Welcome, park managers!

Closed Beta is finally here! This latest release offers a unique array of species, building tools, decorative items and more. For a more indepth look at what’s included and how eligible backers can access Beta, check out our previous blog post. If you’re interested in some of the highlights, read on!

• 14 Animals
  Discover Archaeopteryx, Camarasaurus, Deinocheirus, Edmontosaurus, Lambeosaurus, Microraptor, Nasutoceratops, Pachyrhinosaurus, Protoceratops, Parasaurolophus, Torvosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Styracosaurus and the Woolly Mammoth.
  
  
• Expanded Creativity
  A number of additions and changes have been made to the modular building system including recolorable items, point snapping, reworked styling, foliage painting and over 150 new pieces.
  
  
• Prefabs
  Edit and build with a number of official prefabs! Get creative and build your own using the highly customizable modular building system.
  
  
• Day/Night Cycle & Weather
  Watch the days go by with the freshly added day/night cycle and weather systems.

The game will receive numerous tweaks, hotfixes and content updates to get Prehistoric Kingdom ready for Early Access launch. Though this process will require some patience, we’re very excited to work with the community in developing the game further.

The importance of good management and a rounded, core gameplay loop is something we certainly haven’t forgotten about as it’s essential to any great simulation game. We’d like to have done more, but we simply aren't where we wanted to be due to budgetary constraints. Currently, development feels the fastest it’s been because of our improved circumstances and ability to pay for more of the team’s time.

If you’re interested in seeing what’s in the works for Prehistoric Kingdom, you can visit our new Trello page to view the biggest content updates coming before Early Access launch.



In the meantime, here’s just some of the ongoing improvements we’ll be making in the next few weeks:

• Animal Improvements
  We’ll be focusing on polishing animals across the board, tidying up their IKs, improving pathfinding and adding new behaviours/animations. The team’s committed to fleshing out our animals and doing the best we can to make them feel alive. What’s a zoo game without great animals?
  
  
• Modular Improvements
  Due to completely overhauling the modular system, some quality of life features like box select are unavailable. We’re aware that this can be very inconvenient for a lot of builders so we'll be working hard to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.
  
  VFX Particles have also been temporarily disabled due to incompatibilities with the modular prefabs. These will be readded very soon!
  
  
• Further Audio Integration
  There are a number of missing or temporary audio elements for animals, modular items and various actions. Underwater audio has been disabled until it can activate reliably.
  
  
• Power Management Visuals
  Power management visualization graphics are currently missing due to system changes and need to be reimplemented. We’ve disabled power outages/reboot mechanics until we can better communicate this to players.
  
  
• Tree Implementation
  Wetland trees are currently missing due to system changes and need to be reimplemented. After some color tweaks and an optimization pass, they should be back in your games as soon as possible. Boreal foliage is completely absent and will be re-added at a later update with brand new assets.
  
  
• Foliage Painting & Path Undo/Redo
  Paths are the last major system left to be supported by undo/redo and could not be finished in time for Beta’s launch. As we very recently finished moving foliage painting over to the modular system, it is also not supported by undo/redo.
  
  
• Save/Load Times
  Larger parks may experience long load times with a dense modular piece count. This issue is being investigated, so we’ve temporarily reduced the object density of our starting map to keep load times down.
  
  
• Performance Improvements
  Excessive lights can lead to decreased performance at night. There are a lot of optimizations that still need to be made to a number of systems.

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If you have any further questions, please be sure to contact Crytivo’s support or get in touch with us through Twitter, Facebook or Discord.

We hope those who play have fun and enjoy what’s currently available in Beta. The team is very eager to improve the game and add new content and management opportunities.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to November’s Development Update!

In today’s post, we’ll be discussing some of Beta’s day one content and how to access it. Prehistoric Kingdom’s Closed Beta will be arriving on December 6th with an expected launch time of 1PM PST.

• If you are an eligible backer or early adopter who does not yet have Prehistoric Kingdom in their Steam library, please make a Crytivo account with the EXACT email you used to back the game on Kickstarter. You will be given a Steam key on December 6th.
  
• If you already own Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam library, the game will automatically update to Beta on December 6th.

• 14 Animals
  Archaeopteryx, Camarasaurus, Deinocheirus, Edmontosaurus, Lambeosaurus, Microraptor, Nasutoceratops, Pachyrhinosaurus, Protoceratops, Parasaurolophus, Torvosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Styracosaurus and the Woolly Mammoth.
  
  
• Basic Needs
  Animals need to eat and drink! Provide them with feeders and water sources to stop them from going extinct. Again.
  
  
• New Pathfinding & Animations
  Animals now turn dynamically as part of their wandering behaviour, introducing noise and variation to their walking patterns.
  
  A handful of animals such as the Tyrannosaurus also have new additive and idle behaviours like scratching, sniffing and many more. These behaviours will be given to other animals over time to expand their liveliness.

• Modular System Rewrite
  The modular system has been completely rewritten from the ground up with efficient render optimizations and feature flexibility in mind.
  
  Our previous iteration could not support the full scope of our planned additions, especially when concerning prefabs and performance. Though modular performance on day one may not feel that different from alpha, it’s far more scalable in the long term.
  
  
• Modules
  Modules are new modular pieces that provide function and utility within the park. These can include guest kiosks, dynamic animal statues, animal nurseries, power generators and more.
  
  With 10 Modules available in Beta, fully custom and interactive buildings are now a reality for Prehistoric Kingdom.
  
  
• Modular Prefabs
  Build and create modular prefabs for easy use in your park and other saves! Share with your friends by uploading your builds online (Steam Workshop support coming later).
  
  Official prefabs are also available for those who are less creatively-inclined. We’ll be expanding and improving official prefabs as more pieces are added to the game.
  
  
• Modular Styling Improvements
  Styling has been reworked for better use and reliability. Contextually swap themes, materials and mesh variants at the click of a button!
  
  
• Modular Recoloring
  Show your inner artist with modular recoloring! A staggering amount of items are recolorable, with many including multiple masks and patterns. The world is truly your canvas.
  
  
• Modular Point Snapping
  Place pieces on or within modular grid corners with the new point snap utility. Perfect for railings, pillars, beams and more. We think a lot of builders will take a quick liking to this feature!
  
  
• Modular Foliage Painting
  Thanks to community feedback, the foliage brush has been completely overhauled. Featuring snazzy new painting and removal animations, players can now paint modular trees directly onto the terrain. Move, scale and rotate to your heart's content!
  
  Depending on what trees are toggled in the UI, players can selectively remove certain plants from their painted environments without the fear of destroying everything - very useful for dense scenes like forests.
  
  
• New Themes, Styles & Items
  Over 150 new items have been added to Beta (500+ total!) along with over 60 different styles found across a number of modules and customizable pieces. There’s a lot of content to sink your teeth into and this number will only continue to grow throughout Beta and beyond.
  
  
• Undo/Redo
  With undo and redo, no mistake is permanent. Fences, paths, terrain, water and the modular system all support this much needed feature.

• Finances
  On the surface, the financial management isn’t too dissimilar from Alpha, though the groundwork for future gameplay integrations with loans and exhibit donations has been laid out. It’s there, but it’ll see more substantial use as Beta improves.
  
  
• Excavations
  Use science points to unlock new animals and genetic skins with excavations! Discover new dig sites by increasing the park’s rating.
  
  
• Basic Science Points
  Passively accumulate science points over time to unlock new species. This system will receive a large update during beta once exhibit scoring has been implemented.

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Thank you for reading November’s dev diary!

We hope you’re just as excited as us to begin the journey into Beta. We’ll be providing the community with a follow-up post on December 6th, so stay tuned for that.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to October’s Development Update!

In this month’s dev diary we’ll be showcasing a modular surprise, the scrubland environment and providing details on our support roadmap for Beta.



Modules are coming to Beta! These items offer functional support for custom kiosks, animal nurseries and more using the modular system.

If you’re feeling hungry, make sure you visit Tiny’s Fast Food or the Sweet Tooth Dessert Shop, two of the four available styles for the Nutrition Kiosk! The number of modules and their application in the park will be improved over time as new types are added through updates.



Beta will also be introducing custom modular prefabs, letting players save their creations for repeated use around the park or in other saves. Though it is not yet linked to the Steam Workshop, prefabs can be shared locally by finding them on your computer and uploading them online. We can’t wait to see what you make!

In Beta, players will be working on our new Scrubland map - a subtropical haven. Equipped with the same building space as Alpha, this new location offers beautiful vistas and enhanced distant terrain. Please note that the tropical foliage below is being used as a placeholder.



New plants are also coming to the Scrubland biome! The Aleppo and Norfolk Island pines provide a number of new environment options, including five shape and size variants each.




New variants are also available for the Foxtail palm, a true staple of the scrubland look.



Unlike Alpha, our roadmap for Beta includes content updates up until Early Access launch. Our goal is to add new features while getting direct feedback and thoughts from the community. Of course, this support will continue post EA launch, too.

In terms of what you can expect to see day one, not much has changed from our public beta announcement. There’s some larger mechanics that have since been pushed to updates, but most of those hadn’t been announced yet. If you’re expecting to play a more robust version of Alpha with new features like Excavations, Science Points, modular recoloring, an enhanced economy and improved power management, we think you’ll have a good time with the initial release.

With that said, here’s a quick glimpse at a handful of new things coming during Beta’s updates.



At the launch of Early Access, all 22 animals will be available alongside other additions like Nigel Marven and three maps (Scrubland, Temperate and Tropical). Though Beta will see a lot of improvements, we’re making sure to save some stuff for launch day.

So, let’s talk about the game’s budget and where we’ve been! We’ve been rather quiet on our social accounts which isn’t quite like what you’re used to.

To start, production definitely slowed over the last few months as we started to feel the squeeze of the funding available to us. This wasn’t an unexpected issue given how long we’ve been going for, but it’s certainly been a reminder to not shoot for perfection. There were a few unannounced features we wanted from Beta’s launch, but they soon became unrealistic given the circumstances and our team size.

We’ve since resolved our budgeting issues and are now looking for additional talent to join the team and help develop Prehistoric Kingdom. If you’re interested in working with us, be sure to keep an eye out on our social pages in the next few days.

As a whole, we’re expecting production speed to pick up significantly over the next year now that we can work more comfortably and afford to pay for more people’s time. We very much want to get the game out so that people can play it and give us the necessary feedback to improve it. Afterall, it is still an Early Access title and we should be treating it as such.




Created by Mrs TeaRex.


Created by Sdanwolf.

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Thank you for reading October’s dev diary!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

Welcome to September’s Development Update!

As we push onwards to Closed Beta (December 6th) and Early Access in 2022, it’s time that our monthly blog posts saw some change.

Once we launch Beta, Prehistoric Kingdom will essentially be a “live” game. Because of this, there’ll need to be some alterations to how we communicate and post our news. Not just to deliver the information you’re interested in, but for us to effectively show new developments when they’re locked in and ready to present.

To help the team achieve this, we’ll be creating two types of news updates, Dev Diaries and Feature Spotlights.

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A dev diary includes development insight, community spotlight and any social media news you might’ve missed. Arriving on a monthly basis, these will be replacing the previous devlogs. We intend for these to act as a very casual way to keep fans and followers in the loop, discussing what we’ve been up to and what we plan to tackle next.

It should be noted that these (usually) won’t contain any bombshell information and will instead be an outlet for us to cover more longform topics, whether they’re developer interviews, technical insight, tweaks and changes, or non-spoiler content.

By separating a status update from big reveals, it gives us more of an opportunity to maintain consistent communication with the community (hi!) while working on bigger updates or content reveals, especially post-launch.

Feature Spotlights include previews for upcoming additions and content, discussed separately within their own posts for clarity and accessibility. They could be a glimpse at an impending update, a deep-dive into a brand new system or improvements that we’re keen to show off.

Unlike the dev diaries, these don’t have a set schedule or frequency and will appear only when they’re ready. They’re sort of like a surprise party, but with bad wordplay and over enthusiastic paragraphs. Smashing!





Animal locomotion has seen a lot of development across September with many changes and improvements thanks to one of our programmers, Matt.

Creatures (especially large prehistoric ones) present a difficult challenge to overcome in video games, as you ideally want to respect their physicality and animation where you can while ensuring that they get to their destination.

When developing their AI, we need them to reach very specific targets or stopping points like feeders, the edge of a lake, and hopefully, not ram their face through a fence. Alpha was quite limited in what the creatures could do, so imprecise movement wasn’t an enormous concern for the time being - though many faces were smashed through fences.

Features like variable travel speed, foot locking and foot repositioning are just some of the additions we’ve made as part of our ongoing R&D efforts to benefit the animals’ AI and pathfinding. Developing a complex system for units as big as dinosaurs is no small task, but it’s definitely coming along.



For the patrons of your park, we’ll soon be working on guest needs! Visitor welfare is an important part of any world class zoo and as such, we’re trying to strike the right balance between detailed simulation and optimized solutions. Though we can’t delve into our plans too much, we are very excited to explore more of Prehistoric Kingdom’s management and crowd simulation.

And yes, we know guests look a bit terrifying. We fully intend to make them beautiful and lively, but our resources are very much focused on their underlying mechanics and gameplay for the time being.

Point Snap is a new quality of life feature coming to the modular system in Beta! When toggled on, players can snap any non-wall or roof item to 9 different points around a grid tile.

Intended for quickly adding objects like beams and pillars around a build, this tool gives you grid-perfect placement for those moments of needed precision. Creative accessibility is important, and we will continue to add similar features in the future.



And of course if grids aren’t exactly your thing, every item in Prehistoric Kingdom can be placed freely.

On a more technical note, the rendering for our modular system is now fully built around GPU instancing (like the painted trees). This means that repeated objects do not cost additional draw calls on the GPU, offering huge performance savings on large parks. As we’re currently working on support for modular prefabs, you can imagine the necessity for supporting thousands of pieces at a time.

Speaking of technical features, the long awaited undo and redo actions have been added to the game! Only terrain, water and the modular system support it at the moment, but we’ll be sure to keep expanding it to other mechanics before Beta’s launch.



The game uses a variable memory cache to keep track of all your actions, discarding the oldest changes once that limit fills up. Since this can retain a lot of data, players can hold down the undo/redo keys to cycle through all the remembered actions rather than constantly tapping.



In case you missed it, we released a Beta Announcement trailer at Gamescom in August! You can find a whole bunch of information and details about what to expect from Beta in this blog post.






Created by manuelaguero2702.


Created by swoop_there.

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Thank you for reading September’s dev diary!

Hopefully you’re all very excited to see more from us over the coming months.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Closed Beta arrives December 6th 2021 for eligible backers and early adopters!

Introducing new mechanics, features and animals, Prehistoric Kingdom’s next closed-release will be available to those who pledged for Beta Access. Our public launch into Early Access has now moved to April 2022 to give the team an extended period for some important gameplay changes, additional content and polish.

We bet you’re feeling ravenous to learn more, so let’s dive into some of the things you can expect to see in Beta! More features and content will be unveiled closer to its release.





Beta will be arriving with 14 prehistoric beasts and birds to care for! Alongside the species present in Alpha, the park’s newest specimens include: Archaeopteryx, Camarasaurus, Deinocheirus, Pachyrhinosaurus, Protoceratops, Parasaurolophus, Torvosaurus and the Woolly Mammoth.

You can find the initial Early Access species roster on our website, here.

As the definitive oddball, this giant ornithomimid defies all expectations by sporting a bizarre set of attributes: a duck bill, a humped back, sizable forelimbs equipped with sharp claws, and a larger than life appetite.



To top it all off, this peculiar animal comes with a featherless variant. Would this make it scaly? Leathery? Naked? We’re just as confused as you.

Flying its way into your heart, Archaeopteryx soars through Beta as the second Mini-Aviary species. Unlike the Microraptor, it sports a striking color scheme and includes sexual dimorphism, making the males ever so pretty!




Found in German limestone deposits dating back to the Jurassic, this magpie-sized critter holds great scientific significance as one of the earliest bird-like dinosaurs.

As animals are often in the spotlight, it’s incredibly important to us to make them look as realistic as possible, and that includes their animations.

For the past few months we’ve been hard at work expanding the animation libraries for all our species, including many little actions such as stretching, scratching, shaking, chewing, and more. We hope you appreciate these quality of life upgrades as much as we do, as they help cement the idea that these are living, breathing animals!







In July, we gave our community a survey to find out what our future players would be most interested in seeing.

Your answers were incredibly insightful, as they again confirmed that the direction the game is heading towards is not only close to our hearts, but also true to the community’s wishes for the project.

There are a number of upgrades coming, not to mention some rather exciting avenues set to be explored. We’re certain you’re going to be just as excited for them as we are and we cannot wait to share more with you in the future. The following additions are just the beginning…

Experience the sunny tropics with this brand new theme arriving in Beta!

Containing over 100 pieces, the Tropical Theme includes a selection of new and exciting decorations inspired by a variety of real-world cultures. Vases, totems, torches and statues are but a handful of some of the props and pieces available in this exciting expansion to the modular lineup. Your prehistoric zoos have never looked so exotic!


Shown above: new railings, benches, braziers, thatch roofs and palm weave floors (one of the new wall sets!).

We can’t spoil it all, but please enjoy some of this beautiful scenery created by our concept artist, Ida. The team’s putting a lot of work into making sure this theme feels inspiring to build with, and we cannot wait to see what kind of wonderful architecture the Beta community come up with.



Our default theme has been reinvigorated with new props, designs and some much requested pieces. To highlight a few of the most demanded, we believe these miscellaneous pieces will allow players to greatly enrich the authenticity of their zoos!



There are many new items to discover in Prehistoric Kingdom’s Beta, ranging from empty buckets to complete sets of ventilation ducts and gutter piping. Not to mention, that fancy new recoloring sure does help a lot!



Waterfall galore! A highly requested feature, fully modular water effects will be making their way into Beta, allowing builders to create custom waterfalls and fountain features.




For those less impressed by waterworks, smoke and fire are also available. Great for torches, bonfires, and setting the whole park ablaze, right?



Park decor has never been easier than with our brand new dynamic animal statues! These intelligent modules can be manipulated on-the-fly, much like our styling system for walls and roofs.




Players can pick from three different poses for any animal species in the game, complete with a selection of materials to choose from.

Moreover, an initially limited selection of bones are also available, making skeletal mounts or custom displays entirely possible. This list will only grow with time as we expand our fossilized repertoire!




Science Points are a type of economy item used in Excavations and Research*. They’re passively accumulated by constructing habitats, scaling in effectiveness based on a number of factors that players work towards. The better the exhibit, the more rewards to reap!

*Research not included in Beta.



Fantastic beasts and where to mine them, or rather, Excavations, are a central mechanic in unlocking your primordial pals and their genetic skins. Scattered across the globe, players use Science Points to seek out their next big attraction.




Following our Early Access release, Prehistoric Kingdom will continue to see heavy development. We are a small team with big ambitions and it’s important to remind everyone that some aspects of the game simply won’t be as fleshed out as others for the initial launch.

We understand that some of you may be frustrated by the move to April 2022, but the reality is that once the game goes live our core infrastructure needs to be locked in place. Any major changes need to happen before then, or else we risk breaking saves or some of the items within them. Breaking save compatibility from Alpha and Beta isn’t too bad, but we’d like to avoid it as much as possible during Early Access.

We have a laundry list of improvements and new features that we’d love to add, and the incredible patience of our entire community has allowed us to go above and beyond the original goal in making this game into what it is today. Nevertheless, our limited resources do mean that sacrifices have to made when it comes to development speed and game complexity. We hope that what we have to offer will feel like great value to everyone waiting for the game, and that you'll have an incredible experience despite the size of our development team and resources.

So, what is in store for Prehistoric Kingdom?

Modules are special facility pieces designed to create functional buildings and attractions using the modular system. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, each appealing to different aspects of park management or guest satisfaction with assigned properties.



Hinted at earlier, the dynamic animal statues are actually a module containing the Amenity and Editable properties, indicating that it both interacts with guests (providing an education bonus!) and is customizable.

We want to merge the gap between modular building and park interaction, so, you’ll be needing new park services!

Kiosks are an open-air module with a unique 4x2 design, making them friendly for all sorts of buildings, whether they’re outdoors or indoors.

Unlike our current buildings, kiosk modules are defined by their function. Rather than having a unique module in the UI, the Tea-Rex Café is now a Style for the Fast Food Kiosk - changing its service menu, set-dressing and logo in an instant.



For the Shopping Kiosk, you’ll find styles for two of our lovely brands; Apato Apparel and Giganto Gifts! This module provides themed merchandise and shopping opportunities for your guests.




In addition to changing the Style/Shop Brand, players can toggle off the props and back-half of a kiosk, giving way to an even greater number of design options.

We plan to do away with “locked” buildings like in Alpha and Beta, opting for prefabs made entirely with the modular system. This allows players to delete, recolor, restyle or even change the building’s function. In essence, every piece of functionality will be handled fully modularly, unlocking limitless potential.

Our goal for Early Access is to develop modules for as many facility types as possible, granting players the creation of custom viewing towers, hotels, nurseries, and more.

However, this does not mean players will be required to build everything by hand! Through the powerful Prefab system, users can instead select from a large array of officially pre-made facilities and decorations to populate their parks with. The workload only decreases, with all the creative options still present. Workshop support is something we are committed to including too, making prefab sharing all that much easier!

Working with zoologist and scientific author, Tom Parker, we’re pleased to announce that the team has started pre-production on prehistoric plantlife!

Though they won’t be arriving anytime soon, we wanted to confirm that they will have a rightful place in the future of Prehistoric Kingdom as update content. As this is highly requested content, we’re doing everything we can to ensure our eventual lineup caters to species diversity, accuracy and offers unique gameplay opportunities.

The team hopes you’re just as excited as we are to eventually plant the seeds for a rich kingdom of prehistoric fauna and flora.



...

Thank you for reading our Beta Announcement!

As you can see, there’s a lot to be excited for in regards to upcoming content. Our regular development updates are expected to return in September, though in a more lightweight fashion as we barrel towards the impending Beta and Early Access releases.

It’s been a hell of a journey for everyone, but it’s finally time to close in for the home stretch.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to June’s Development Update!

We are steadily moving towards the Beta release, with a feeling of anticipation growing within the team. Many of the gameplay systems required to move the game forward are coming together, so it’s a very exciting time to be working on the project!

While there’s no set Beta release date we can share at this moment, we can give you an insight into our process as we approach this next milestone. Other than obviously completing the gameplay systems we started, the main goals for these coming months include completing a large volume of art assets (such as animal animations, buildings, modular structure, etc.) as well as balancing the core gameplay loop. This second objective is especially important, since gameplay is built from a multitude of interconnected moving parts. As a team, this is our first time tackling such a complex task, so we want to take the necessary time needed to make the player experience enjoyable.

With that being said, let’s take a dive into this month’s development progress!


Created by Warpath.



June had a large focus on background work and optimization, but it also allowed us to work on a bunch of new and exciting features for the game.

First up, object recolouring. This is something that we’re trying to build a robust framework for, but it’s coming along very well. While the system isn’t quite ready enough to be properly shown off, we’re excited to confirm that many objects in Prehistoric Kingdom will be fully recolorable, with some even having multiple color choices for their patterns. We’re hoping to give a more in-depth look into this colorful beast of a system in July’s Devlog, so hang tight!



Next up, music! Our dynamic music system is a first for Prehistoric Kingdom, as it allows us to contextually pick or manipulate tracks using data driven by players and the state of their park. It’s really quite powerful, and we’re looking forward to getting the most out of it.

Finally, the team took a look at optimizing various parts of the game. Modular pieces are now instanced (like painted forests), though more testing is required to see just how much of an improvement it could be. Selection graphics have also been reworked, allowing us to bring back effects like object highlights without affecting performance. Overall, these changes could be quite beneficial for larger parks or actions like selecting big modular groups.





Electric power is one of the major cornerstones of modern civilization. This rings especially true in Prehistoric Kingdom, unless you plan on escaped carnivores being part of the tour experience! With the importance of this mechanic being so high, we spent a better part of June introducing new electrifying depths to the power system.

Power generators are now capable of failing on their own, requiring a reboot to get them running again. Their chance of turning off is based on a failure rate; influenced by the type of generator, its effective range, and structural integrity.

Using the new selection graphics, the visuals for our power range and network have been significantly improved since alpha, too.



A generator’s range can be manipulated by players to increase/decrease the chance of failure.

Similarly, all infrastructure and guest facilities take damage over time. Once an initial warranty period has expired, they become susceptible to age, and of course, various weather conditions.



As a building’s structural integrity falls, its monthly upkeep increases until the building eventually shuts down. Occasionally checking up on your park and looking for buildings in need of repair will help keep the costs lower and your guests satisfied for longer.

As nightfall arrives, the park springs anew. Illuminating the paths and boulevards, lights activate across the zoo to bring another dimension of life to your Prehistoric Kingdom.






It’s more than just pretty looking fluff, however. Both nighttime and the now implemented weather system reduce the effectiveness of basic power solutions. Solar panels and wind turbines are less than ideal depending on the availability of sunlight or during strong rainstorms.

Weather patterns change on a monthly basis, offering unique alterations to both visual aesthetics and management conditions. Over the course of an in-game year, players can discover seasonal variations on their chosen map. Wet and dry seasons provide tropical locales with a distinctly damp flair, while colder environments see chilling drops in the temperature.


Weather transitions (sped up).






This is simply a first look at some of the weather options coming to the game, so we hope you’re excited to see how it improves in the future!

To help brighten your park at night, we’ve added over 20 modern lights to the game. With options suitable for ceilings, floors, walls and the outdoors, park managers can flex their creative muscles in a huge number of ways.






We’ve made sure to offer varying degrees of design complexity so that users can more easily create custom light fixtures using the modular building system. And yes, they’re all recolorable!

Coming to beta is the majestic Camarasaurus, arriving with all three alternate species. Though this animal is smaller than some of its Jurassic cousins, we think this creature will quickly become a staple sauropod of parks in the future.




The team’s made some adjustments to the animal since it was last shown off. Better facial anatomy, tweaks to the sculpt and revised skins make this Morrison giant the best it can be.




Created by Jackosaur.


Created by Sdanwolf.


Created by JurassicSmashed.

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Thank you for reading June’s devlog!

We hope you enjoyed this month’s report, and are just as excited as us for the next release. Should all go well, we will be ready to announce the Beta launch date in either of the two next devlogs, so keep those beady eyes peeled!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to May’s Development Update!

This month the team has put together quite a juicy update, rich with new information and a whole bunch of major additions being worked on in the background.



Development during May was great all across the board! We saw a lot of substantial progress in key areas that ultimately led to one of the most important months in some time, bringing in a lot of important gameplay changes and UI elements.

Though things are going extremely well on our end, we should note that Beta is most likely to take place in Q3 so that the team can really polish up the experience. We’re introducing quite a few complex systems and we'd like to ensure most of the prominent edge cases are covered before pushing another major release for testing.

In rather significant news, the logic for our core progression systems like Park Rating have been written. For the first time in the project’s history, we’re able to test and simulate the progression of a park, its economy and inventory of animals (more on that in a minute).

All that’s left to do for self-functioning progression is to link up actual gameplay values like exhibit data, animal welfare, park statistics, etc. In terms of the maths and calculations required behind the scenes, that’s all been taken care of.

Between developing systems and iterating, we’re continually tweaking the game’s visuals and seeking new additions where we can. In May, we introduced a double-pass of AO, bringing richer depth to the shadows and making the game pop more. This change has little impact on performance and can always be disabled.



To top it all off, we also introduced an anamorphic lens flare to hit that slightly more cinematic quality on bright surfaces.





As discussed, three large parts of the game’s progression mechanics and their related management menus have almost been finished up, ready for data to inform their systems.

The Overview menu is where you’ll find the breakdown of your park as a whole, acting as the hub for checking your park rating and performance.


UI Concept Art (Child Pricing, Marketing & Staff Not Available at Early Access Launch).

Relevant management statistics and the weather forecast are all visible on the right side of the screen, offering a surface level look at various areas or activities that players can interact with.

Money makes the world go ‘round, even in Prehistoric Kingdom. As we’re working with more “grounded” pricing, your animals and infrastructure can be quite a hefty investment; potentially costing millions of dollars!


In-Game UI Connected to Economy Data.

From the Finances menu, players can look at their quarterly performance to see all their recent profits and expenses. The customizable line graph on the right shows what you’ve been up to over time with the option to switch between a monthly or yearly review.

If you’re really struggling or need a boost, players can redeem loans that are paid off at a flat interest rate per month. With factors like facility upkeep as a monthly overhead, we’re curious to see all your failure and success rates during Beta.

Excavations are how players selectively unearth new animals over the course of the game. Locked off by the current park rating, dig sites can be purchased with cash while the animals inside are unlocked with a unique currency, science points.

Though some animals are missing their prices or other stats, the experience surrounding this part of the game is really starting to come together - take a look!


Work in Progress.

Part of the many improvements coming to Beta, we’ve been experimenting with the game’s weather and atmospherics to see what types of climate conditions we’d be able to simulate. In June, we’ll properly start the process of creating weather presets and fully implementing them into the game’s calendar year.




As you could probably guess, the weather system will also influence the park’s soundscape and other simulations like temperature. It’s a level of immersion and detail that we’ve never quite had before, so we’re very excited to see where it’ll take us.

Take a dive beneath the surface to experience your park from a splashing new perspective!

Underwater rendering is here and we’ve approached it in quite a refreshing way, allowing for a seamless visual transition between what’s above and below the waves of your prehistoric ponds.




Our soundscape changes with the camera’s position, too! As the player plunges beneath the surface, elements like animals, buildings, music and ambient audio are filtered out depending on how deep the camera is underwater.


Work in Progress.

In the future, additional wildlife audio will be introduced to give the impression of a bio-diverse wetland in areas with water.

Flying animals in a contained space are difficult to get right, no matter how you approach them. For us, the best option for our tiny Microraptors ended up being animation loops and predetermined locations, though even that has its own set of unique challenges to overcome.

In May, we began developing a more dynamic approach to setting up their navigable paths. Instead of hand animating the entire motion, we’ve instead switched to using spline and velocity data to inform how a creature should animate as it moves along the path.

This might sound like the most obvious choice in hindsight, but the reality is that this approach has a much higher technical development cost to get it looking right and functioning correctly. The biggest benefit of this solution, however, is how much time it cuts down on animation, allowing us to build a library of unique movements that the game can pick from.


Custom Development Tools.

With almost half an hour of original music already written for Beta, the score is starting to take its shape! To celebrate, this month we’re showing off two more snippets from the soundtrack, All For Them and Ingenuity (non-final mix).

• All For Them
  
• Ingenuity

The Coastal biome received its quality of life update, introducing loads of new items to bring its total foliage count up to 21 variants.






Perhaps one of the most well known hadrosaurs, Parasaurolophus is a truly remarkable creature. Best identified by the elongated resonating chamber on its head, three of its species are spread across the world ready for players to find in the upcoming Beta.






Recently, Nigel teased his role in the game with a short dialogue preview! Click the link below to visit his Twitter page and watch this very special clip.






Created by swoop_there.

Created by Jackosaur.

Created by Warpath.

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Thank you for reading May’s devlog!

After a highly successful month we hope that you enjoyed another Prehistoric Kingdom development update. As always we’ll be back next month with more information and great progress to share with you all!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to April’s Development Update!

In this shorter blog post we’ll be covering the usual; what our team’s been up to and what the community can expect to see in the future! Most of our work in April was done on the game’s backend, so there’s not much to visually cover this month.


Aviary Interior by Warpath.



After pushing our last update to the alpha, our main priority was upgrading our engine version, source control service and fixing all the lovely issues that can occur as a result of that.

Despite the expected and partial setback, a lot of exciting content started production in April. Art highlights include new music, vegetation assets, 3D building sketches, dinosaur sculpting and extra types of idle animations for the animals (e.g. sniffing and scratching).

As part of the on-going effort to improve our modular system, the grid is now super reliable! This should address a lot of the problems users experienced in alpha. Similarly, the backend for material switching and recoloring was rebuilt to allow for the new UI features. Check it out!


As you can see, it’s now possible to mass-select a building and change all swappable materials on the fly. This functionality is expected to apply to object recoloring, though we’ll save the details for a later date when that’s implemented.

On the management side of things, we started with exhibit data. This provides us with a jumping off point to start figuring out the calculations for things like animal needs and their overall welfare. Exhibits and how they’re scored are very much the driving force behind our management simulation, influencing everything from guest spawns to the park economy and rating. How you build and optimise your paddocks in Prehistoric Kingdom is a central component in ensuring your success as a player.




This month we’ve got two work-in-progress samples from the game’s soundtrack to tease you with! Though there’s currently 11 minutes of goodness behind the scenes, we wanted to give everyone a small taste of what’s to come.

Below you can find two types of tracks. One that we’ve internally dubbed as “working” music, and the other that plays inside the Animal Nursery. There’s a whole selection of music being written for specific scenes within the game, and we cannot wait for you to hear more.

• Visitors on Main
  
• The Miracle of Life

Since we’re writing for an adaptive music system, what you’re hearing is the full mix (e.g. everything together). In-game this is split into different layers, allowing us to control the intensity of the music depending on player context and game rules.

The completed soundtrack will be purchasable (and delivered to eligible backers) once the body of work has been finished post Early Access launch.

Wetlands received its final few foliage items, introducing new ground plants to help bring your swampy desires to life. Horsetails, arrow arum, new reeds and the decorative pickerelweed all assist in filling out the marshy plains.

Our tall trees weren’t forgotten, though! The swamp cypress has been reworked from the ground up, adding four unique variants to the roster in the process.


Updated Wetland plants (papyrus not shown as it remains unchanged).

Cypress knees will also be available as a modular item for players who wish to take their wetland forests to the next level.

What creature would most definitely beat you in a thumb wrestle? The Iguanodon of course! Returning to the kingdom with a brand new look, this take on the classic dinosaur was inspired by a variety of real-world reptiles, incorporating a more retro and armoured appearance.




As you can probably guess, we’ve been experimenting with atmospheric effects and different types of weather, too. At this stage it’s something the team are hoping to include in some capacity for Beta and/or Early Access.

Before we conclude this month’s devlog, the team would like to briefly showcase the eating animation and temporary foley sounds for the T. rex. Details like adding visible chunks of meat are still on our to-do list, but we figured the community would still like to see it regardless.



With a seasoned bite like that, the steaks of owning a Tyrannosaur must be pretty high, no?


Recently, we confirmed three new animal species coming to Beta on our official Discord server.

The Woolly Mammoth, Pachyrhinosaurus and Torvosaurus will all make an appearance alongside the other creatures found in Alpha. There are a few more announcements to be made regarding the Beta roster, so stay tuned for future updates!





…

Soon.






Created by Evolution Square.


Created by Hiysta.


Created by Rudi Rennkamel.

...

Thank you for reading April’s devlog!

We would once again like to take the time to thank everyone for their support during Alpha. With Beta on the horizon, we hope that the community is looking forward to a wealth of improvements and new content to play with. More info will be coming next month!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome, park managers!

Like we mentioned last, this 2nd update tackles a variety of navigation and stability issues. Most fixes revolve especially around guests, which should stop ignoring player-created barriers and obstacles, for the most part. Or maybe not. They are free spirits.

• Animals
  
  • Relaxed navmesh constraints for Nasutoceratops and Styracosaurus, now allowing them to walk underneath archways.
    
  • Animals can no longer vocalize when sleeping and broadcasting.

• Guests
  
  • Improved pathfinding navmesh generation for guests.
    
  • Guests no longer path on and get stuck on top of rocks.
    
  • Guests should no longer fall through the floor.
    
  • Guests should no longer freeze in place for long periods of time.
    
  • Guests should no longer walk through obstacles and fences.
    
  • Deleting a path will now teleport the guests on it back to the park entrance.
    
  • If guests get stuck somewhere they shouldn’t be, they will be teleported back to the park entrance.

• Construction
  
  • Fixed issues that might have led to mis-aligned grid-bound wall pieces.
    
  • Fixed a modular issue that prevented selection for newly duplicated pieces.
    
  • Fixed the false bottom for Rock Cluster 1 and Rock Cluster 2.

• UI/UX
  
  • Changed FPS limit to account for VSync, and dynamically change depending on the screen’s refresh rate. By default, FPS limit in the option menu is now set to the max screen refresh rate, so users might need to re-apply changes.
    
  • Making a new save game will now show up in the save list immediately after.
    
  • Resolved lighting artifacts on distant terrain.

• Misc.
  
  • Fixed freezing when saving the game.

• UI/UX
  
  • Updated the group editing GUI, this should make it clearer that a modular group is currently being edited.
    
  • Disabled quick loading.

• Audio
  
  • Increased fade-in time on Tyrannosaurus broadcast when far away.

• Misc.
  
  • Drastically improved current Anti-Aliasing solutions. Not only does the default TAA look better, but FXAA and SMAA now provide viable options that improve upon the default. It is recommended to play around with these settings to get the most desired AA look.

• Animals
  
  • Added grazing behaviours to Nasutoceratops and Styracosaurus.
    

• Buildings & Scenery
  
  • Added 1m and 2m Stairs to the ‘Walls’ modular menu. Like other wall pieces, their texture and model change based on the selected material.
    
    
  • Added path snapping to building entrances. While this is a temporary solution until foundation snapping is fully implemented, it should aid with connecting areas of the park together.

• UI/UX
  
  • Added a navmesh preview to the management view menu (which can be accessed through the dashboard on the left side of the screen). Selecting an animal will display its traversal area. NOTE: This is not a completed feature. At the moment, the preview is only generated for a short radius around an animal. In the future, we also plan to give the selected animal a highlight graphic for ease of use.
    
    
  • Added camera edge scrolling and respective settings in the 'Camera' section of the options menu.
    
  • Animals are now placeable on modular items, if the navmesh is valid.

It is a known issue that audio for ceratopsid grazing currently plays independent of the game's current time scale. This will be addressed in the future.
Since we've done major changes to the ways navmeshes are generated on load, loading a save created prior to this patch might take a little longer than usual. This will only occur for the first time loading said save.

We hope you'll enjoy the changes we brought to the table with this patch! While we might release fix patches here and there, this is going to be the last major update until Beta. We regret that animal eating and drinking has not been included throughout Alpha, as it would have required core improvements of the animal locomotion system in order to deliver more satisfactory results. Simply put, we feel it's a better idea to move promptly onto full-time Beta development, and make the needed improvements during this period.
As always, you can rest assured we will be showing off more progress through our future devlogs.

Welcome to March’s Development Update!

In this month’s devlog we’ll be taking a look at what we’ve been working on, what the community’s been up to and the response to our latest release!


Created by Rudi Rennkamel.



To start, we want to thank everyone who has participated in the alpha (roughly 1,300 people). You’re all building some amazing stuff and the team is extremely happy to hear the excitement in the community.

Detailed in our last livestream, there’s a number of additions and improvements we’re working on for the alpha. Since then, the team’s decided to reschedule the addition of the Viewing Platform and building state icons for beta so that we can properly introduce their mechanics at a more appropriate time. Overall, we’re expecting support for alpha to come to an end in early April, though this may be extended if major issues arise.



On a more musical note (pun intended), our composer and sound designer Byron began writing and planning out the new soundtrack earlier in March. This time around we’re aiming to create a very dynamic score, one that’s adaptive and built around a layered music system. We’ve learned a lot about modern audio implementation over the last year, and we really wanted to do the potential of this game’s music justice.

Though a lot of the original melodies and motifs will carry over in some form or another, we hope you look forward to hearing some fresh work in the upcoming beta.





As you may have already seen in alpha footage, our visitors are able to fully navigate in, on and around modular structures. This is a real game changer, as it means that guests do not solely rely on paths to get around your park.

Naturally, this also allows users to build custom bridges without the need for elevated paths! If there’s a navigable area between a guest and their destination, they’ll use it.


Created by @leafzproduction

This functionality extends to guest pathfinding in general, allowing them to walk along building foundations as if a path were underneath them.



Pathfinding is something that will be continually tweaked over time, and we already have a bunch of ideas on how to improve it. It’s got huge potential and we can’t wait to make it the best we can.

Thanks to great feedback from our lovely alpha players, we’ve started working on some tweaks and updates to our user interface. Please note that these changes will not be available until beta.


UI Concept Art (Nursery Update)

For the Nursery, we noted that some players struggled to find the animal creation box. With these adjustments, we hope to make that area more digestable as the “main” workspace. Some more miscellaneous enhancements were made too, tweaks like centralizing the animal’s name and various balances to the overall piece.

When it comes to construction, however, there were a few things that we needed to communicate better:

• When am I editing a group?
  A new screenborder, group header and dedicated exit button will appear when a player enters a group. A subtle audio cue will also play.

• What are the keybinds?
  On-screen keybinds will be bigger and more specific to what the user is actually doing, eliminating excess visual noise and hopefully inspiring new players to give them a glance. If you’re a master though, these floating keybinds can be turned off in the options menu.

For the toolbox in general, we’ll be splitting it into two components for centralized access: settings, and customization. What appears in the respective windows will be context sensitive, dependant on what’s currently ready for placement or what’s selected in the world.


UI Concept Art (Modular Toolbox, Keybinds, and Group Editing Overlay)


UI Concept Art (Modular Toolbox Customization)

This change will give players the ability to select multiple items in a group and change the textures of walls, roofs and rocks at the same time, something that isn’t allowed in the current UI.

Remember though, this is context senstive! If a roof piece is selected, only the Roof Material panel will appear for customization. What does or doesn’t show is entirely based on what you’re doing.

To help with general usability, building state icons will be added during beta to better display what’s needed from the player at a moment’s notice. These remain a consistent size on screen, but scale down over distance.

We should note that these are reserved for things that require your attention or that are time-sensitive, we don’t want to overwhelm the player with non-critical information. Passive things like incubation timers are in a friendly bubble, and bad things are in red-black hexagons.


Concept Art (Building State Icons)

It’s big, it’s bold and it honks! Meet our redesigned Lambeosaurus, a surprise change that wasn’t properly unveiled until alpha’s launch. This animal has quickly become a favourite amongst alpha players with its unique calls and vibrant skin variation.




Apart from a bunch of lovely new designs, we tweaked a number of key features like its facial anatomy and of course, the new giant tail! This one’s for you, Big Paul.



In case you haven’t seen any gameplay from the alpha, there have been loads of fantastic content creators covering it in extreme detail. Though we sadly can’t showcase everybody, these are some great starting points!







Looking at our release roadmap, this is where the game is headed in 2021.

It’s very important to note that these are estimated dates as we are taking community feedback into account during both alpha and beta. We want to release a stable product for Early Access and we will take the time necessary to do so if it ensures a more premium experience.

Our next milestone, beta, will be introducing a bunch of improvements, new features and animals on top of the six available in alpha. This is very exciting for us, as with every major release our project feels more and more like a game.

Some mechanics that were closely tied to staff (e.g. animal food production) have been pushed back as an update post-EA launch to help ease the development schedule. As always, we’ll be providing insight into what’s changing or what’s being added in future devlogs.




Created by ChasmosaurLuke.


Created by JurassicRiley.


Created by TheBeachDog.


Created by Zekin.


Created by LionRider.


Created by OfManyVoices.

...

Thank you for reading March’s devlog!

Alpha’s been brilliant so far, and the team is hard at working on some new hotfixes and patches that’ll be out very soon. Once again, thanks so much to all of our supporters - whether you’ve been with us for years or days, we’re happy you’re here.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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