Friends! We have finished the majority of the ground work for the Parkasaurus campaign and now I can chat a bit about some themes and ideas we’re exploring. Our objective for the next update is to have a few missions for you all to play and provide feedback on.
Update:
Working with what you got
Experimenting Dino Unlock
Dino Snuggles
Teaching Ideas
Working with what you got
Work with what you got! I feel there is a life lesson here. Anyway. One of the main ideas we’re exploring in the campaign is for Parkasaurus players to take advantage of the landscape of any park they are presented. This likely requires from us more support in teaching players how the terraform works. For example, creating an exhibit around an existing mountain should be a great idea.
Experimenting Dino Unlock
How players unlock their dino best friends has changed to provide us more flexibility in our missions to what dinos start unlocked or locked. While nothing is set in stone – the plan is for dinos to cost Science and Hearts, while rare dinos might cost an additional currency we call Conversation Fame. (not seen in the video). Where should we put this panel? No idea. In the Heart Tech Tree page? Should the dino unlock panel be found in a unique tab? Let us know.
Dino Snuggles
What more is there to say except sometimes we see some of the best Parkasaurus snuggles sent in from our players. Some of our missions will have a real focus on dino-dino interactions.
Teaching Ideas
If you have been with us from the beginning you know features and mechanics have been added along the way. In fact, sometimes we forgot to even talk about them here. (sorry!) You can be sure a selection of our missions will explore and teach these mechanics to new and old players.
We are very excited to get our first missions up on PTR for exploration by all of you. Stay tuned and pass on the word, every little bit helps. 😊
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change during Early Access
Update #31: Campaign Construction
Update #31: Campaign Construction
Campaign work for Parkasaurus is in full swing. At the moment this means creating a lot of boring unseen work such as how we present the campaign on the front menu, how we save files for different missions, etc etc. The cooler part of this though is creating awesome tools that will hopefully save us time when creating missions – this is important, there’s only 2 of us. 😊 Let’s explore the development process a little together.
Update:
Campaign World Map
Construction Blockers
Terraform Assets
Campaign World Map
Parkasaurus will take players around the world exploring a variety of missions to help your dino best friends. This requires a world map! The real work though is the system that supports multiple mission saves games, remembers progression states and have this all work with cloud support. Boring! But important. (I see now in our video Amsterdam is in South America.)
Construction Blockers
In order to provide specific challenges for scenarios within a mission, we created a little tool that prevents players from building or terraforming the land. In the picture below we have a canal running through your zoo – an obstacle for players to build around. This obstacle wouldn’t mean a whole lot if one could just bulldoze over it.
Terraform Assets
The Parkasaurus terraform tools are pretty cool once you get the hang of them. Elevation will be a key component in some of the missions, meaning we had to go back and fix a few bugs associated with elevation and dino locomotion. In addition, we now can convert save games into “loadable” missions, allowing us to create some pretty cool terrain to build your exhibits on for you best dino friends.
Quick note: The price of the game will slightly increase as we start to roll new major content into the game. This is meant to reward our early supporters and also reflect what we feel is a higher value proposition. Now is a great time to get in! 😊
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Update #30: New Hires at the Zoo
Update #30: New Hires at the Zoo
Summer has started (for Washbear)! That means we’ll be inside during those awful sunny days making Parkasaurus even better. Work on the campaign and some major design decisions in the game is taking place. As such, just a few small updates in 0.630.
Announcement: For those interested and brave enough we invite you to join our PTR build:
PTR build: https://steamcommunity.com/app/591460/discussions/0/1644292549023387189/
Update:
Sneak Peak People
Single Planters
End of Day
Deletion Mesh
Sneak Peak People
That’s right – we’re doing an overhaul on how the employees and guests look. This includes an art style more aligned with what we think is Parkasaurus, and a more diverse group of people.
Single Planters
Up until this point, there had been some inconsistencies in parts of the game (Early Access, no duh). One of these was some of our decoration planters in 3x1 size were missing their 1x1 friends – so that’s been addressed.
End of Day
One of the biggest concerns we hear from players is how annoying and obtrusive the end of day can be in Parkasaurus. We’ve changed the end of day announcement to be much more noticeable as seen below. To be clear, we also have some other fixes coming to address this issue, including changing how the end of day works completely. Stay tuned!
Deletion Mesh
A little quality of life improvement is fixing models that don’t turn completely red when selected for deletion. This often makes it difficult knowing if you have selected a model to delete or not. While not all the models have been fixed – some are proving a little complicated because of their function – we have fixed a few.
To all the early supporters who have helped us in Early Access thanks again. We have a long journey ahead of us and you motivate us each and every day.
Thanks. Xoxo
Here are a few ways to follow us:
Steam Discord Twitter Mailing List Facebook Roadmap and Feedback Forms
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Update #29: Workshop
Update #29: Workshop
Hello friends – short update this week! We’ve started working on a campaign world map, and some tools to make individual missions. Expect some early looks at that in a few weeks here and the social media. There also has been support for Workshop along with a whole host of other bugs getting fixed.
Update:
Workshop
DinoBook
Workshop
If you haven’t had a chance be sure to check out our initial Workshop Guide for Parkasaurus. A rainbow Triceratops? Why not! As a reminder you now can change dino skins, add new dinosaurs (a bit more tricky), add buildings and decorations. Many options. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1764420827
DinoBook
We added a DinoBook to Parkasaurus a few months back but never actually talked about. Now, the current form of the DinoBook is an experiment as we start to look at the larger world campaign. In the meantime; the DinoBook is only accessible in the Standard Game. One can treat DinoBook as a guide for mini objectives to reach, AND a little insight into the Parkasaurus lore to come. You simply have to hatch the required dinos to unlock the pages. Give it a shot.
To all the early supporters who have helped us in Early Access thanks again. We have a long journey ahead of us and you motivate us each and every day.
Thanks. Xoxo
Here are a few ways to follow us:
Steam Discord Twitter Mailing List Facebook Roadmap and Feedback Forms
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Workshop Update
Workshop Update
Friends we apologize - implementing Workshop for Parkasaurus took a lot longer then we anticipated. As always we want to be as transparent as possible with our community, so I can confirm this definitely set us back by a couple of months with regards to our Trello roadmap. But, you are all insanely understanding and lovely people. Thanks.
Yes – Workshop is finally in. Here is what you can do.
Update:
Workshop Introduction
Buildings
Decorations
Dino Skins & Meshes
Lights
Workshop Introduction
Our first iteration on Workshop has arrived. To be clear – there likely will be bugs, so be patient while we work through them. With that said – here is a link to our Workshop page:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/591460/workshop/
And for those with Unity, and a little modelling savvy – here is the current Parkasaurus Workshop Guide
Create buildings for guests to visit. Have a building the gives guests maximum fun? Why not! For our demo purposes, we created a fairly simple Lollipop Shop and hope the community adds more. Creating a UV map in 4 quadrants will also allow one to use the in-game color changing when selecting a building. One also can include windows that light up at night. Very fun!
Decorations
We’re hoping this one generates some cool ideas. Each decoration allows the user to change the radius and Tier level of the decoration item. Gold plated paths everywhere? We’ve included some square classics that are based on decorations found in the current version Parkasaurus.
Dino Skins & Meshes
Yes Dino skins! This ranges from being a simple to a more complicated Workshop asset to create. If one wants they can easily change the texture file found on the dinos using the current UV maps – which I’ll admit, are not the best. Those much more skilled can include their own dinosaur models to replace those in-game – but this is much trickier. I’ll try to get a demo on how to do this later. In the meantime the included example:
Lights
This one is my personal favourite. I find the lights are very cool at night in Parkasaurus so am hoping there are some creative ideas. We included a basic light example here:
Alright! Keep in mind Workshop is a work in progress that will continue as we start new features & changes to the game. Feedback is more than welcome, and help spread the word.
To all the early supporters who have helped us in Early Access thanks again. We have a long journey ahead of us and you motivate us each and every day.
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Update #28: Analytics
Update #28: Analytics
Recently we’ve been getting mods support ready for Parkasaurus and hopefully will have a test version up on PTR this week.
A few people have asked us about a discount. Our response is that we feel the game is currently on a discount until more content (like a campaign, breeding, ++) is implemented and the price will slightly increase. We have no intention of putting the game on a discount until after 1.0; the main reason being our community who supports us in Early Access deserves the best-priced product for them taking the risk in believing in us. We don’t take that lightly.
Blah blah blah, but what is this update about? Alright! Lot’s of background work:
Update:
Mod Preview
Analytics
Mod Preview
We’re aiming to have a mod enabled version of Parkasaurus up on PTR very soon. Currently you will be able to add Dinosaurs, People and Buildings. Implementing mods for the game has turned out to be more work than expected – hence you didn’t hear from us for a little while. Sorry about that!
Today I was testing out some free assets from the Unity store and figured “Hey what about a ship that serves fish and chips?”. Right? Well just so happens they had a free ship. I added our custom building shader and wham bam we have a ship store in Parkasaurus.
Of course, dinos and people are presenting more of a challenge. Still, we persevere for the community!
Now, to be clear, this is NOT the Parkasaurus style, and I find it quite hum drum… but, a “realistic” dino skin. (where are the feathers?)
Ok ok, I can maybe get a bit more on board for dino party skin.
Now, rocket launchers on an Achelousaurus? GROW UP.
Analytics
This might be less interesting to some, and more interesting to others. Recently more time has been spent looking at the newer systems we’ve implemented in the game – for example maintaining the energy of your guests. If your guest’s energy goes to 0, they leave the park. Seen below, we started to examine, ”Ok, should I see a difference between a park with no benches (energy refillers) versus a park with benches.
The top graph shows a histogram of the number of dinos seen by guests depending on if the park as benches or not. The park without benches clearly has a lower distribution of maximum dinos seen, a huge portion maxing at 11. The park with benches has a distribution of higher seen dinos, most notably a lot of guests who saw 13 dinos, then 14, 15 and 16. Great! This indicates the benches are extending the time guests spend at the park by maintaining their energy above 0.
The bottom graph demonstrates the difference between guests who have a total park allotment time of 0.4 vs 0.8, 1.0 being a full day of time. Guests that have 0.4 total park time see no difference between a park with benches or without benches. This indicates to us the limiting factor is not guests running out of energy but rather running out of allocated park time. We will likely be tuning this a bit.
Here we decided to examine a few basic metrics to ensure we didn’t have issues with our guests going into idle too often. graph top-left Shows us the total amount donated by guest depending on the number of dinos they’ve seen. As you can expect, the more dinos seen the more guests donate. Of course, there seems to be a plateau around 12 that we’re looking into. Any ideas? graph top-right We were worried that guests were chilling (a random idle) too often, but see that the average donated by guests seems fairly consistent regardless of their chill totals. graph bottom-left We also were worried that doing non-dino activities (like shopping) was consuming too much a guest's allocated park time, and again this was not the case. graph bottom-rightFinally it was interesting to see the actual distribution of chills per guests during their visits. Some guests chilled 26 times? Talk about taking it easy. Anyway, from all of this we’re hoping to push the perk system into a more meaningful gameplay experience.
To all the early supporters who have helped us in Early Access thanks again. We have a long journey ahead of us and you motivate us each and every day.
Thanks. Xoxo
Here are a few ways to follow us:
Steam Discord Twitter Mailing List Facebook Roadmap and Feedback Forms
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Update #27: Dino Mobility
Dino Mobility
First update since the Economy Update (v0.620). The feedback we’ve been receiving is great, thanks everyone! The economy sounds like it is a step in the right direction but keep in mind there are more changes on the way!
You might notice we have started to indicate which patch notes are from a player suggestion – our community is so superb we thought a little recognition was in order.
A few highlights for this update:
Update:
Dino Navigation System
The Perfect Fit
Carnotaurus Love
Egg Info
Dino Navigation System
Over the last few months, your dinosaurs likely are getting stuck in fences and doors. Granted, this wasn’t the worst bug; but maybe the saddest? What is worse than having your dino best friend calling out to you because they are hungry due to immobility? Saddest bug to date.
We added an entirely new navigation mesh (NavMesh) for our dino friends that hopefully resolved a lot of problems. And of course, here are some of the maze tests we did:
And yes, I then figured why not have 100 Oviraptors run wild:
The Perfect Fit
Did you ever notice how our 2x2 square buildings never quite fit? That’s because they didn’t! This made my OCD go nuts. And thankfully now you can perfectly fit your outhouses together for the ultimate smell. (note: I realized as I post this our 2x5 buildings don’t quite fit. DARNIT!)
Carnotaurus Love
Our Carnotaurus have been in the wild for 2 weeks now and we’re seeing a lot of great screenshots coming in over the interwebz.
Egg Info
Ever get that moment you buy an egg and then realize you have no idea what the dino requirements are? Well – consider your problem solved. Dinosaur requirements now found on all the hover over tips for your eggs.
To all the early supporters who have helped us in Early Access thanks again. We have a long journey ahead of us and you motivate us each and every day.
Thanks. Xoxo
Here are a few ways to follow us:
Steam Discord Twitter Mailing List Facebook Roadmap and Feedback Forms
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Version 0.620i Release Notes:
Version 0.620i:
-[Community Suggestion] FIX: Cannot end the day when leaving the wrap-up screen at end of day
-FIX: Using the ESC command with the Menu Icon prevents player from ever loading a game
-FIX: Icon for footprints from inventory ghost / stay on screen
-FIX: Toilets now properly aligned including all other 2x2 objects
-[Community Suggestion] Dino information now found on egg
-FIX: Dinos stuck in fence -Dino NavMesh split
-FIX: Dinos stuck in wall - Dino NavMesh split
-FIX: Tier number on exhibit trees/plants/rocks display properly
-[Community Suggestion] Modified decoration values
Dino Money & Items v0.620
Dino Money & Items v0.620
Hello Parkasaurus friends! I’m happy to share with you some details of the Dino Money & Items Update (v0.620) that is currently live and what is coming up next. First, let’s chat about the major changes in v0.620.
Dino Money & Items v0.620
Carnotaurus
Hats!!!
Doors
Decoration System Overhaul
Portal Overhaul
Economy Balancing
Guest Meters
News moving forward
Carnotaurus
What can we say? There are already more Theropods in the game than any other dino family but the Call for the Carno (C4C) was too strong. Of course, getting your hands on a Carnotaurus is no easy feat in regular play. What will your adult Carno look like? And more importantly, what sort of sun protection will they have? Be sure to share with us.
Hats!!!
SO MANY HATS. Here is the thing, you won’t find them in the store. What?! You need to get a shovel, and, some real cash flow, to dig into the depths of the Earth. New hats will only be available from Hat Treasure Boxes found when digging in the portal. Hopefully, someone out there will create an exhaustive list of the new hats added (hint: there are 12).
Doors
Even we have to agree that only have 1 boring Wooden Door was getting old. Since you’re all a creative bunch we wanted to give you some options on cooler ways to let employees enter the exhibits.
Decoration System Overhaul
The present Decoration System in the game was not particularly interesting and truthfully was never given the time it deserved. Now strategically placing your decorations matter. Your guests enter your park with a value of 0 for their Decoration meter. This meter slowly fills as they are surrounded by your awesome park extras. How can you tell what your park decorations look like? Well, turn on the Decoration Heatmap View found on the bottom left. Note, Tier 2 decorations need to be researched and bought in order to max out your guest’s decoration meters.
Portal Overhaul
The portal has received some love. A few highlights:
Auto-Dig added (but at a price!)
Select how deep into the portal you’d like to go; the deeper the better rewards!
Choose a portal team from a list of your employees
Portal rewards – now find Hat Boxes, Science, and Hearts along with the original rewards!
Economy Balancing
This no doubt will be a contentious change. But our community is so amazing I look forward to hearing their feedback. Remember when money was really easy to make? We’ve been analyzing data from our great PTR volunteers and now challenge you to the new balanced Parkasaurus Economy! For those of you less interested in having to balance the books and would rather focus on creativity – don’t worry you can still make a Customized game.
Guest Meters
A more subtle change involves the guest meters. You’ll note that the energy meter has been pulled out of what contributes to your guest’s overall happiness. Now keeping your guests energized is an important aspect of keeping them in the park. By doing this we were able to remove the “decaying” that occurred with the remaining meters; something that was anxious inducing (for me) and also resulted in your guests draining their meters while walking to their cars at the end of the day – thereby lowering park scores & review stars.
News moving forward
Again – huge thanks to the early supporters and everyone who has written a Steam review for us. Next on the horizon:
<*> Mods (this features it 90% done, and we will be revealing more shortly)
<*> Bugs! Sometimes you might not hear from us for a little while, that’s because there are still a bunch of bugs in the game
<*> Price increase
I would like to talk briefly about a price increase. We’ve always felt it important to value the game at what we think it is worth. As we add more features the price of the game will likely go up a small amount to account for this. Also – we feel it a nice Thank You for early adopters. Now, we aren’t doing this today, but we want to give you a heads up long before this happens.
Again, thanks to our amazing, amazing community.
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change in the Early Access
Preview: 0.620 on PTR
Parkasaurus friends. The latest version 0.620 is available on PTR. How access found below.
The full details of features and fun new items will be thoroughly explained when we exit PTR to live. In the mean-time, we'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback about the economy when starting a new game. Fences take damage, guests behave and donate differently, the portal economy is way different and more.
For example - does the decoration meter fill too quickly for the guests? Let us know in the forums. Can you even make a profit with a park? Let us know! Again we're in Early Access together.
A sneak peek of the full Update post - decoration system in action:
Or better yet - treasure chests are now found in the portal? WHAT?! What sort of treasure you ask; well - a variety but we'll let you find it all. Does this dino roman hat mean the portal goes back in time? Or to a different dimension? Or something else? Soon to be told.
###
Note: Please note that save files from PTR builds are not compatible with previous live builds.
To access the **experimental** Parkasaurus PTR branch right click on the game in your Steam library and open the preferences. In the Betas tab select ptr_build from the drop-down and wait for the game to update.
This is a development build is where we upload experimental features or fixes and as such may be unstable.
There is always the chance your favorite save games will get ruined forever. This chance is very very low, but PTR builds are just that - tests. Things could explode, catch fire, bug out, who knows!
That's half the fun though right?
Playing the Parkasaurus build is a HUGE help. Thanks! We want to be 100% clear: only the **bravest souls** should play this build.
