Hello fellow Parkasaurus Warriors ™. Jeez we’re one month into 2018 already! No worries, I have your bi-weekly (or is that bi-monthly? Nobody knows) Parkasaurus update for you.
Alpha Version 2 – Closer…
Schedule is back on track after a small setback last week. Our upcoming objective is: be able to play all the features of the game AND have them make sense. The catch is the 2nd part of that sentence “have them make sense”. Since we’re all making this game together – I’ll share with you that one of the toughest parts of making games is for people to understand what the heck the feature even is. This requires some internal UI testing that occurs next week. Exciting!
Update 004 Topics
- Discord!
- Privacy 2nd Pass
- Lighting Improvements and Shader Optimization
- Dino Magic Items
Discord!
That’s right. We have a Discord channel to chat all things Parkasaurus or anything science related. Come check it out AND share the link: https://discord.gg/7u9d6f9
Reasons to join the Parkasaurus Discord:
- choose a Dino family to join (Stegosauria Swooners anyone?)
- vote on what Dinos we make next
- post or read about cool science articles
Privacy 2nd Pass
Privacy is an aspect of exhibit design. Depending on how you shape your exhibit, place the walk paths, and what enrichment items to install, changes the exhibit privacy profile - represented by a privacy heatmap. There are a lot of factors that go into this. And of course, your Dino behaviour is greatly affected by the privacy profile. With that said - we're doing a 2nd pass on the privacy mechanic to improve the clarity to the player (and to ourselves).
Lighting Improvements and Shader Optimization
This is a two-fer.
The first pass of the game involved many beautiful shaders that were not as efficient as they could have been. For example our fire shader – made from a combination of layered noise masks using 3d cylindrical meshes - was very cool, but caused serious performance issues. We applied a 2nd pass and now the fire is silky smooth.
Even better (it gets better!) was changing the color palette of the Parkasaurus world to match more closely to our vision, and to change the lighting curve from gamma to linear. And wowy – your park is going to look amazing.
Dino Magic Items
Lastly we continued making additional Dino accessories you can research or discover for your Dino best friends. Some items are aesthetic, but other items provide bonus stats for your Dinos! Does the winter hat give your Dino extra warmth once your park reaches winter time? You betcha! Does the fedora influence your guests to donate more? Yup! (secrets, shhh)
Parkasaurus Warriors!
You’re doing a great job. Keep it up! Have you told your neighbour Bob or written our web address on the bathroom stall? We appreciate you SO MUCH for helping 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!
Here is a round-up of ways to follow ups:
Steam
Discord
Twitter
Mailing List
Facebook
Disclaimer: Any crazy features we write about might change by the Early Access version