed, the aviary is completely empty, leaving just the basic trees inside. Obviously the animals wouldn’t be too happy about this, but it’s a great starting point for creations in sandbox mode with welfare disabled.

Inside the building’s interface there are three environmental options available: tropical rainforest, coastal desert and temperate forest. Different species prefer one environment over another, influencing their welfare based on the current choice.





Players who wish to build their own housing can set the Mini-Aviary to a hidden state, hiding the exterior shell. In the same menu, colors for custom lighting can be adjusted, too!




As mentioned in our livestream last October, we’ve made changes to the design of our progression systems. Though these mechanics won’t be implemented until a later date, here are some details regarding fossil formations and a unique currency.

Science Points are a resource earned from exhibits or by breeding new animals. These points can be spent exclusively on Research items or Excavations. By creating a second currency used for progression, it allows us to better reward players for creating and managing their parks effectively rather than simply stacking on the cash.

To get some new species for our park we need to visit the Excavations menu. Excavations take place in fossil formations around the world, granting access to a diverse range of extinct animals.

From this map we can unlock dig sites with money as long as we’ve met the required park rating. The tooltip panel shows your total progress in a given formation, while a dietary icon provides more context to players who aren’t familiar with an animal’s name.


UI Concept Art

With a dig site unlocked, players are able to instantly purchase any animal with Science Points - no additional waiting required.

The more you purchase genetic skins from a single species, the cheaper they’ll become, incentivising players to fully complete a formation. This is for good reason, however, as skin diversity is an important factor in creating a five star park!


UI Concept Art

Some animals like the Edmontosaurus or Tyrannosaurus have alternate species scattered around the world, so we suggest having a good look around to maximize guest satisfaction.

As this new system emphasizes player agency, we will no longer lump formations nor include a randomized fossil market. By removing some of the RNG and wait timers present in past titles we hope to focus on player-driven progression and keep the experience of expanding your park fresh.

Scrubland, temperate and wetland received a handful of flora each in December. Though they’re not scheduled for full completion quite yet, we wanted to get a few representatives into scrubland and temperate to complete the Mini-Aviary. Here’s a quick snapshot of how the biomes are progressing!






Between entirely new plant species are improvements to older ones that could have been made more efficiently for better visuals and performance. This is especially prevalent in the new coconut palms - losing their cartoony look for something more within the realm of realism.

The tropical biome received its aforementioned palms, samanea and scaevola, while the coastal biome got new tree ferns and scots pines.




It’s fluffy, but it’s not a mammal! This is P. perotorum, our highly speculative alt species for Pachyrhinosaurus.




Though this isn’t likely to have occurred in the real world, it’s a very unique look that was too cool to pass up. It’s not every day you see a relative of Triceratops decorated in a fluffy overcoat!



2020 was a lot for everyone. In a very difficult year, our team has managed to grow into a family of 15 members. Edson, Max, Elizabeth, Seth, Siaka and now our newest member, Lindsay, each bring something new to the table.

Changing from Shadow Raven Studios to Blue Meridian, we have continued to strive for something greater. Working and collaborating with Nigel Marven was an absolute dream for us and we’re looking to keep developing that relationship. The sheer amount of new fans and wishlists we see everyday continues to blow our minds as we work on our passion project with your support. It means a lot to us, and we can only hope to push it forwards in 2021. Together.

Preparing to ship our first title in a few months after so many iterations is a little scary, but we know you’ll be there on the other side giving us honest feedback to make a kickass game.



As of this development update, we’re aiming to release Alpha at the end of Q1 this year. Highest-tier backers and select testers will be able to get their hands on early versions of the build by February, with the closed Alpha release following soon thereafter.

In terms of our general release timeline, Beta is expected to happen in Q2 ahead of the game’s release into Early Access. Depending on community feedback during the Beta, we might choose to push things back by a few weeks so new players can get a more optimal experience, but that’s obviously not something we can say for certain yet. Until there’s more information, assume the end of Q2 for Early Access release.

Looking at Early Access launch features, the only thing that’s changed since we last spoke about it is the uncertainty of staff management. As developers we’d be more comfortable moving them to a dedicated content update where they’re the focus instead of a single barebones staff member at launch, but as always we’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

That’s all for now, but we’ll have more alpha and release information available in the next development update!

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Thank you for reading December’s devlog!

It was a hell of a year but we can’t wait to push onwards into 2021. We eagerly await feedback during our time in alpha and will work to add more content over the coming months.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to November’s Development Update!

In this blog post we’ll be delving into a brand new mechanic as well as showcasing a revamped dinosaur that many fans will recognize. We’ve tried to keep this one quite focused and streamlined which is something you’ll see more of closer to launch. Without further ado, let’s jump in!



At the forefront of development, quite a bit of work has been done on AI and power management (as we’ll discuss in a moment). In addition to those two items, support for theme styling and light recolouring has been added for buildings. This functionality was extended to the Mini-Aviary to allow for environmental preset switching.

Looking at the animation team, Max is very close to completing the core hadrosaur animation set. He’s been doing a fantastic job and we can’t wait show it off more. Likewise, Nathan’s made sure the Microraptor’s been receiving a variety of loops and unique animation to show off its adorable birb-like qualities!





Moving into new features, power management is mechanically complete! We’re still developing the visual side of it, so for today’s discussion we’ll be using concept mockups to show how it works.

Electricity (or power) is a resource generated by utility buildings like the Wind Turbine or the Industrial Power Station. Providing an electrical output via radius, any amenities or exhibits inside their range will consume power.

Once placed, the radius of a generator can be edited by the player, directly influencing the power output, failure rate, upkeep cost and range. Each generator has its own benefits and negatives, so the usage of multiple types is highly encouraged.



What makes this system unique, however, is that when multiple generators overlap their output is combined. For example, if two intersecting facilities have an output of 50 Power, they’ll create a conjoined area of 100!

The crux of our loop here is to find the most efficient placement for electricity in the park whilst maximising the output to ensure all nearby buildings are powered.



As mentioned above, generators have a random failure rate that can be reduced or increased by changing the radius. When failed, they must be manually rebooted by selecting the desired power station - gradually repairing itself after a short interval. Performing this action will also restart any failed generators nearby.

To help fight this, players can research upgrades to not only reduce the failure rate across the park, but automatically restart generators that have failed.



In your time of need there’s one thing every park manager requires: a Backup Battery! These objects provide temporary power to nearby buildings or paddocks in the event of an outage. Though they have no failure rate, batteries take time to recharge after usage before they’re ready to go again.



Placing batteries in key locations makes sure those troublesome dinosaurs won’t get a chance to escape electrified containment, no matter the circumstances.

Straight out of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, Pachyrhinosaurus and Edmontosaurus each feature a variety of alternate species to select from. In this particular digsite, players can find P. canadensis and E. regalis respectively.



With the available tools it’s exceptionally easy to create natural environments reminiscent of their ideal habitats. To promote this further, exhibits that house animals from the same formation or time period are granted a bonus multiplier that adds to the total Exhibit Score (something we’ll talk about at a later date!).





Keep your eyes peeled for more animal stuff next month, we hear it’s about to get cold!

Powering the park, the last three items pertaining to electrical management are here at last. The solar panel, wind turbine and backup-battery offer alternative solutions for a variety of scenarios.







Uncover the latest in fossilized fashion with the Clothing Store, an essential facility in your quest to become the ultimate capitalist empire. How quaint!



It wouldn’t be the start of the festive season without the 40-foot turkeys, though we’re not sure who’s eating who! This recent image depicts two Tyrannosaurus in a colder habitat, one resting and the other sleeping.



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Thank you for reading November’s devlog!

Though the year is coming to a close, we have one final update in December until our big 2021 starts. Stay posted, park managers! There’s so much to talk about as we get closer to release.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to October’s Development Update!

To all of our new fans or those who recently found the project - welcome. It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, so we’ll be recapping everything you might’ve missed in the months gone by.

A handful of our developers also took part in live streams during August and September with Crytivo, so be sure to check out the archive if you’re interested!



As keen-eyed fans may have noticed, Shadow Raven Studios has since been rebranded to Blue Meridian - the new and official name for our development studio. With an ever-expanding team and bigger aspirations, we felt that it was time for a new coat of paint that matched our ambitions.

On the developer side, our team continues to grow with the addition of a new animator, Max! Some of you may already be familiar with his work found over on Twitter and we couldn’t be more excited to keep the studio growing with fresh talent.


The art and audio members have had their hands full these past few months creating new buildings, the wetland biome, animals, animations, sounds and music for the game. You saw and heard the fruits of their labour in our latest trailer, showcasing the passion our team is putting into this project.

The programmers aren’t messing around, either! Fences, paths, animal AI, modular building and water rendering continued to receive further work whilst power management started development in the background. In terms of optimization, a flexible voice management system for audio was developed and integrated to ensure that the game sounds great and performs well in dense scenes.





An assortment of recolorable lights can be used to make your park more interesting at night! In this spooky Halloween environment, creative use of coloring can help change the mood of an area in an instant.



Though lamps and similar objects will only turn on at night by default, players can enable an option that forces them to stay lit regardless of the time.

What’s the point in building a zoo if you can’t spend hours detailing the park with gardens? Our art team’s got you covered with the addition of decorative tropical plants and world-space mulch shapes. These fancy items can be scaled without the issue of texture stretch, making them an ideal solution for all your flower bed needs!





Unlike regular flora, these vibrant plants are purely decorative, meaning they won’t contribute to an exhibit’s foliage density.

The wetland biome is home to many amazing creatures. Though there’s a few more trees to create before it’s done, plants like the amazonian giant lilies, small lily pads, mangroves, reeds and cypress already make any exhibit feel appropriately swampy.





Once the biome is complete a final overview image will be available in a later devlog !

All biomes were updated to make enhanced use of height-based texture blending to better mix and match various ground types in a realistic fashion.



Stacking textures on top of each other at a low intensity can create some very unique and interesting combinations, as seen above.

Get to know the buildings of Prehistoric Kingdom with Structure Showcases! Traditionally featuring one building per month, these spotlights provide a quick-look at new architecture from multiple angles.

First up was the Industrial Power Station! This key utility provides power for the park by contributing to the local power grid, allowing guest facilities, infrastructure and eletricified fences to keep the lights on.



Designed to meet the optimal needs for its specialized inhabitants, Mini-Exhibits bring a selection of tiny animals to the park. Beginning with the Microraptor, players are able to customize the environmental preset, temperature, lighting and material of its home inside the brand new Mini-Aviary.






It’s been a long time coming, but we finally revealed our release window and Early Access Announcement Trailer to the world. Arriving Q2 2021, get ready to build, manage and grow the ultimate zoo for extinct animals in Prehistoric Kingdom.



Thanks to our fantastic publisher Crytivo, we were given the opportunity to work with IGN as part of an exclusive first-look. We couldn’t have asked for a better reception and we are deeply humbled by the support we’ve been shown.

We know everyone’s hungry for more timeframes, so we’re pleased to announce that alpha will be available early next year to our eligible Kickstarter backers and Crytivo pre-purchasers. Over the next few months we’ll be discussing exactly what to expect and when to expect it as we get closer to its release.

For years, our fans have wished for a very specific person to be a part of Prehistoric Kingdom and that’s now becoming a reality.

We are incredibly honoured to have British wildlife television presenter Nigel Marven lend us his voice in our latest trailer. The reaction from the community has highlighted just how special this opportunity was and we can’t thank Nigel and his team enough for working with us. It’s a relationship we hope to continue growing, so this mightn’t be the last you hear from this beloved time trav- uh, park supervisor!

To begin, players will be able to breed and play with a selection of 22 adult species found on our brand new website, including the fabulous Deinocheirus, Nasutoceratops and Microraptor!



Refocusing the initial release roster was a choice made earlier in the year to find a consistent basis for quality and to ensure that we’re not stretching ourselves too thin when adding new behaviours and features like ontogeny via updates.

The team wanted to give a good summary of what to expect during our time in Early Access, so keep in mind that a small number of animals shown in the trailer may be reworked or swapped come Q2 2021. We have a fantastic catalogue of fan favourite creatures to work from, so rest assured that more species will be added back into the game over time.

Apart from the animals, players will be engaging with creative tools, management features and progression loops during their time in Prehistoric Kingdom.



Designs for management and progression mechanics have been locked down with implementation already started on a few core components like power management. Once those new features have spent enough time in the oven we’ll be sure to showcase them here in a future devlog.

During our time in Early Access we’ll be looking to build upon our foundations, adding new content such as breeding, growth, expanded behaviours and more.



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Thank you for reading October’s devlog!

With a release window out in the wild, we want our monthly dev updates to be focused and digestible. Going forward, all devlogs will follow the format set by this one, showing off development highlights and recapping extra tidbits released during the month.

We sincerely hope everyone is excited as we are and we can’t wait to show what’s in store down the line.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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What if time could be rewritten? Discover a world of wonder with Prehistoric Kingdom - arriving Q2 2021!



For more information, check out IGN's article here!

Welcome to July’s development update!

It’s been a busy month for the PK team as we continue to work towards our next development build and trailer. A lot of our tasks are currently shrouded in secrecy which means this blogpost will be a little shorter than usual, but that’s okay! There’s plenty of progress to be discussed.



Right now the team’s working on a lot of sneaky stuff - a whole bunch of goodies from all sides of development that we cannot wait to reveal! It’s hard to talk about what we’ve been up to without spoiling everything, so for that reason we hope you can forgive us for being light on the programming section this month.

Looking ahead, we plan to begin tackling economy simulation in August in conjunction with further work on the animals. Additional progress has been done reimplementing IK features like head tracking, but it won’t be long before pathfinding works with the new locomotion system.





Seth’s been helping out with visitors by developing a prototype for randomisation. Using masks provided by Edson, we’re able to change not only color but the patterns for clothing like shirts and pants. As colors are grabbed from an existing array of palettes, visitor fashion should be easier to tweak and design when more assets are in the game!

Take a look at the work in progress clothing variation below.





Though a little cold, the boreal biome provides a home for your frost-dwelling animals. Dominated by towering pines and fir trees, the delicate lady ferns and shrubbery provide ground coverage for tundra and forested areas alike.















Bringing better visual parity between the two systems, modern wall pieces now share core textures with our pre-designed structures. No matter what you build, you can take the identity of Prehistoric Kingdom to your custom buildings.



Building accessories like pillars and columns will be added over the next few weeks. As the game gets closer to release, you might just see another theme pop up, too! Please enjoy this new modular build in the meantime.





Once the boreal plants were done, Nathan built two new structures for us this month to begin our collection of guest facilities. As much as we all love the dinosaurs, apparently visitors matter, too.

Whether you’re an indoors or an outdoors person, the Tea-Rex Café has plenty of seating available for your preference. Feeling a little tired? A warm beverage might just brighten your journey across the park.



With state of the art plumbing, there’s nothing the Family Restroom can’t handle (so long as it’s not Psittaco Tuesday). The redesign covers a more realistic surface area than the last, providing maximum accomodation for those in need. When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go!



Hyaenodon was a large apex predator with a globally diverse group that existed for over 25 million years! Despite the name, it wasn’t actually related to hyenas - residing in its own distinct family with other Hyaenodontids.







Also known as the sabretooth tiger, Smilodon is one of the most famous big cats. Wielding two enormous upper canine teeth, this kitty took on a variety of prey that quickly fell victim to its gaping maw.







All bark with lots of bite, the Hyaenodon is one of our weirdest mammals, that’s for sure! It was important to avoid the typical laughing hyena trope, so we initially looked at creatures like the maned wolf as inspiration for any bark-like calls due to its atypical qualities.

Byron utilised an assortment of critters from across the animal kingdom to craft the familiar yet alien sounds of this particular good boy. Since canines have very recognizable sonic traits, substitutes like monkeys were used as the basis to create pseudo-howls - making for a very bizarre animal.



You can see more of Byron's work on his Twitter or Soundcloud!



Highlighted throughout the development update, lots of love was given to Hyaenodon this month. Thanks to Cindy’s lovely sculpt work, there’s new pelt variants - including a hairless option for H. gigas.







Making heavy adjustments to its facial and muscular anatomy, the team did their best to give this creature the unique identity it deserves. Even for a two-star creature, we can’t help but love the big guy for all of its weird quirks. Afterall, it’s a... rat-dog-cat thing - what’s not to love?

You can check out more of Cindy’s work on her ArtStation!

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Thank you for reading July’s Devlog!

We’re deep in development at the moment so it’s possible that August’s post might be of a similar length depending on what we’re able to show. Regardless, the team hopes you enjoyed the latest update and we can’t wait to share more news with you. What we’re working on behind the scenes is very exciting.

Keep an eye on our social media for any announcements or new information!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to June’s development update!

Last month was great for the dev team, showing an increase in quality for all aspects of development. There’s simply too much to cover, so let’s dive right into the content coverage for June.



The team’s been swell, steadily focusing on their tasks and chipping away at the project as per usual. Mau’s been making a lot of headway tackling trouble spots for performance, isolating issues and finding ways to optimize the overhead behind it. As a whole, frame rate has seen some serious improvement since the PAX build and we’ll continue to make the game as performant as possible.





Construction was well underway to enhance the animal locomotion system in June using the mighty Tyrannosaurus as its base.

We’re shifting towards a system that’s more reliant on bespoke animation for transitions rather than allowing the engine to fill in the gaps - giving us direct control over how an animal begins or stops moving. The creatures can have great art assets, but if locomotion isn’t up to the same standard it all falls apart.

Below is a short look at the animator in action highlighting how the T. rex transitions from various movement states (wip).



So, what’s the benefit of doing things this way? The main bonus is that it eliminates the automated jank that occurs when an animal transitions between a state of movement and its idle position. Instead of magically sliding between poses they’ll kick off the ground or take that first big step into their walk cycle - it looks nice!

This approach does have an increase in animation work, but with the added help of Siaka we really want to get these animals looking as good as they can and the results so far are very promising. We'll continue to polish it up as best we can and show off some new critters in the process.

Intersections are tricky! A point where two objects meet in 3D space may result in nasty Z-fighting or excessive clipping, a definite issue that can crop up if two fence lines converge at a central point. We don’t want to pick a dominant pole to show over another, so what’s the solution? Create a junction, of course!


Temporary chainlink shader, it's a bit broken at the moment!

A junction will automatically generate between two different fence types or on either side of additive objects like gates, attractions and points of intersection.

Seth prepared a technical deep dive presentation showcasing some of the impressive complexities and considerations that go into making an advanced system like water painting. With the features themselves becoming increasingly polished by the day, soon enough it’ll just be tidying up the edges and making the water pretty!



One area we’re super pleased with is the ability to edit terrain around and inside bodies of water. As the water tool’s depth is chosen via the intensity slider (UI will be updated soon), being able to manually reshape the terrain both underwater and near it adds a lot of power for creativity and room for experimentation.



The grassland biome offers a lot of choice in its verticality, including famous foliage such as the acacia, baobab and elephant grass. We’ve had a lot of fun mixing and matching the selection of available plant life to create new environments, much like the previous two biomes.






As part of the park asset reworking, Nathan’s taken the previous design of our Animal Nursery and elevated it to new heights (literally!). A cornerstone piece of infrastructure for every player, this building’s been updated with a more grounded art direction in an attempt to find that balance between a lovely genetics facility and a giant warehouse for mega lizards.



Adding new components like the various staff areas to increase visual interest, a loading bay inspired by an older iteration was installed onto the structure's extremity.

Although deployment works the same as it always has (drag and drop creatures into the park), the first animal currently bred inside the Nursery will be shown standing inside this area once it's ready to be placed - offering a chance to see the size of the specimen ahead of time!



Switching to a slightly tastier subject, last month we laid out the design plans for feeding as a whole, determining how the process of food production, delivery and consumption will work. As a result, the ground feeders were homogenized in order to account for these plans and work better with ontogeny to prevent excessive clipping or animation that simply wouldn’t work across multiple designs.




It’s important to understand that the updates made to assets allow for a smarter workflow, better performance and a higher quality outcome due to everything we’ve learned along the way. One bit of feedback we’ve encountered from our previous gameplay showcases was that visitor amenities simply didn’t fit in the world we were trying to build, and we agree!

We’ll have a whole bunch of snazzy and far more grounded structures headed your way very soon thanks to the streamlined workflow.

Ankylosaurus was a defensive powerhouse of the Cretaceous. Covered in hard bony deposits known as osteoderms, this walking tank could produce forces strong enough to break the limbs of the most misfortunate of predators. Did they deserve it? Probably.




Grazing atop the highest of Jurassic trees, Brachiosaurus is a famous sauropod beloved worldwide for its graceful silhouette and enormous size. It was originally speculated to have frequented large bodies of water in order to support its weight - a concept that has since been long abandoned thanks to modern science.




One area of motion we’ve been working to improve is secondary animation on the bigger animals, enhancing our rigs to utilize a more dedicated process for better results. Take a look at our in-engine Brachiosaurus walk test below, showcasing the added jiggle bones used to simulate areas that are high in fat or muscle.

You can see similar practices applied to the Ankylosaurus and Tyrannosaurus earlier in the post, accentuating their thighs, sides and dewlap if present.





As part of the UI streamlining, we wanted to show off how the Genetics Lab looks - complete with significantly better performance and new statistics management to reflect some of our changes detailed below.

You’ll notice that the menu is now fullscreen and consistent with the rest of the UI, future proofing inclusions like a tab-based navigation system for when disease or other animal-related mechanics are added.



What was previously all grouped under “climates” has now been split into temperature and biome to make each system more distinguishable. Different species have a unique temperature range and can even have multiple plant biomes assigned to them for added diversity, making alt species such as Smilodon fatalis feel far more special.



Boreal is now home to both taiga and tundra vegetation, making way for the newest biome; wetland!

By assigning foliage biomes to the creatures we’re able to give players a unique jumping off point to start designing around in challenge mode. Some species might be specialized into wanting a single biome whereas another might have a handful of preferences that can be freely picked from.

In terms of game design it felt in-authentic to not nudge the players hand slightly towards an aesthetic or goal catered towards the creature they’re designing for in challenge mode. Using a handful of plants from disliked biomes won’t send the animal crazy, but sandbox is always available if habitat needs aren’t quite your thing.

The social group mechanic has been made more fluid, expanding the criteria to allow for new and dynamic combinations. Some species may have a closed group, or others may have no maximum value at all.

Select species have an added condition for population ratios, however, making mix-gender habitats a bit trickier to care for. Some may only group up in breeding pairs or others may have a more harem-like structure, being led by a dominant male or female. Keeping each sex separate will avoid the population ratio altogether.



If an animal is part of a closed group, they’ll begin to form a herd or pack! If an existing group has filled up, the remaining lonely creatures will split off to create a new one. As long as the exhibit isn’t overcrowded, new groups will be made freely. Just make sure those ratios aren’t imbalanced!



Amongst her time working away on unannounced replacement species for less interesting parts of our roster (don’t worry, they were due for a face lift), Cindy updated Plateosaurus with a fresh sculpt based on a more primitive and reptilian aesthetic.

Lis crafted two new designs to take the mantle of the old whilst reworking the original to fit better within our style.




You can find more of Cindy's work on her ArtStation, here!

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Thank you for reading June’s Devlog!

Thank you to everyone who waited patiently for the update to arrive, we’re deeply appreciative of your support. We’ll be working on some exciting new elements in July and the team simply can’t wait to get this game into your hands as quickly as possible.

Keep an eye on our social media for any announcements or new information!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to May’s development update!

Over the past month the team has been working hard on furthering the development of Prehistoric Kingdom, bringing great progress to all areas across the board. We’re finally ready to reveal some of our new changes and additions to central parts of the project, so let’s dive in!





Big. Scale.

Moving forward, all maps will now include a custom background environment to immerse the player within the borders of their playspace. With a usable area of around 4,000,000m2, there is an unbelievable amount of room to work with. For the players who have the determination and hardware to build a park that big, this one’s for you!

But why’d we make this change? To put it simply, there are a lot of technical problems and edge cases that need to be accounted for using our old islands as they were completely surrounded by water. Without massively limiting terraforming, water painting or spending months of development time on a completely dynamic shoreline, the new maps will look better, feel bigger and most importantly: get the game to our fans quicker.



Decorated with distant foliage and varied terrain, each map will feature a landscape that feels more appropriate and grounded within the world of Prehistoric Kingdom. Since anywhere from 30-40% of the old islands were underwater, this change opens up 100% of the playable area from the get-go - allowing players to maximise their building space without the need for excessive terraforming or the removal of natural features like mountains.

Whilst the buildable area is square on all base-game maps, we’re open to exploring more unique shapes and boundaries down the line for advanced players.

We’ve made great strides this past month in locking down content plans and finishing up current tasks whilst keeping our eye on what’s next.

Adding to our studio’s growing staff roster, Siaka joined as our newest technical animator to assist with transitional animations. Edson, a talented human character artist, also joined the project to create visitor assets. You’ll see more work from the both of them in future development updates.

Currently, we’re working towards a polished and exciting build that will be showcased in the late summer of 2020. After that, it won’t be long before we start making trailers and delivering on an alpha build. Stay tuned, park managers. There’s not too much longer to wait!





To help get your feet wet, Seth’s made significant progress on water painting during May. It’s been a long road due to all the technical considerations, but it’s almost ready.

Regardless of its current level of polish, the system is mostly functional! From here it’s a matter of continuing to improve functionality and tidy up terrain deformation in addition to creating a non-temporary water shader.



The majority of the system should be finished next month, so we’ll be sure to showcase it in June’s update.

Adding support for smarter intersections and random signage decals, Matt’s made considerable usability improvements to the fence system. With increased performance and better mesh generation, a lot of the old visual artifacts have been eliminated whilst also allowing us to get data like exhibit size quicker.

Fences also now support dynamic separation in order to allow for additive objects like gates and viewing platforms. We’re still working on getting the preview to update in realtime, but you can see some of the changes here!



As a new option, terraced or sloped placement has been added as a toggle when working on inclines. This will change whether or not fences are placed smoothly or in a staggered manner.



Next up on our list of improvements will be finally adding fence replacement - which shouldn’t be too hard with Matt’s latest changes.

On a coding level, the modular building system is essentially finished. There’s some things to add, fix or alter, but ~90% of the functionality is all there. To celebrate, we’ve gathered some scenes made by our team showing off more basic builds.

There’s a lot of assets we need to produce to increase building options, but it’s an incredibly promising direction! Once there’s more content to work with the possibilities will only continue to open up.









In addition to designing our new level, Nathan’s been planting the seeds for our improved foliage assets.

Home to a number of animals, the Tropical biome is a vibrant and lush environment decorated with kapoks, palms, and banana trees. Thriving in a humid environment, these plants makes any park feel more alive due to their diverse heights and colorful nature.








Commonly found across the Pacific Northwest, the Coastal biome is compatible with most dinosaurs in the game due to its expansive and temperate nature. From towering redwood trees to tiny ferns, these plants can be used to create all sorts of microclimates.













All maps in Prehistoric Kingdom feature a Visitor Entrance, a tunnel-like structure that allows guests to enter and leave the park. Although it can’t be deleted while the park is open, players have the option to freely move the building to a new position or even change its style at any time.


Default Modern Styling.

In the future, we’re considering adding a handful of styles to various buildings to provide optional park theming and player expression. As the entrance is critical to a park’s feel, we’ve added its modular style early so that players can build custom “skins” around it in a more accessible manner.

Future updates may see the addition of new entrance types for players to pick from.


Modular Styling.

Working on habitats, fences advanced with the completion of some new assets. Utilising world space materials in-game, fence models can be stretched and deformed without destroying textures in the process.




Velociraptor was a small, feathered dromaeosaur that lived in what is now known as Mongolia. Well known through popular culture, this animal is dwarfed by its larger cousin, Utahraptor. Tough turkey, little guy!




One of the most famous dinosaurs, Stegosaurus is easily recognised by its tall dorsal plates and impressive thagomizers. Smaller than most of its Jurassic ecosystem neighbours, this herbivore makes up for its size with some serious weaponry.





This month Edson began working on our brand new visitor assets! They’re still in an early sculpting stage but it’s nice to see some humans instead of dinosaurs for once.





Arguably Britain’s best (sorry, Iguanodon), Baryonyx is a temperamental spinosaurid from the United Kingdom. Living in small colonies like modern crocodiles, this fishy fiend has both a nasty bark and bite - scaring away the competition with its gutterly shrieks and low rumbles.



Previous sound updates and music can be found on Byron’s Soundcloud, here!

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Thank you for reading May’s Devlog!

Next month we’ll be working on fleshing out and finalizing our approach to animal locomotion so that new creatures can be added into the game once everything has been polished and standardized. Audio will finally see extensive in-game implementation using FMOD and there’ll be more environment artwork on the way!

Keep an eye on our social media for any announcements or new information!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to April’s development update!

The past month has been highly productive for the PK team! As always, there is much gameplay and art to cover, as well as more animal showcases than usual thanks to a certain theropod, so let’s dive in!



Development continues to advance at a steady pace, with a lot of the work being put into the terrain system and modular editing. We’ve also managed to get started on cool new features, like rudimentary guest AI!

We hit an important milestone within the modular system, implementing a gizmo-based editing tool. Soon enough this complex, yet useful feature will be completed, allowing us to occupy more of our development time on the game’s management aspects. Water painting also progresses wonderfully, and we can’t wait to show what’s in store in the next few devlogs.





With character models in the pipeline, Matt began experimentation with visitor pathfinding and instancing. So far, results have been promising! Although they have no true AI or needs at the moment, we were able to get up to 10,000 entities navigating our test levels with a minimal hit to performance.

Since our playable area is so large, we’ll be working to provide an optimal balance between guest simulation and crowd population so that they don’t take computing resources away from other areas of the game when playing on bigger parks.





If you’re questioning their bizarre aesthetic, don’t worry! The guests won’t all be yellow drones (unless some of them really want to). We are excited to be working with a talented character artist to help bring the humans of Prehistoric Kingdom back to life. Stay tuned for more news on this front in the coming months!

Mau integrated the 3D editing gizmo into the modular building system, supporting the addition of beams, pillars, rocks and foliage! As one of the core components, we’ve added a variety of additional tools to the gizmo to help streamline the construction process.


There’s also dynamic moss that will always point towards the sky - neat, huh?

Continually increasing its state of usability, we’ve recorded some footage showcasing some of the opportunities available to creative players in Prehistoric Kingdom. Here’s a short demonstration video of an animal house being built!





With the arrival of the mighty Tyrannosaurus and two of our biggest sauropods, we’ve reached the end of our species spotlights! Thank you to everyone who stuck with us for all 50 profile reveals. We can’t wait to bring you new content overviews in the future!









Large and elegant, Lambeosaurus was a giant hadrosaur that roamed Cretaceous Canada, most distinctively known for its hollow, hatchet-like crest. Like the other duck-billed dinosaurs, Lambeosaurus features the option to switch between a bipedal and quadrupedal stance.





The feisty Protoceratops was a small ceratopsian from Mongolia, best characterized by its large neck frill and lack of pointed horns. With muscular jaws capable of powerful bites, this quadrupedal dinosaur gave the most determined predators a run for their money.




To top it all off, enjoy a teaser of our T.rex’ in-game run animation, slowed down for dramatic effect. We will be showcasing more of its animations in the classic format in the coming months.





Screaming and screeching in an adorable fashion, everyone’s favourite quilled ceratopsian potentially takes the cake for the cutest animal in the game! Although small, the stout Psittacosaurus could deliver a painful bite to any unsuspecting threats.



Previous sound updates and music can be found on Byron’s Soundcloud, here!



The recent trend of animal updates extended to some of the most popular species in the game, as their need for anatomical and graphical improvements became more apparent.

The absolute largest dinosaurs in the roster underwent major design changes: while Brachiosaurus mostly kept the color schemes from its previous iteration, its general proportions and underlying tissue changed in order to fit a more classical view. On the other hand, Argentinosaurus evolved far more drastically, as our portrayal of this massive sauropod made better use of the limited knowledge we have on the matter. Most notably, it sports a more impressive row of osteoderms on its flanks, as well as a more accurate neck posture and head shape.






Last in our line of hadrosaurs to be improved, Edmontosaurus received a new default skin design to reflect the project’s higher artistic standards, over the obvious anatomical improvements, including the trademarked toe hooves.




Finally, Tyrannosaurus was granted some much-needed love. Besides its touched up, more accurate physiology, we modified some of the head characteristics to better match the style and personality we strive to achieve with this formidable theropod. Moreover, Tyrannosaurus now features a more diverse feathered design, while its default skin introduces rex’s Asian cousin, Tarbosaurus!

We are very proud of the result, as it reaches a good compromise between a realistic portrayal and a more iconic look.




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Thank you for reading April’s Devlog!

The eventual release of the game is getting ever closer, and we’re excited to bring more goodies to the table come May. Keep an eye on our social media for any announcements or new information!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Crytivo and Soda Den Studio are proud to unveil Roots of Pacha, an online co-op, farming, and life-simulation RPG set during the Stone Age. Grab your friends and some rocks (whichever is more useful) and start building the world’s first and finest farming village!

Watch Announcement Trailer



https://youtu.be/mYEhKvcDhsY

About the game

After roaming the prehistoric world, it’s time to settle down and build a village to stand for generations. Join with friends to develop technology, discover plants to farm, harvest crops, befriend and domesticate animals, and create a thriving stone age community. Find love, nurture relationships, and grow your community—and then celebrate and honor nature in glorious festivals!


Prehistoric ride sharing! Ride animals with your friends!

• Grow and harvest. Start your own farming revolution and invent the tools and techniques to build a prosperous village from nothing.
  
• 
  
• Explore an ancient world. A fertile, vibrant world awaits! Fish streams and rivers, discover unique flora and fauna, and mine the darkest caves for resources.
  
• 
  
• Join the clan. Work with the community, develop friendships, and even find love!
  
• 
  
• Grow your village. Help villagers develop ideas and discover new farming and crafting technology. Construct buildings, invite others into the clan, and transform your settlement into an agricultural marvel.
  
• 
  
• Play with friends. Invite up to 3 friends to join your village. Live with them (or keep your distance), share talents and resources, and celebrate festivals, where each player can contribute to communal dinners or compete in fishing contests!

How about taking your wolves out for an adventure?

Release: Early 2021
Platforms: Steam | Xbox | PS | Switch | Crytivo

Wishlist and Follow Roots of Pacha on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1245560/Roots_of_Pacha/


Join our official Roots of Pacha Discord server to participate in closed alpha tests, offer your feedback, and get some exciting sneak peeks at new content from the developers. We’d love to hear your thoughts from the reveal!





⭐⭐WIN NINTENDO SWITCH LITE⭐⭐



To celebrate the announcement of Roots of Pacha, we're giving away 2 Nintendo Switch Lites!

How to enter:

Twitter (1st Nintendo Switch Lite):

• Follow @Crytivo.
  
• Like and share this post.
  
• Tag a friend in comments.

Facebook (2nd Nintendo Switch Lite):

• Like the Crytivo Facebook page.
  
• Like and share this post.
  
• Tage a friend in comments.

Best of luck to everyone!
Tell your friends!

This game published by Crytivo

Welcome to March’s development update!

There’s much to discuss in this month’s devlog for Prehistoric Kingdom: featuring new progress shots, concept art, animations and audio previews!



Despite current conditions around the world, progress goes well. The team’s trying to stay as healthy as possible and work where we can on Prehistoric Kingdom.

In the background, our programmers have been working on optimization, paths, water painting and modular building. Providing better solidarity within the codebase is a considerable focus for performance at the moment in order to maximise efficiency and code structure.





One area the project has been lacking in is how we handle the in-game rendering of fur and fluffy feathers. As a side task to water painting, Seth spent a few days in March creating a highly flexible custom-built fur shader for our animals!

As you can see below, this has a huge impact on the final rendering result of creatures:






Yes, the fur moves in the wind!

This new geometry based shading has already been seamlessly integrated into our existing animal technology, offering great visual fidelity alongside fantastic optimization techniques to help keep framerates high. For lower-end hardware, we’ll add quality options to outright disable fur just in case!




Animals such as Smilodon will feature varying lengths of fur depending on which species have been bred, giving S. fatalis a longer coat, for example.

Mau continued work on the modular building system in March, bringing a lot of its most necessary functions to completion.

As described in prior development updates, players can select multiple wall or roof pieces and change their texture to a unified color or material. This feature is a huge gamechanger for the creative builders out there as it allows for rapid experimentation with various design combinations.



We’ve also been finishing up the remaining pieces of core functionality by implementing group merging and object duplication! Although they’re expected parts of a modular building system, it’s an area we hadn’t gotten around to yet.

Another issue we’ve targeted over the past month has been performance and general optimization. With Seth helping out, we’re working on getting large FPS improvements across the board - searching for potentially troublesome areas under the hood that could use some code reworking or adjustments to speed up processing.

Part of this optimization process has been cleaning up the backend side of terraforming to make way for water painting. Since terrain editing has some existing APIs already built into the engine, part of our challenge is keeping those components performant whilst integrating our own methods within that. Now that we have an extra programmer to handle things like this, Matt and Mau are able to continue working on other parts of the project. Stay tuned for more water painting news!



Paraceratherium and Stegosaurus took the spotlight this month as some of the last animals to be revealed. With forty-seven down, there’s only three left to go!






For the past few months, a small part of the team’s been at work reorganising and cleaning up certain gameplay systems that felt bloated or messy, making areas of the game far clearer as a result.

From a visual standpoint, we noticed that our fence designs came across as inconsistent in how they scale against both security rating and the park’s aesthetic. Each fence material set now has three distinct height variants to work better with gameplay progression:

• Wood, stone and glass: 1m, 2.5m, 4m.
  
• Metal: 2.5m, 4m, 6m.

By putting more emphasis into materials, we’re able to squish security requirements and incorporate height as a reliable condition now that there’s consistency. With fewer fence assets to produce, we’re allowing players to recolor their fences from up to three presets per material type.

Please take a look at a handful of our new designs below!






Decorative fences will now be modular pieces due to these changes.

Taking things a step further, gates will now follow a homogenized style in order to fit in with the unified height measurements across fencing. This change reduces the workload for future additions and means we can create the assets at a much higher quality!




At launch, fences and amenities will be listed under the Modern theme - a unified style that defines Prehistoric Kingdom as a brand in-universe. Because of this, you’ll also be seeing improvements to various structure designs in the coming months.

Since the art team are handling these changes, it won’t be affecting the progress of the game as a whole, so there’s no need to worry about scheduling conflicts.

Wielding spiked-thumbs, Iguanodon was a bulky ornithopod found in the United Kingdom. Its enormous hands and stout hindlimbs make this herbivore a highly adaptive creature, switching between quadrupedal and bipedal locomotion when running.





Also known as the woolly rhino, Coelodonta is a distant relative to the Sumatran rhinoceros. This fluffy animal occupied most of Europe, grazing within a variety of climates such as tundras and grasslands.






Featuring uniquely deep booms and ruckles, the Allosaurus is one Jurassic predator you don’t want to meet! With a fearsome snarl and an even worse bite, Byron made sure to give this dinosaur some serious ferocity.



Previous sound updates can be found on Byron’s Soundcloud, here!



Having previously been one of the oldest models in the game, Stegosaurus received a well-deserved update after many years of living in eternal damnation. The entire model and sculpt have been overhauled with new skin designs to boot!

On a less drastic level, some smaller tweaks were made to the Paraceratherium to address some texture, anatomy and shape issues. Prehensile lips were added in addition to better limbs and skull shape, with both the sculpt and skins receiving a quality improvement.






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Thank you for reading March’s Devlog!

We hope you’re all excited for upcoming content and reveals in future development updates. Keep an eye on our social media for any announcements or new information!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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