This hotfix fixes issues such as animals not eating from feeders, crashes, and some critical save/load issues.
Please send your feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel. Thank you!
Full Patch Notes
Changes
Animals
Reduced amount of time it takes animals to get dry after emerging from bodies of water
Bug Fixes
Crashes
Fixed an issue during shutdown which could cause a crash
Fixed a couple oversights in terraforming that could potentially cause crashes when terraforming near the edge of the map
Critical
Fixed a critical save/load issue related to empty animal info screens
Improved modular/save load behavior so that file writing errors for specific pieces won’t completely skip saving the whole modular group - this will minimize missing groups on load in the future
Fixed critical modular bug causing random extra ‘ghost’ pieces to be loaded in bulk in saves
Fixed click input collision that would cause actions to finalize if left click input is detected during right click hold input
Addressed animals not being able to eat from feeders until moved
Buildings & Scenery
Fixed bad floor collision on official prefab ‘Rustic Restaurant’
Environment
Fixed Aurora not showing up in the ‘Canadian Rockies’ level
UI/UX
Fixed GUI exception in the modular Storage Widget
Fixed a layout issue at the bottom of the Modular Prefab saving panel
Prehistoric Kingdom - Hotfix (1.9.55)
Welcome, Park Managers!
This hotfix resolves additional issues reported by the community as well as expands the Help menu with a new section for Park Issues.
Please send your feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel. Thank you!
PSA: Animal Info Signs
This hotfix makes Animal Info Signs more reliable by streamlining their data for saving and loading. To facilitate this transition however, we had to phase out all the existing info screen save data.
Players will be required to re-assign animals to their info signs and save their game. We apologise for this inconvenience!
Full Patch Notes
Additions
UI/UX
Added Help articles for Park Issues
Added section to the Terraforming Help article that mentions how to remove specific pieces of foliage
Changes
Balance
Lowered purchase price for Microraptor and Archaeopteryx
Animals
Removed the backwards look around animation from Argentinosaurus, Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus until a better solution can be put in place
Added the Grassland biome to the following animals:
Apatosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Brontosaurus
Camarasaurus
Dryosaurus
Paraceratherium
Torvosaurus (tanneri only)
Adjusted minimum exhibit sizes for the following species’ default grouping size. Most of these were significantly reduced:
Ankylosaurus: 2,000m2
Coelodonta: 1,200m2
Coelophysis: 600m2
Dilophosaurus: 1,100m2
Dryosaurus: 732m2
Elasmotherium: 1,300m2
Leaellynasaura: 435m2
Mammuthus: 1,904m2
Panthera: 700m2
Plateosaurus gracilis: 994m2
Plateosaurus trossingensis: 1,704m2
Protoceratops: 650m2
Psittacosaurus mongoliensis: 475m2
Psittacosaurus sibiricus: 401m2
Psittacosaurus sp.: 250m2
Scelidosaurus: 734m2
Smilodon fatalis: 600m2
Smilodon populator: 800m2
Sinotherium: 1,300m2
Velociraptor: 550m2
Buildings & Scenery
Adjusted collider for Cedar Siding Wall Pillar 4m
Gate modules will no longer cause groups to snap to fences if that group contains any non-decoration or non-enclosure-related modules
Foliage
Increased forest contribution of Acacia 1, 2 and Marula 1, 2
Decreased forest contribution of Yucca Tree 2
UI/UX
Improved placement states readability by extending the placement actions’ tooltips to include more information about the validity of the current construction
Animal, Staff, and Guest welfare displays will now show accurate fill levels, even in sandbox mode, but will always display as green to indicate that a low welfare bar won’t actually have any negative impact on the park
Renamed Park Issue: ‘Module Logistics Unfulfilled’ to ‘Pending Logistics Transfer’
Renamed Park Issue: ‘Park Logistics Unfulfilled’ to ‘High Resource Demand’ and disabled it temporarily until we add a Logistics overview screen to the Park Services menu
Post Processing
Removed CTAA option from the Antialiasing quality, as it was causing unwanted visual effects
Sharpened default TAA
Adjusted the game’s Ambient Occlusion for a higher visual fidelity. This has a major effect on shaded geometry (such as interiors)
Bug Fixes
Crashes
Potentially fixed some crashes caused by moving and placing large modular prefabs
Fixed a crash related to guest animal visibility
Fixed a crash occurring right after loading a large park
Fixed a critical application hang when demolishing a large amount of pieces from a large modular group
Critical
Strengthened checks for removing Animal Nursery preview assets, corresponding to previously viewed animals. This should properly resolve a bug that would cause 2 or more animals to be previewed in the Animal Nursery at the same time
Patched a rendering issue that would cause the camera FOV to not be applied correctly, resulting in weird rendering artifacts on water especially
Fixed inconsistency around updates to the navmesh
Animals loaded with invalid positions will now be recovered
Fixed a bug that could cause the guest walkable area to calculate incorrectly and break all visitors
Animals
Fixed animals getting stuck at the edge of water
Staff
Fixed several bugs leading to staff not properly taking up necessary tasks
Fixed the way staff gates connect to the navmesh, which should prevent them from teleporting onto roofs
Guests
Further fixed guests ability to recover when you change the environment around them, they should no longer reset to the entrance
Fixed a bug with animal viewing
Buildings & Scenery
Fixed visibility for Rustic Log 2.5m and Rustic Log 4m fences
Fixed several desync cases for animal info signs - streamlining their data and save/load. This means that in the future, animal info screens should be far more reliable. To facilitate this transition however, we had to phase out all the animal info screen save data, apologies for this inconvenience.
UI/UX
Fixed camera zoom intensity for perspective camera mode
Fixed enclosure button in the Animal Info panel not being enabled when the animal is enclosed
Fixed several localization elements throughout the GUI
Fixed duplicated keybind elements in the Options Menu
Fixed a GUI issue causing all the animals in the Animals Management Menu to have maximum star rating
Fixed a Building Menu listing bug that would result in a significant portion of user-downloaded workshop prefabs to not appear in the list
Performance
Significant optimizations to the modular system
Improvements to fence loading
Dev Diary: October 2024
Welcome to the October Development Update!
Update 12 is out now! In case you missed it, this latest release introduces 3 new species, brand new basic tutorials, a new map, building, staff training, official prefabs and more. You can find the full patch notes here along with our exciting announcement trailer below!
Update 12 Support
During the start of November, we’ll be supporting U12 (Update 12) with additional hotfixes targeting outstanding issues reported by the community, as well as feedback regarding the feel of Park Issues. At the time of writing, we’ve already released two patches and will continue to read reports as they come in. Thank you for your help!
Swapping Update 13 & Update 14
If you’re a keen follower of our Public Roadmap, you probably know what we’re cooking. However, for the sake of ensuring players get more content before Christmas, we’ve made the decision to swap the next two updates.
Update 14 will be focused on animal sociality and improving the state of animals. There is a fair bit of work to be done, especially with ontogeny on the way. Here are our technical goals for the animals in U14:
Socialize and communicate amongst themselves
Form herds or groups that follow a leader
Smooth out locomotion, minimizing jitter or snappy behavior
Polish foot IKs, making limbs less prone to breaking and ensuring footstep sounds are triggered consistently
This is going to take time and a huge amount of resources, but our programmers have actually been working on U14 on-and-off since August. Once we’ve finished supporting U12, they’ll be going back to finishing animal awareness.
We obviously don’t want to leave you hanging in the meantime, though, which is why Update 13 will be released in mid-December. Since this is primarily content-focused, it does not detract development time from U14.
Update 13 will be our final update of the year, focused on adding new animals, foliage, music and rounding out the user experience with UI changes.
Update 13
New Species
To reveal the first of two mammals arriving in Update 13, we can bearly contain our excitement. After a long hibernation, the Cave Bear (Ursus spelaeus) is finally joining the park.
This primarily herbivorous bear is best distinguished by the massive hump between its shoulders, giving it a bulkier appearance than the modern grizzly. Some of you may be thinking it’s “just a bear,” but to that, we offer the following counterpoint:
It’s a bear!
Stylized Animal Signs
New animal signs are coming in the next update! These illustrations will be available as modular objects for a few dozen key species, adding a lovely charm around the zoo.
We love how these turned out and can’t wait for you to see them all!
Building Toolbox Updates
In Update 13, we’re going to be making changes to the building experience. We first started sketching this out internally all the way back in Update 9, but now that we have our updated official prefabs, we think it’s the right time to make the leap.
We understand that building is a huge part of why so many players fell in love with Prehistoric Kingdom, so making changes to the creative side of things needs to be handled with care. Our goal with this update is to streamline the experience and make building more approachable. We do not want to remove customization, but rather present it in a way that is more appealing.
These are just design concepts for the time being, so there’ll be lots of would’s and could’s in the discussion below. Let’s begin!
New Toolbox & Organisation Changes
In this example, we’ll select the central building category. As you can see below, this would be home to all of the game’s modules.
By default, every item is shown in the All category, reducing the clicks needed to find common modules like feeders, enrichment, bathrooms or kiosks. Just like the current UI, players would be able to drag the toolbox up or down to adjust how much of the screen it takes up.
If we were to switch from All to the Guest Facilities tab, we would now only see items that belong to guests. The modules are also split into subcategories to better distinguish their use in the park.
From the bottom, players would be able to isolate a subcategory, hiding all other items. This would be especially helpful when trying to navigate something like the modular building toolbox, as there can be hundreds of pieces!
Prefabs
In this new toolbox, prefabs and items would not coexist at the same time. While this is maybe an odd choice at first glance, players can have hundreds, if not thousands of prefabs saved.
We propose that in the bottom right of the toolbox, players would swap between items or prefabs. By putting prefabs behind a switch, it’d mean we can properly organize them by subcategory without risk of cluttering the toolbox. There’s no chance that they’d drown out important modules.
For the hardcore builders, this means you could save custom beams or arches into their correct spot, rather than having them shoved to the bottom of the list like in the current game.
Side note: the new toolbox would support a small thumbnail option to show more content at once, as seen above.
Controls & Styling Once the player selects or edits an item, the toolbox quickly ducks out of the way, leaving the player with more screen space to see what they’re doing. On the right, panels for the modular controls and styles slide in, completely detached from the toolbox.
Hovering over the bottom of the screen or canceling your current action would make the toolbox reappear.
Here’s how these two panels would work:
Modular Controls The control panel is contextual, depending on what settings have been enabled. Options like angle snap and align to surface would be hidden if the building grid is enabled, since they only work with free movement.
Styling The styling window can be expanded vertically, like the toolbox, to show more or less materials at a time. You can also filter for specific object types by selecting one of the style categories (all, modules, walls, roofs, lights or miscellaneous). Coloring options would be available per style.
Can the Toolbox… not?
If you’re someone who wants to keep their toolbox on-screen, just like in the current game, we’ve got you covered. Enabling the “pin” toggle would prevent the toolbox from ducking away while building.
The modular controls change during advanced editing, too! Wow, increments.
And all the rest…
This style of contextual control would be brought over to the paths and fences, too. Even though it’s displaying the same information as the current game, we think it draws more attention to what options the player actually has.
And that’s it! We’ll be reviewing your early impressions, but we think these changes to building will be for the better. Let us know what you think!
Created by Krex
Created by W3
Created by DagothDagothDagothDagothDagoth.png
Thank you for reading October's’s dev diary!
With the release of Update 12 having just happened, we hope you can forgive a shorter Dev Diary. We will be back next month to share more progress on Update 13!
This hotfix addresses various issues reported by players, as well as some small audio changes. Thank you to everyone who has reported thus far!
Over the next few days we will be fixing bugs relating to animal and staff AI after receiving a large number of valuable reports.
Please send your feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel. Thank you!
Full Patch Notes
Additions
Audio
Added additional bird calls to the Coastal map
Changes
UI/UX
Improved Animal Nursery gallery button fade responsiveness when opening the menu or changing the selection filter
Music
Music is now ducked more aggressively by voice lines
Bug Fixes
Critical
Fixed critical problem causing selection to not work on loaded parks
Fixed guests teleporting and locking themselves to the entrance when their navmesh was changed
Fixed a save/load issue related to animal skin genetics
Fixed input collision between redo and alternate camera controls mode switch
UI/UX
Fixed a bug that caused the animal list menu to not properly refresh after selling/removing an animal that wasn’t confined into an enclosure
Fixed an Animal Nursery bug that would cause certain animals not to show up in the selection gallery - if the filtering type was set to something other than the default
Fixed the ‘Open Research’ button in the staff training menu not using the correct paths towards the Research Menu, resulting in wrong behavior
Fixed multiple localization elements throughout the GUI
Audio
Fixed Coastal map using Boreal night and transition audio
Prehistoric Kingdom - Hotfix (1.9.37)
Welcome, Park Managers!
This hotfix addresses some of the common issues experienced with the initial release of Update 12. We will continue working to resolve other reported issues!
Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel. Thank you!
Full Patch Notes
Bug Fixes
Crashes
Enabled tracing for safety issues regarding navigation updates
Fixed a couple cases where navigation was being accessed unsafely
Critical
Fixed a navigation deadlock that could occur during some actions
Fixed critical selection issues
Fixed animal menu close button not closing the menu
Animals
Fixed Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus buoyancy
Staff
Staff will now be able to recover better if they fall off the valid nav mesh
Guests
Visitors will now be able to recover better if they fall off the valid nav mesh
Construction
Fixed issue where enclosures would be selected when moving a gate away from its previous position snapped into a fence, causing a ghost gate
When snapped into a fence, gates will no longer cause the resulting segments to be less than 1m long, and will snap to corners to prevent micro-fences
UI/UX
Fixed localization asset for Pine Needles
Dropdowns will now more accurately display localized texts
Prehistoric Kingdom - Update 12 (1.9.35)
Welcome, Park Managers!
Update 12 is now available! This releases introduces 3 new species, brand new basic tutorials, a new map, building theme, staff training, new official prefabs and more.
Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.
Update 12 Content
New Species
Unlock the bumpy and grumpy Ankylosaurus alongside two new sauropods, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus.
Tutorials
Learn the ropes with a set of basic tutorials available at anytime from Challenge or Sandbox mode:
Basic Controls
Basic Building
Basic Staff
Creating Animals
Preparing the Park
Park Prices
From the newly updated Finances menu, players can now set custom park-wide pricing. Available for entry ticket fees and shop brands such as Giganto Gifts or Tea-Rex, additional options will be added as new modules or attractions are added to the game.
Staff Training & Wages
Unlocked via research, staff can undergo training at the Staff Center during downtime. This allows staff to acquire new role-specific perks, increasing their efficiency and wages.
As a result, players can now control the minimum and maximum range that staff are paid.
Redwood Valley Map & Expanded Foliage
Explore the stunning Redwood Valley, set within California's sunny coastline. This space features terraced terrain, a large shoreline and an abundance of redwood trees.
This map coincides with a revamp to the Coastal biome which includes overhauled plants and new additions such as the sequoias and rhododenron.
As per community request, we've also added the mighty King Fern to the Tropical biome. This plant is best known for its massive size and prehistoric look!
Rustic Theme
Inspired by US National Parks (or "parkitecture"), the Rustic theme offers iconic imagery with its assortment of wood-based materials, stone foundations and stunning woodwork. This is a highly versatile set, featuring over 60 new pieces, 2 paths and 9 styles between the walls and roofs.
Two new fence sets, Rustic Logs and Rustic Stained Metal, have also been added.
New Basic Fences & Staff Gates
To help round out some of the fencing options available to players, new wood and metal fences have been added to the Basic theme. These are the Wooden Chainlink and Cabled fences!
We've also snuck in two new staff gate designs, wooden and metal chainlink.
New Official Prefabs
The game's official prefabs have been redesigned and expanded to encompass ALL the available building themes. We hope this change makes the building experience more intuitive for players of all skill levels!
Update 12 Changes
Economy Rescale
The scale of the economy has been shrunk, reducing previously realistic, but hard to quantify costs, into something that matches real-world revenue prices. This means that while guests pay a realistic amount of money for food, souvenirs, and entry tickets, the cost of animals, buildings and monthly staff wages have been scaled down to compensate.
We’ve also revised loans to be less predatory, offering more forgiving interest and unlocking proportionally to the park rating.
Excavations
Excavations can now yield DNA for up to 3 animals upon completing a cycle, reducing some of the slog felt when excavating large dig sites. The funding bonus is also now active, allowing players to adjust their spending per-dig site! Raising or lowering the funding amount will affect the potential yield of a dig site.
Staff Efficiency
Staff are now able to deliver logistics resources to as many as ten destinations in a single trip, limited by their carry capacity. We will continue to monitor staff with player feedback.
Starting Maps
Starting a new game now includes a Staff Center and Loading Bay by default. The entrance is also dynamically picked depending on which building theme has been selected.
Known Issues & Additional Notes
Gameplay
The navmesh can sporadically fail to regenerate, leading to guests potentially getting teleported and stuck. We are already researching a solution to this problem and will be uploading a hotfix ASAP!
Fences will sometimes have the replacement mode turned on, even if the UI says it isn’t. This can be fixed by turning replacement mode on and off
UX
Notifications have been temporarily disabled due to a last minute issue. They’ll be patched back in ASAP!
Tutorials
Exiting objective conditions too early will sometimes cause them to be uncompleted
Creating Animals: building an enclosure that’s attached to an existing paddock and staff gate will prevent the player from progressing
Creating Animals: the objective “[Animal] selected in Nursery” will be unchecked if the player leaves after incubating an animal
Visual
The sun position will snap into the correct rotation during the early morning
Outline colors for selected objects aren’t reliable at the moment, and may appear red instead of white or vice versa
Full Patch Notes
Features
NEW ANIMAL: Ankylosaurus magniventris
NEW ANIMAL: Apatosaurus ajax
NEW ANIMAL: Brontosaurus excelsus
NEW MAP: Redwood Valley
NEW THEME: Rustic
NEW MECHANIC: Staff Training As long as the relevant skill level has been researched, staff will travel to the Staff Center during downtime and undergo training, acquiring a new skill level that comes with its own role-specific perk
NEW MECHANIC: Park Pricing Park-wide pricing can now be custom set in the Finance menu, allowing players to alter entry ticket fees, attractions, and shop pricing
NEW FEATURE: Tutorials Follow along with 5 new tutorials: Basic Controls, Basic Building, Basic Staff, Creating Animals and Preparing the Park
NEW FEATURE: Improved Starting Levels New prefabs are placed in new parks by default, to aid with initial set up. Prefab theming is based on the selected starting theme!
NEW SANDBOX OPTION: Unlock All Animals Enabling this will unlock all animals in a sandbox game (previously only available from the main menu!)
NEW SANDBOX OPTION: Unlock All Research Enabling this will unlock all research in a sandbox game (previously only available from the main menu!)
Additions
Gameplay
Added ability to sell shipping trucks from any Loading Bay
Staff salary options have been added. Players can now control the minimum and maximum range with which staff can be paid
New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 1 (unlocked by default)
New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 2
New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 3
New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 4
New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 5
New research - Rustic Theme
Buildings & Scenery
Added the following prefabs for the Basic, Modern, Tropical, Stone Age, Arid and Rustic themes:
Food Kiosk Small
Food Kiosk Large
Restaurant
Souvenir Kiosk Small
Souvenir Kiosk Large
Gift Shop
Toilet Small
Toilet Medium
Toilet Large
Park Entrance
Added the Rustic theme containing several new wall & roof materials:
Large Stone Wall
Flagstone Wall
Board & Batten Wall
Cedar Siding Wall
Wood Panel Wall
Log Cabin Wall
Cedar Shakes Roof
Asphalt Shingles Roof
Fishscale Shingles Roof
Added new materials to current themes:
‘Carved Ceramic Planks’ to the Basic theme
‘Raw Wooden Planks’ to the Basic theme
‘Fine Terrazzo Concrete’ to the Modern theme
‘Wood Tiles Thick’ to the Modern theme
Added woodchip style to gardening mulch pieces
Added 6 new wood carved Statues to the Rustic Theme:
Archaeopteryx
Edmontosaurus
Spinosaurus
Microraptor
Cave Bear
Protoceratops vs Velociraptor
Added Log Tunnel Full & Half pieces to the Rustic Theme
Added 3 Ground Lamps to the Rustic Theme
Added 1 Wall Lamp to the Rustic Theme
Added 1 Ceiling Lamp to the Rustic Theme
Added 3 Tables to the Rustic Theme
Added 4 Benches to the Rustic Theme
Added 3 Bins to the Rustic Theme
Added Silhouette Signs for Ankylosaurus & Apatosaurus
Added over 30+ new Beams, Planks & Logs to the Rustic theme
Added 6 hanging Trim pieces to the Rustic theme
Added 3 Rustic Log Fences
Added 3 Rustic Stained Metal Fences
Added 6 Rustic Windows
Added 4 Rustic Doors:
Moved 3 Doors previously in Basic into Rustic, making a total of 7 Doors in the Rustic Theme
Added 2 Paths to the Rustic Theme
Split Stone Path
Cut Log Path
Added new Cabled Fences to the Basic Theme (1m, 2.5m & 4m)
Added new Wooden Chainlink Fences to the Basic Theme (1m, 2.5m & 4m)
Added 2 new Staff Gate styles to all heights:
Wooden Chainlink Gate
Metal Chainlink Gate
Foliage
Added or updated the following Coastal plants:
Bracken 1
Bracken 2
Bracken 3
Redwood 1
Redwood 2
Redwood 3
Redwood 4
Rhododendron 1
Rhododendron 2
Rhododendron 3
Rhododendron 4
Rhododendron 5
Sequoia 1
Sequoia 2
Sequoia 2
Sword Fern 1
Sword Fern 2
Sword Fern 3
Tree Fern 1
Tree Fern 2
Tree Fern 3
Tree Fern 4
Tree Fern 5
Tree Fern 6
Added the following Tropical plants:
King Fern 1
King Fern 2
UI/UX
Re-introduced a height gizmo visual for when modular groups and pieces are being moved off of their height reference plane
Added a Park Issues menu, accessible from the left-side overviews tab
Added a Camera menu, where orbit mode, camera light and interface hiding can be set manually. This can be found in the bottom right of the main HUD
Added helpful messaging popups that alert the player of on-going situations within the park
Added a pricing and loan section to the finances management menu
Added a staff salary and skill training section to the staff management menu
Added a staff skills section to the staff selection menu
The weather report and forecast in the weather menu is now fully functional
Audio
Added sounds to various popups and GUI elements such as the Excavation Menu and Loading Bay widget
Added unique open sounds to the quick access buttons
Added missing sounds to Scelidosaurus additives
Voice
Added Nigel dialogue to Plateosaurus
Changes
Balance
Economy - huge changes have been made to the economy across the board in order to improve game feel and progression: we have chosen to scale down the economy into a smaller version of its former self, reducing previously realistic, but hard to quantify costs, to match real-world revenue prices
Reduced starting funds for challenge mode
Reduced animal and structure costs by 95%
Reduced staff salaries by 90%
Reduced research and excavation costs by 88%
Loan payouts and interests have been revised to be less aggressive, but their loaned amount is proportionally lower
Available loans now unlock proportionally to the park rating
Excavations
Expeditions can now yield new DNA for up to 3 separate animals at any given time
The funding bonus is now enabled, allowing players to increase or decrease per-digsite funding, affecting fossil yields
Animals
Decreased max scale for Lambeosaurus
Added Coastal to the biome preferences to the following animals
Panthera atrox and spelaea
Smilodon populator and fatalis
Ugrunaaluk
Staff
Staff are now able to deliver logistics resources to as many as ten destinations in a single trip, limited by their carry capacity
Guests
Guests should now be able to visit distant enclosures even when all their needs are met in a given area
Guests will now spend less time in bathrooms, to reduce wait times and queue line lengths
Buildings & Scenery
Retired most guest amenity and entrance prefabs as the new ones make them obsolete
Animal and human placement now ignores vegetation pieces
Updated Modern Wood Tiles Wall for increased visual fidelity
Updated Modern Vertical Wood Tiles Wall for increased visual fidelity
Updated Modern Clean Tiles Wall for increased visual fidelity
Updated Concrete Wall for increased visual fidelity and greater coloration control
Updated Tropical Wood Slats Roof for increased visual fidelity
Moved & renamed several bins and benches from the Modern theme to the Basic theme for easier progression
Moved & renamed Modern Awning 3 into the Basic theme
Adjusted the reflectivity of several metal materials across the board
Adjusted Color Mask of Glass Walls and Roofs to enable the metal on them to be almost fully recolorable across the whole spectrum
Adjusted the pebble path to be brighter and smaller in scale Added corresponding Trims to arch, window and doorway pieces for all Tropical Wall materials
Light schedule settings on prefab now properly persist across save/load and prefabs
Updated textures of Door Rustic 1, 2 & 3 (previously in Basic theme, although always intended for Rustic) so they match better against the new rustic additions & migrated them into the new Rustic theme
Environment
Updated biome textures:
Coastal sand changed to pine needles
Coastal dirt changed to substrate
Scrubland rock overhauled to better fit our original vision
Updated the terrain grass to use textured cards rather than individual strands, providing a more realistic look that better matches the Grassland grass pieces
Decreased chances of the same weather type getting randomly picked over and over
Clamped sun rotation during dawn, dusk and night time
Distant shorelines on the grassland, scrubland, tropical and temperate maps now appear wet
Rainy weather now has a smoother selection gradient between drizzle and storms
Foliage
Updated Coastal and Tropical biome presets to include some of the new foliage
Warmed Scots pine colors to better match new Coastal foliage, though it will receive an overhaul at a later date
Reduced saturation and brightness for Alpine Currant, Labrador Tea and Finnish Scots Pine
UI/UX
Camera:
Improved camera feel by clamping the max orbit when not hitting any viable orbiting surface - this should massively reduce instances of the camera accidentally being flung hundreds of meters in the distance
Improved movement and zoom behavior when canceling tracking mode while the camera is transitioning to the new tracking positions
Scenery focusing no longer takes into account foliage pieces
Camera should be far less janky when tabbing back in the game
Improved camera input to check for LeftControl input, in order to not overlap certain action keybinds
Decreased the minimum height the camera can get to, relative to the ground
Updated various camera controls:
Re-enabled LMB+RMB camera panning, previously being mistakenly disabled
The camera raise/lower controls (Q and E by default), can now also rotate the camera around the vertical axis. This can be switched on/off through the newly added control ‘Switch Camera Modes’, mapped to Y by default
Modular building:
Modular scale resetting now works for grid pieces also
Improved feel and responsiveness for modular placement when above the camera view
Improved quick modular selection behavior (achievable by double-clicking a group) to give swifter visual feedback
The modular grid now properly refreshes its visuals as the transform gizmo is being acted on Modular height editing is disabled when moving the camera fast with Left Shift
Mouse drag box visuals are now completely switched off when irrelevant (usually outside of modular group editing mode)
Screenshot mode: saved time of day and light orientation settings for screenshots don’t reset when exiting screenshot mode
The nursery holder now closes itself after placing an animal, if there are no more incubated individuals
Rendering
Animals:
Animals no longer appear wet under water
Improved how the fur shader handles light to make fluffy animals more realistic and pleasing
Atmospherics & Weather
Standardized weather modes across all maps
Standardized post processing across all maps, driving variations through lighting instead
Improved atmospheric scattering during heavily clouded weather
Changed the camera light to cast a more potent beam of light upon further objects, making it more useful during storms or night time
Underwater rendering now takes into account time of day exposure
Audio
Added ocean/beach sounds to the Scrubland and new Coastal map
Bug Fixes
Crashes
Fixed numerous uncommon crashes
Fixed a bug that could stop loading on certain saves
Critical
Potentially patched a saving issue that would result in the “Saving” dialog getting stuck on screen, with a silent save fail
Patched a save system exception that could potentially result in a save file getting completely deleted
Gameplay
Fixed an issue causing prefabs with logistic structures to not receive the correct stock in sandbox games
Animals
Fixed incorrect feather mask assignment on a Velociraptor skin, though this probably isn’t noticeable to most players
Fixed Torvosaurus IKs impacting rest animations, though this remains unresolved for one shots like rolling and sitting upright
Staff
Setting to auto-hire cashiers will now persist through save/load
Fixed a math error that prevented Keepers from ever being available from the hiring menu with more than one star skill level
Buildings & Scenery
Fixed a texture mip-map issue that caused certain fonts to disappear on lower texture quality settings
Fixed ‘Bollard 2’ having the wrong name
Research
Prefabs that contain locked structures (such as Restaurant prefabs) properly display themselves as locked now, enforcing research flow rules
Construction
Fixed modular construction edge cases where moving multiple items would shift their grid positioning
Clamped the min and max height a modular piece can be moved to through the quick height shifting tool
Resolved a modular material and coloring undo/redo issue that would cause undo operations to mix up pieces styles
Fixed a modular bug that caused duplicated and moved pieces to shift their height to the ground at the beginning of movement actions. Now, moving existing pieces or duplicating them will keep their height to where it was
Fixed a modular issue that caused group grids to not properly update their visuals when changing grid sizing settings
Fixed another edge case that could lead to resizing objects that shouldn’t be scaleable
Fixed a critical building issue related to editing groups with binocular overlay cones, potentially causing game-breaking behavior
UI/UX
Fixed the GUI Scale option not previously working, and improved its behavior by making it a stepped function
Fixed the modular styling menu being disabled for gates when selecting single gate groups
Fixed excavation tooltips getting cut off by the screen size
Fixed a staff menu discrepancy that would cause hired staff to display a different skill level than the hiring menu
Research item completion lines now always show on top of all other lines, making the research tree easier to read
Fixed the source of action mouse jitteriness when moving the camera
Fixed the camera being shaky on time pause
Fixed edge case causing the dropdown items in some dropdowns to not properly update their graphics if time was paused
Fixed excavation pin map positions for Elrhaz Formation and Kem Kem Formation
Rendering
Fixed noisy close shadows
Audio
Fixed Brachiosaurus not playing loop sounds while in the Nursery
Performance
Significant rendering performance improvement for glass objects
Noticeable loading time improvements, especially on larger saves
Massive efficiency and loading improvements for the ‘Canadian Rockies’ and ‘Ngorongoro Crater’ levels. Loading into these maps should be less prone to crashing on lower end systems
Rendering optimization during placement and terraforming actions
Drastically optimized moving a large amount of foliage in and around exhibits
Optimized audio system CPU and memory consumption
Various CPU optimizations
Plugged various memory leaks
Update 12 arriving October 28!
Update 12 is coming soon on October 28!
New Animals
This upcoming release introduces three new fan-requested animals: the armored Ankylosaurus and two large sauropods, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. These creatures can be accessed immediately in the game’s Sandbox mode or by completing Excavations in Challenge mode.
New Content
REDWOOD VALLEY MAP & COASTAL BIOME A diverse playable space, inspired by the California coast. Features varied terrain heights, unlike most other maps in the game.
This map is best complemented by the newly improved Coastal biome foliage, adding sequoias, a huge variety of ferns and the floral rhododendron.
RUSTIC BUILDING THEME Dozens of new scenery pieces and construction materials with an aesthetic inspired by US National Parks.
STAFF TRAINING Research new upgrades to improve staff efficiency, building off what was introduced in Update 11.
Improvements
As Prehistoric Kingdom is an Early Access game, we take great pride in valuing community feedback, whether it’s through Steam reviews or communication channels such as Discord.
NEW TUTORIAL SYSTEM Players can now access a set of guided tutorials at any time from within their Challenge or Sandbox games. We will be expanding the amount of tutorials and adding narration in a future update!
This map is best complemented by the newly improved Coastal biome foliage, adding sequoias, a huge variety of ferns and the floral rhododendron.
OFFICIAL BUILDING PREFABS The game’s built-in collection of building prefabs (structures built using piece by piece construction) has been overhauled to not only be more expansive, but more consistent, too. It’s much easier to build a good looking zoo!
QUALITY OF LIFE In Update 12, a big quality of life improvement are Notifications and the Park Issues menu, allowing players to be quickly notified of troublespots in the park.
Heavy optimizations continue to be made, with noticeable improvements to loading times!
The full patch notes will be available once the update goes live.
Update 12 is chugging along! As the last pieces of art start to come through, we’re focused on developing tutorials and getting the update finished. You can expect a trailer in October announcing its release date, showing the main features and dinosaurs in action. For now, however, let’s look at some new content!
Update 12
Ankylosaurus
After the reveal of our green Ankylosaurus last month, it’s time to show off another skin! Featuring dark stripes and a yellow body, this Anky is loud and proud with its striking contrast. Carnivores beware!
Rustic Theme
After much speculation, the long awaited Rustic Theme will be arriving in Update 12! Inspired by US National Parks, this building set makes heavy use of woods and sustainable materials to achieve its vernacular look.
Taking a peek at the construction options, you’ll primarily find aged materials that seem like they’ve seen a thing or two. In order to perfectly capture our references, the wooden walls have been given extra 3D geometry to truly make them pop out!
Of course, the Rustic Theme wouldn’t be complete without its decorations! We’ve got some gorgeous wood carvings, lamps, signposts and giant hollow logs for small animals to walk through.
Coastal Map
Welcome to Redwood Valley, set on the American West Coast. This mountainous region is home to a variety of coastal foliage, like its namesake, the redwoods. Featuring a graveled coastline and varied terrain, this map features tiered areas of flatland with slopes connecting each of its plateaus. A fitting environment for many North American dinosaurs!
Though we’re still finalizing the layout and density of foliage, you can get a rough idea of how this location will end up feeling below.
The Coastal biome itself is also being updated with new trees, improved underbrush and additional flora such as rhododendron and lily of the valley. As it’s currently one of the oldest biomes in the game, the upgrade will be pretty transformative!
Theme Updates
Starting with the Basic Theme, we’ll be adding two recolorable wall styles: raw wooden planks and wood look tiles. These materials are especially great for more lowkey builds, offering a nice and simple aesthetic.
Alongside a new stone material, polished terrazzo, the Modern Theme will be getting an extra coat of paint with updated wood materials!
Official Prefab Redux
Coming in Update 12 is a much needed standardization of our official prefabs with fresh designs. It’s important to us that without interacting with the workshop, players can access a bunch of easy to use prefabs for all themes.
So, what’s changing? For the guest centric prefabs, there’ll be a wide array of structure layouts with styling available in every theme. Their foundations will be consistently sized, too, depending on the building.
This means that if you’re thinking of swapping your Basic Restaurant for a Modern Restaurant, it’ll fit perfectly. Easy peasy!
As for logistics and park services (e.g. loading bay, staff center, etc.) we only plan to release Basic prefabs for now, but we can revisit them if community demand is high enough.
The Future
Ontogeny
Lots of work was done prototyping ontogeny in September. We’re making good progress with animation scaling and have started on getting the animal entities smoothly transitioning as they grow.
As we’re going for a real time growth system, we’ve been taking a look at bone proportions and seeing how much of the animals we can change before they begin to stretch. Thankfully, it’s all looking good!
Even with our rudimentary tests, watching these gangly little beasties walk around and eat next to their adult counterparts is truly something. We’ve got a good pipeline going and are excited to tackle the challenges ahead of us. We seriously cannot wait to get them more polished and show you all!
Below are some examples of our current growth stages for the T. rex and Triceratops. We don’t have alternate normal maps for babies yet, so keep in mind that things like ridges, bumps and keratin will be toned down in the future!
When we spoke of ontogeny earlier this year, we mentioned that there’d be 1 baby skin per animal. Today, we’re pleased to confirm that alternate species will receive their own texture and ontogeny, rather than sharing them.
In most cases, this’ll be as simple as a change in color palette. But for something like Triceratops prorsus and horridus, they’ll have unique designs to better transition into their adult colorations. You can even see that their horn nubs are shaped differently!
One of the other cool things about ontogeny is sexual dimorphism! Though included in all species, this feature will be best observed in animals with horns or tusks, like mammoths. By stopping growth stages a little early, we’re able to give animals a more gracile look, depending on the sex.
All in all, a lot has changed since the last time we tackled ontogeny. Afterall, we couldn’t have baby Tyrannosaurs having meteorite flashbacks, could we?
Alternate Species
When creating our animals, we often like to include alternate species that wouldn’t make it into the game on their own. They help add variety, but can often feel like approximations by sharing an identical shape to the animal they were based on. To this, we say no more!
As you can see above, Tarbosaurus will look quite different from Tyrannosaurus, especially when it comes to bulk. This is a huge improvement over its current in-game appearance, where it appears more like a soft T. rex with dewlap.
Excitingly, we’ll be extending this philosophy to every alt species in the game, making anatomical adjustments where possible. In the case of animals like Camarasaurus, we especially look forward to making the silhouette of all three species unique!
In this post, we’ll be going over the upcoming improvements coming in Update 12 and taking a look at the latest developments along the way.
Since the last dev diary, we’ve been working to address a number of sore spots reported by new players and to improve what was introduced in Update 11.
To start, camera controls for panning and rotation will be updated to better support laptop users with new optional keybinds, including a toggle that switches the Q and E keys from raising/lowering the camera to rotating it left/right instead.
In terms of onboarding, we have almost completed a unified objectives system that will allow us to finish implementing tutorials, notifications and the park issues list shown in our previous dev diary.
We’ve had notifications and park issues running internally for a little while now, which means most of the remaining focus is going to tutorials and making them intuitive. For example, if you’re playing through a tutorial, there’ll be some fancy new highlights that direct you around the UI.
Excitingly, this objectives system has also been built with scenario missions or quests in mind. The idea of integrating more characters as occasional quest givers is something that the team has wanted to do for a while, so it’s nice to have some of that infrastructure in place. We look forward to sharing more about this in the future!
Update 12
Species Spotlight
Our titanic duo Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus are here to make their cinematic debut with two species spotlights! As always, they’re returning with narration from our trusty park supervisor, Nigel.
New Species
The walking tank, Ankylosaurus, will be waddling its way into Prehistoric Kingdom in Update 12. This armored dinosaur features rows of large, protective osteoderms and a clubbed tail perfect for battering the shins of deserving predators everywhere.
Alongside its much older relative, Scelidosaurus, this will be the second thyreophoran added to Prehistoric Kingdom!
Guest Visibility Changes
What’s a zoo if the visitors can’t see properly?! Update 12 will be bringing a variety of backend improvements to guest visibility that better supports extremely large and small exhibits. Visitors will also show more realistic crowding behaviors as they try to congregate closer to where visible animals are.
This does mean that since guests can see animals from further away, some visitors will take advantage of elevated terrain or view from a distance rather than always standing directly next to viewing areas. Foliage, fences, scenery and buildings can be used to block guest sightlines and create a more curated experience, just like a real zoo!
Staff Improvements
When Update 12 releases, there’ll be changes made to alleviate some of the efficiency woes experienced by players.
Staff will not only carry more resources, but will also queue up multiple tasks at a time. This means that Keepers will be able to refill multiple feeders in a single trip, picking the shortest path between all destinations if possible.
The Future
Staff Skills, Training & Wages
In the next few updates, we’ll be implementing new management and gameplay mechanics for staff. Here’s an overview of how it’ll work once it’s fully developed:
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Inside the Staff Management menu, players will eventually have the option to set the maximum skill level their employees can train up to.
By training at the Staff Center in their spare time, a worker can increase their skill level, unlocking perks that boost their efficiency. Depending on their role, these perks may come in the form of buffs such as reducing the time it takes to gather resources. Each job type has preset perks depending on a worker’s skill level, there is no RNG.
As employees increase their skill, they’ll bump up into a higher wage bracket. The salary tab can be used to adjust the minimum and maximum pay for staff across the park. Increasing pay will improve staff welfare and might make workers more willing to put up with poor conditions, while reducing it can lead to people quitting.
Side Note: we’ll be adding similar salary-like controls to the Finances menu, eventually letting players set the entry ticket or amenity prices park-wide. We’re also considering scaling down the economy for readability and balance purposes (smaller numbers!), making $100,000 worth as much as $1,000,000 in the current game.
Ontogeny
Babies! Yes, we’re still working on them. Between creating and implementing all the new species that’ve arrived this year, we’ve been working on the assets for ontogeny where we can. We are currently making our way through painting a lot of baby skins, creating blend shapes for all the growth stages and prototyping animations.
We’re working on it, but it’ll take some time to do properly as it’ll not only touch every animal, but all the animal related systems, both in terms of gameplay and on the technical side (AI, locomotion, IKs, etc.)
For this month, however, please enjoy this early look at our baby Apatosaurus blend shapes. It’s using a temporary baby skin and normal map, but the final design shouldn’t be too far off!
Animal Awareness
To cap out this Dev Diary, we have a tiny bit of animal AI news! Throughout August, we’ve been working at the animal awareness system. When it’s finished, this will let animals effectively see and hear their surroundings, recognising and prioritizing entities based on their size, loudness, etc.
Think of it as a gateway to the more requested behaviors like fleeing and conversing between animals. Once it’s finished, there’ll be a lot of exciting stuff to build on top of it!
This patch brings additional quality of life improvements to staff, Sandbox and Challenge mode, and plenty of other changes. Thank you for all the feedback so far!
Features
New gameplay options have been added to Sandbox mode, allowing players to customize their staff and logistics experience. The existing dung toggle being changed to account for Update 11's logistics functionality.
Please note that a Staff Center MUST be placed in the park for cashiers to be auto-hired as they are integral for kiosks to function! When staff welfare is off, newly hired cashiers will auto-teleport to any existing or new kiosks that require staffing.
New Sandbox Gameplay Settings
Dung: disabling this ensures animals don't generate dung piles, compost heaps are not necessary and produce stations will operate at max speed
Logistics: disabling this ensures all consumers (feeders, kiosks, etc.) are topped up and will never drain
Staff Welfare: disabling this ensures staff never become unhappy or take breaks. Cashiers instantly teleport to kiosks, serving there forever
Staff Travel Lines Selecting a staff member will now reveal their navigation path, showing their destination and chosen route while completing a task.
Quick Access: Park Services & Management View The Park Services and Management View buttons have been moved to the left side of the screen to make them more obvious. This allows players to quickly jump to the Animal Nursery, see their finances or view a breakdown of their guest needs.
Further Balance Changes After reviewing the impact of staff on the economy, we've decided to drastically reduce the cost of upkeep even further. Now that things like staff, logistics and Loading Bay deliveries are an active part of the park management costs, it makes more sense to deminish the role of upkeep after Update 11.
We also addressed an issue where staff wages weren't getting reported correctly in the finances tab, making it difficult to understand how much money was being lost. Players should have an even easier time making a profit in Challenge mode as a result.
Known Issues & Additional Notes
Players with old Sandbox saves may have to enable and disable the Logistics toggle one time per park for it to properly engage (replaces the previous Infinite Feeders toggle).
Full Patch Notes
Features
NEW SANDBOX OPTION: Logistics Disabling this ensures all consumers (feeders, kiosks, etc.) are topped up and will never drain
NEW SANDBOX OPTION: Staff Welfare Disabling this ensures staff never become unhappy or take breaks. Cashiers instantly teleport to kiosks, serving there forever
Additions
Staff
Selecting Staff will draw a line to show where they’re going while working
Changes
Balance
Upkeep for logistics, park service modules and guest facilities have been reduced to $50 now that staff wages, deliveries, excavations and research fulfill that role
Upkeep for remaining modules have been reduced to $10 or $0 depending on their function
Loans have significantly reduced interest, extended repayment durations, and the first loan option now has a 0% interest rate
Drastically reduced the internal threshold at which insufficient fencing becomes a problem
Animals
Adjusted Tyrannosaurus facial integument
Revised poop positioning so piles stick to the ground more accurately
Staff
Staff will now go on break even if they didn’t just finish an assignment
Cashiers teleport to kiosks if staff welfare is off, also hires one less cashier because shifts and breaks aren’t needed
Environment
Adjusted tropical lighting
All maps now have slightly brighter shadows at night to improve visibility
UI
Updated the new game previews and loading screens for the Tropical, Temperate and Scrubland maps
Updated the main board and overview access toggles. Park Services and Park View can now both be found and accessed on the left sidebar
Bug Fixes
Critical
Fixed a bug causing duplicate enclosures
Gameplay
Fixed exhibit’s scores being badly affected by fencing
Fixed donation boxes overflowing their monthly donation cap
Staff
Fixed staff not ending on their breaks on time
Fixed laborers constantly trying to move stock out of warehouses
Fixed export requests persisting after a new demand pressure was applied to warehouses
Fixed potential kiosk deadlock if you fired or otherwise interrupted the cashier or the replacement
Fixed staff wages not being properly calculated in the finances menu
Buildings & Scenery
Fixed production modules not stopping their production when they are full
Fixed misaligned windows on the Fossil Depot to work better with modular walls
Construction
Fixed fences not being able to be placed in 2-segment circles
Fixed an issue where fences coming out of the same point in the same direction could stop an enclosure from forming
Fixed modules being able to be rotated to align with surfaces
UI/UX
Fixed Call Staff button showing green when a cashier is in a kiosk and no replacement is needed
Fixed widget for producer modules to accurately represent their current production
