Howdy Parkasaurus Warriors. 2018 has begun and both MT and I hope you’re doing great. One of us got the flu but has fully recovered. Alrighty, down to business.
Alpha Version 2
Everything looks to be on track. We might take an extra week to reach Alpha Ver 2 in order to give a thorough pass on Dino logic. Specifically carnivore behavior – we’re looking to make their demeanor more personable; ie. more like lions at the zoo as opposed to berserk monsters from the movies. (don’t worry, they still eat people)
Update 003 Topics
Bio-Diversity
Preview Tool
Upgrade Sets
Bio-Diversity
We’re hoping players create beautiful diverse exhibits for their Dinos that include a range of fauna and decoration. The earlier version of bio-diversity tried to reward players to achieve the perfect balance between trees : rocks : plants. After designing a few exhibits we quickly found this system stifled the creativity of players. Not cool! Instead we reward players for bio-diversity, but don’t punish players if this is not their prime focus in Parkasaurus. Much better. The bars shown in the image now indicate the amount of each fauna / decoration type in the selected exhibit, and also how many of level 1 types versus level 2 types. Level 2 exhibit type items are researched and give bonuses to Dino happiness among other cool benefits.
Preview Tool
This maybe isn’t the most exciting picture to show – but it is the most exciting for me to work with! We created a tool to create awesome preview pictures (right) for the in-game build menu based off the original 3D models (left). What this means for Parkasaurus is 1) beautiful preview images 2) keeps us on pace to get the game into your hands.
Upgrade Sets
In Parkasaurus you can upgrade a whole range of park buildings and important functional items. This past week we’ve created all the models for these upgrade sets. For example, the admissions booth can be upgraded to Level 2, Level 3. Every upgrade comes with both a visual change AND an increase in park performance. The increase in performance depends on what is being upgraded, so in the case of the admissions booth you can imagine increased performance means serving customers quicker, and having additional booths to accept MORE customers (not shown).
Parkasaurus Warriors!
We’d love for you to be a Parkasaurus Warrior! How does one become that? Well, help spread the word about Parkasaurus by sharing us via that cute little green button below, wishlisting us, following us on Twitter or posting about us on reddit or forums. Being a Parkasaurus Warrior is such a big help to us. Thank you to infinite!
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change by the Early Access version
Parkasaurus Update 002
Happy New Year Parkasaurus Warriors!
2018 is going to be exciting; it is the year Parkasaurus emerges onto the world with your help! From both MT and me, we hope you have a safe, happy and fun in 2018. Now, let me get down to business.
Alpha Version 2
Overall we’re on track for hitting our Alpha2 milestone. The main tasks at this point are elevating the awesomeness of our current features from about 70% to 90%, and then having a real thorough analysis of what happens when Dinos escape. (if you have any ideas feel free shout them out). We have so many cool features to put into Parkasaurus after we reach Alpha2 and are excited to talk about them later.
Update 002 Topics
Dino Wear-ables
Dynamic Biomes
Dino WorkFlow
Dino Wear-ables
You might ask yourself – is this the most important aspect of Parkasaurus we should be working on? And the answer is a definite YES! We had earlier developed the Dinos to wear glasses, but now we’ve properly expanded it so you can place glasses/hats/scarfs on your Dinos. In fact, some wear-ables for your Dinos provide special abilities and buffs. Dino buffs? You betcha! In the pictures you can see some Santa hats and how you place wear-ables on your Dinos.
Dynamic Biomes
Dynamic biomes is a feature we’ve been hoping to make for a long time. In Parkasaurus crafting your exhibit to be the perfect biome for your Dino friend requires you to be the ultimate zoo designer. By changing either water or elevation your exhibit is shifted into different biomes. Does your Dino require a Grasslands exhibit? If you checkout the picture one can see how changing terrain heights and adding humidity can push the biome from Desert into Grasslands. There are so many possibilities!
Dino Workflow
(I had a neato animated gif to show you, but Steam isn’t letting me upload it. SAD. A still image will have to suffice for now)
This is really exciting. Basically the Dino Workflow is how we take a Dino from concept – to being your future Dino friend in game. The system MT and I have made is efficient and produces solid results. This is important; we want to make as many cool and different Dinos for your park so being able to do this quickly is key. Maybe it is a bit of a spoiler but here is an “in process” TRex walk animation cycle.
Parkasaurus Warriors!
We’d love for you to be a Parkasaurus Warrior! How does one become that? Well, help spread the word about Parkasaurus by wishlisting us, following us on Twitter or posting about us on reddit or forums. Being a Parkasaurus Warrior is such a big help to us. Thank you to infinite!
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change by the Early Access version
Parkasaurus Update 001
Hello Steam friends.
I was hoping to start posting an update every few weeks to a) let everyone know what we’re up to b) let you know we’re still alive. Now – apologies if these posts are on the lean side – since there are only 2 of us on this game I might not spend as much time writing this as wish I could. Still, updating all of you is probably #1 on my “TODO” list so time will be found!
Alpha Version 2
MT and I have Alpha Version 2 (AV2) as our next major milestone. Basically this means we’ve put a hold on adding new features and going back through older features to make them more awesome. With that said I’m sure MT will ninja in a few features as we go along.
Update 001 Topics
A few select topics we worked on recently:
Exhibit Privacy System
Dynamic Water
Dino Skins (Shader)
Exhibit Privacy System
An important aspect of designing your Dino exhibit(s) is privacy. Your Dino friends are affected by privacy; now, some Dino species are more resilient to hoards of guests gawking at them; but all of your Dinos require some down time. How much privacy your exhibit has depends on the shape of your exhibit, materials used around and within your exhibit among other factors. In the picture above is an exhibit demonstrating privacy: the privacy toggle is on so you see a privacy heatmap within the exhibit showing what parts are private, and what parts are not private. Understandably areas near guest viewing areas (paths) are not private, so you can immediately see how you decide to design your exhibit directly impacts on your Dino’s privacy.
Dynamic Water
We now have moving water! First it looks cool. :) More importantly though, water is an essential aspect of your exhibit. The amount of water in your exhibit transforms the type of biosphere thereby being more suitable for one type of Dino species versus another. Water also dictates what types of trees, plants & rocks you can successfully grow in your exhibit.
Dino Skins (Shader)
We really want people to see each of their Dinos as unique and special. Therefor we made a cool shader (a shader is a special piece of programming code that does something specific with game graphics) that gives the skin of each Dino a unique look and color scheme. I probably linked the least cool of the results I’ve seen for far in the game, but it hopefully gives you an idea.
Thanks to all you early Parkasaurus Warriors
If you’re reading this, then you’ve decided to give some of your valuable time to a couple of devs following their dream – so thank you. We can use ALL the help we can get so please Wishlist us, follow us on Twitter or post about us when you can. Thanks!
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change by the Early Access version
