Welcome to the February Update!

In today’s post we’ll be exploring parts of our next Beta update and delving into what our busy team’s been working on. If you weren’t already aware, a public roadmap highlighting some of our upcoming plans can be found over on Trello.



Extra wall pieces and pillars will soon be added in our next update, allowing for new shapes and wall combinations. In addition to pillar pieces for all the wall materials, players will also be greeted to 1x1, 1x2 and 1x4 panels to create more intricate parts in their builds.




As you can see above, there are a number of unique pillar models depending on their assigned material.

In our next update, players will need to consider the welfare of their animals and the quality of their habitat. Beyond expected necessities like food and water, Exhibit Cleanliness is a new and important feature with big consequences for your overall exhibit and zoo rating.

While pooping, animals will drop small dung particles onto the ground and create mounds. While the particles disappear after a short amount of time, dung mounds will build up over time as animals continue to poop nearby. Players can minimise poops by supplying High Quality feed to their creatures.



Excessive faeces can greatly detract from a paddock’s Exhibit Score and will begin to make animals unhappy.



To manage Exhibit Cleanliness, players can either schedule a habitat for cleaning or employ some very lovable friends; the Dung Beetles! Found within the Animal Care category, the Dung Beetle Nest is a small item that will automatically clean piles of poop within its radius.



Park Managers wanting to operate large income zoo's will need to pay attention to their Exhibit Scores, a new value used to keep track of how attractive a habitat is to visitors. Higher scores lead to better donations and collectable science points.


UI Concept Art with placeholder numbers.

To maximise Exhibit Score, players have a number of options at their disposal:

• Total Animal Ratings: the collective value of all animals in the habitat.
  
• Decorations: the number of decorative scenery objects in the habitat.
  
• Ecology: housing animals from the same time period and country.

These perks can be offset by poor exhibit management, however. Visible dung, carcasses and repeated species found elsewhere in the park will drop the overall Exhibit Score.

Players must also attempt to maximise the Total Welfare and Visibility of a habitat to secure the best possible Exhibit Score.

With Early Access just around the corner the team continues to collect important feedback, improving gameplay experience through updates and prepping for Early Access launch. It’s been wonderful to see the community grow over the last few months and we can’t wait for everyone to have access to Prehistoric Kingdom!

We’re currently looking for additional animators to join the team and help further develop Prehistoric Kingdom. If you’re interested in working on creature animation, please send your portfolio over to us on Twitter via DMs or to our email address (info@prehistorickingdom.com).

So, what’s coming beyond the next update? Right now, our environment team is hard at work on the upcoming Temperate map (British, ‘innit). 9 foliage variants will be arriving alongside the new locale, offering more variety for the temperate biome.



We’re also very pleased to finally unveil the long awaited Psittacosaurus redux. These little critters will be available in one of our final updates before launching into Early Access, arriving with three alternate species. We can’t wait for you to meet them all!






Created by SimplySavannah.


Created by Warpath.


Created by So_Bad.

...

Thank you for reading February’s dev diary!

We expect the next update for Closed Beta to launch in Early March, with Early Access scheduled for a late April release.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome to the December & January Development Update!

Happy New Year, 2022! In this combined Dev Diary we'll be discussing December’s Closed Beta improvements and some exciting future developments for upcoming major game updates.

After our short holiday break, the team is back preparing new content that’ll be ready to drop during February.



While we work on introducing Animal Welfare into the game’s current beta build, new animal feeders (Blood Pumpkin & Fruit Block) provide enrichment for the animals at your prehistoric zoo.



There are a number of new additions to building items for creative builders to expand their guest facilities. Additional doors, lights, tables and chairs have now been included as Modular Pieces.

Enjoy more trees and plants with the new Boreal Biome and all its substrates: Snow, Withered Grass, Gravel & Rock. This new scenery addition inspired many Winter Wonderland parks over the festive season.

This update also saw the addition of the Douglas Fir, Alaskan Cedar, Alpine Currant and Alpine Bearberry.



The PK team is expanding! In December we welcomed new members to the team to speed up production and to increase our social media presence. With Early Access in April (only a few months away!) we’ll continue to provide regular content updates to get direct feedback and thoughts from the community that have Closed Beta access.

Animal socializing and behaviors will play a big part in managing a successful zoo and keeping your prehistoric animals happy! We're very eager to introduce our animal welfare mechanics in the lead up to Early Access and continue to flesh out their presence in the park.

As a start, the team’s currently working on exhibit management features such as dung. Everybody poops, and your prehistoric animals are no exception.


Some herbivore dung. This is some crappy work!

In terms of gamemodes, we’ve begun creating dedicated Challenge and Sandbox experiences alongside our new map selection screen. From here, players will pick where in the world they want to build their Prehistoric Kingdom and how they want to play.



Finally, Prehistoric Kingdom will soon be greeted by a returning species that our animal artists have taken extra care in developing. Players with access to the Closed Beta can look out for this creature in one of the upcoming major game updates before Early Access launch.


Weird looking cat.



Created by Warpath.


Created by Bumbee.


Created by Draco Agamicus.

...

Thank you for reading December-January’s dev diary!

We’d like to thank all of our current players for providing their feedback in this crucial stage of development. We have many exciting weeks ahead, and we can't wait to share everything with you!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome, park managers!

With Christmas officially upon us, we felt there was no better way to close 2021 off with a festive holidays content patch!

• Animals
  
  • New Animal Enrichment: Blood Pumpkin
    
  • New Animal Enrichment: Frozen Fruit Block
• Buildings & Scenery
  
  • New Guest Facilities: Modern Table (x4)
    
  • New Props: Table Umbrella (x2)
    
  • New Official Prefabs: Shaded Table Modern (x4)
    
    
  • Lamp Decorative Hanging (x2)
    
  • Lamp Decorative Straight (x2)
    
  • Lamp Decorative Vertical (x2)
• Foliage
  
  • Alaskan Yellow Cedar (x3)
    
  • Douglas Fir (x3)
    
  • Alpine Bearberry (x3)
    
  • Alpine Currant (x3)
• Biomes
  • Added the Boreal Biome with all its substrates: Snow, Withered Grass, Gravel & Rock
• Audio
  • Speeding up time will now play time-specific sound events for better feedback

• Buildings & Scenery
  • Introduced collision checks for bins, benches, and tables
    
  • Decreased default scale for Wheelbarrow
• Foliage
  • Updated icons for Scrubland foliage
• Rendering
  • Reduced bright blue hues in the screen-space reflections
    
  • Reflection probes now account for clouds
    
  • Generally improved water rendering, particularly sky color reflection accuracy
    
  • Improved underwater graphics
• Audio
  • Certain entity sounds now remain audible when time is sped up e.g. animal growls, calls, etc.
    
  • General mix adjustments for when the game is sped up

• Critical
  • Fixed power node refreshing events to trigger at the expected times - previous performance improvements had accidentally messed this up
    
  • Should have fixed a critical selection error that caused double clicking to lock up player input
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fixed saved light coloring resetting on new placement
• Rendering
  • Resolved distant atmospheric flickering
    
  • Fixed downscaled resolution for underwater effects
    
  • Fixed animal outline popping up on demolition actions
• Construction
  • Fixed flashing grid on modular action end
• UX
  • Fixed weather transitions not applying correctly on different timescales

• Slightly improved performance of rain particle effects
  
• Improved water CPU efficiency

The team will take a short winter vacation, but we'll be back in full swing come early January, so see everybody then!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Welcome, park managers!

In this small patch we've targeted some main optimizations that should hopefully scale decently well with larger builds, as well as some much requested quality of life features.
The work on those fronts doesn't end here however: high on our priorities are further guest and animal optimizations, as well as better gameplay integrations of existing systems - power is on the line for further updates, with the eventual inclusion of status pop-ups making game readability more straight forward.

• Foliage
  • Bald Cypress (x4)
    
  • Swamp Beech (x1)
• UI/UX
  • Added keybind for quick modular grid toggle - G
    
  • Added a GUI tooltip to modular actions, giving users better indication of the current modular action being performed
    
  • Added modular attaching functionality - a new piece will automatically be added to a group if its placement is in collision range
• Audio
  • Large ornithomimid family sounds added to Deinocheirus
    
  • Vocalization audio added to Parasaurolophus
    
  • Surface interaction foley added to large theropod and ornithomimid rest/sleep animations
    
  • Nursery preview audio added to Camarasaurus, Deinocheirus, Torvosaurus, Mammoth, Pachyrhinosaurus, Parasaurolophus and Protoceratops

• UI/UX
  • The building menu toolbox is now enabled by default, regardless of current player activity
    
  • The modular styling toolbox is now enabled by default whenever the player cycles through modular selection. Hopefully this will make it easier to access the full range of material editing
    
  • Added ability to double click a modular group to quickly begin editing mode and select the hovered piece
    
  • Increased max. amount of styles displayed in the modular styling GUI to 5, allowing players to change more than one material at once on a broader piece selection
    
  • Generally revamped UX for the modular power status, it should now be much easier to accurately read upon the energy status of a group
    
  • Enabled quick nursery shortcut found in the Nursery Holder menu
• Rendering
  • Updated several biomes grass colors

• Critical
  • Fixed critical modular group data caching issues, which led to incorrect power readings in the past, among others
• Graphics
  • Fixed black splotches on the distant ocean
• AI & Animals
  • Fixed animals walking on the spot
• UI/UX
  • Fixed issue that caused Escape input events to trigger at the wrong time for modular group deselection
    
  • Fixed issue that prevented the building menu to reset properly if it was upscaled
    
  • Fixed bug that caused selection outlines to disappear on piece redo, if the group was selected

• Fixed some null logging for the animals, players should see slightly better animal optimization
  
• Improved modular rendering efficiency, with larger park performance scaling slightly better. At the same time, rendering queues should now clear out if complex groups are not rendering anymore.
  
• Optimized several CPU processes, mostly tied to modular groups and power processing. CPU usage on larger parks should be smaller
  
• Improved grass CPU performance

We hope you'll enjoy this update! We've got another patch planned for the next few days, to coincide with current festivities. Afterwards, the team is gonna be taking a holiday break, with regular updates returning in January.

Happy Holidays!

Welcome, park managers!

Thank you all so much for your feedback over the first week of Beta. We'll be working hard to add new content and improve Prehistoric Kingdom before our Early Access release in April, 2022.

• Buildings & Scenery
  
  • Backstage Door 1
    
  • Backstage Door 2
    
  • Modern Door 1
    
  • Modern Door 2
    
  • Modern Door 3
    
  • Rustic Door 1
    
  • Rustic Door 2
    
  • Rustic Door 3
    
    
  • FX Fire
    
  • FX Waterfall & Splash
    
  • FX Smoke
• Foliage
  • Redwood variants (2, 3, 4)
    
  • Scots Pine variants (2, 3)
• Construction
  • Added Ctrl+A as a keybind to quickly select all the pieces inside an edited group
    
  • Added quick modular object scaling functionality - hold Left Alt to scale an object, tap to reset its scale
• Audio
  
  • Small Ceratopsian family sounds added to Protoceratops
    
  • Readded foliage painting audio
• Music
  
  • Added new idle/wonder track

• Animals
  
  • Improved animal pathfinding at lower framerates
• Buildings & Scenery
  
  • Removed noise from rough statue material
    
  • Reduced emissive brightness of brand signs
• Foliage
  
  • Adjusted horsetail shading and impostors
• UX/Balance
  
  • Updated Help menu text to include Excavations and remove Alpha references
    
  • Added quick Excavations access toggle on the left side of the screen
    
  • Reduced excavation sites purchasing costs
    
  • Increased income from guest facility usage
    
  • Fixed UI issue that caused the wrong cost to be displayed in the preview panel of some modular items
    
  • Added ability to disable weather transitions through the weather menu
    
  • Set item rotation snap default to disabled
• Rendering
  
  • Adjusted fog distances and general level haziness
    
  • Adjusted grass color saturation and alpha cutoff
    
  • Adjusted AO effects
• Audio
  
  • 3D sound size now shrinks over distance to better spatialize animals when not up-close
    
  • Adjusted distance attenuation on small Ceratopsian sounds
    
  • Reduced volume of sleeping Mini-Aviary creatures
    
  • Random wildlife now use distant reverb instead of local area
• Music
  
  • Soundtrack volume should be more consistent across tracks

• Critical
  
  • Loading a new level will now reset the terrain, setting a much prettier scenery overall
• Buildings & Scenery
  
  • Fixed wrong pieces on the round stone walls
    
  • Fixed inverted normals on the vertical wooden wall style
• Construction
  
  • Fixed a critical issue that caused prefab placement corruption
    
  • Fixed issue that caused mini aviary animals to disappear once the mini aviary style is changed
    
  • Fixed modular grid graphic sizing issue
• UX
  
  • Save game previews now display a more accurate overview of the park, including rendered modular items
    
  • Fixed animal naming
    
  • Fixed modular grid graphic offset when entering modular edit mode
    
  • Fixed issue causing the animal navmesh preview graphics to get stuck when exiting overview mode
    
  • Fixed screenshot mode initializing with wrong values
• Audio
  
  • Fixed random wildlife layers not panning left and right
    
  • Fixed issue that caused action audio to get stuck on a loop
    
  • Fixed item placement not sending to stereo reverb channels
• Music
  
  • Fixed soundtrack carrying over into the main menu
    
  • Fixed soundtrack cutting out during musical pauses or low dynamics

• Improved rendering performance during night-time, framerate should now be more consistent regardless of time of day
  
• Reduced drawing distances for some items, this should hopefully improve performance for lower end machines
  
• Reduced shadow cascade count, creating a slight rendering performance boost
  
• Slightly reduced overall rendering cost of clouds, while improving lower setting cloud graphics

VFX particles currently render through fog, creating odd depth issues depending on the viewing angle and weather conditions. As this is an issue relating to the engine, we do not have an ETA for a fix, though placing solid objects behind particles (e.g. rocks) can help to alleviate depth problems.

Thumbnail screenshot from Discord user Warpth.

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.

...

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.

...

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.

...

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.

...

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.






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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.



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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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