Welcome to October’s development update!
In this month’s spooky post we’ll be discussing some of the things we’ve been working on in addition to creature remakes and a brand new animation reel!
YouTube Coverage
This month, a small handful of influencers were given keys to a slightly enhanced iteration of the PAX build to demonstrate some of the features in Prehistoric Kingdom.
Although there were some expected issues that have since been fixed, we’d like to give a huge thanks to Geekism, BestInSlot, and Swrve for showcasing the project at this stage. There will be more coverage in the coming months as we add the last few features to finish up the creative features, but until then, stay tuned!
Development Progress
Development in October saw the beginning of the new modular building system as well as a full month of animal reduxes, animation, and sound design.
While the rest of the team continue to work on their assignments, Matt’s had the lovely task of porting the project to the latest version of Unity so that we can make use of some new features and address issues that had been resolved in the most recent iteration. As we’re quite far into core systems now, you can imagine that this was quite a big task to ensure that nothing broke along the way.
Now that it’s mostly dealt with (had to get it over with at some point!) new progress in other fronts should appear more frequently.
Modular Building System
As the tycoon genre continues to push forward with precise modular construction tools, we’re following suit to bring a high level of customization and variety in creative opportunities to our audience.
Originally, our plans from Kickstarter were to add wall pieces to what would essentially be the very basic modular tools found in the Steam demo. Now, it’s beginning to become the fully-developed and expansive creative suite that this genre’s fanbase has come to expect from modern simulation management games.
Featuring temporary icons and basic functionality, you can find a short demonstration video below.
What sets Prehistoric Kingdom apart is the flexibility to freely enable or disable the grid during construction for any modular object, including wall pieces, pillars, foliage, statues and more! This feature gives players expression and versatility in their design process, whilst giving the option to keep pieces all within the one modular group for easier editing and management.
With a variety of different objects and pieces coming in the final game as well as helpful building options, we can’t wait to see what designs, props and facades the community constructs!
Next month we’ll be developing the 3D gizmo tools that allow for precise movement, scaling and rotation of modular objects like props, foliage and decoratives.
WIP Modular Building Tools and Textures.
Weather System
Whilst not focused on, work was put into an iteration of the dynamic weather system during October to experiment with how fog, clouds and lighting changes can affect the game’s tone and feeling.
WIP Overcast Weather.
In addition to the occasional overcast sky, dynamic cloud shadows are cast over the island as thicker clouds roll-in overhead! During gameplay we’ve found that this improvement has gone a long way in making the setting of Prehistoric Kingdom feel more grounded in reality.
Graphical Updates
As per usual, new graphical tweaks were brought to the project in our continued effort to make the game as pretty as possible.
Miscellaneous adjustments included a more focused vignette and increased chromatic aberration alongside bigger changes like time-based fog colors, increased fog rendering distance, modified lighting colours and color-grading tweaks to give the game a deeper spectrum of color. Overall, the team is happy with the graphical direction of the game with the assured goal of only getting better with time!
October was filled with a dozen of deadly dinosaurs with no mammals in sight, how spooky! Featuring many first looks at the new models of old classics, this was definitely a bigger month for our continued reduxes.
Animation
Oh, deer! Made famous by its large rack and title as the Irish elk, Megaloceros stands tall alongside our menagerie of mammals included in Prehistoric Kingdom. Animated by Nathan and Mau, we’ve looked at a wide variety of reference material to make this animal move, sound and behave appropriately.
In the future, we will be moving away from the animation video format in favour of more managable content that allows us to share our best animations without losing time that could be spent elsewhere.
Music
Apart from designing the new sounds for Megaloceros and a few other creatures, Byron wrote the newest animal introduction track titled Giganteus. Expanding the range of Prehistoric Kingdom’s music as a continuation of the icy mammal themes, this piece introduces the solo cello and viola to help incorporate a more personal and rigid sound to the music.
https://soundcloud.com/byronmckay/giganteus
Animal Redux
Our chunky herbivore friends saw massive improvements courtesy of Cindy’s ongoing remakes and enhancements. Featuring far more detailed textures with some slight design revisions, Ankylosaurus, Camarasaurus and Diplodocus have never looked better in Prehistoric Kingdom!
Much like the animals, staff have their own set of needs that must be satisfied to prevent issues such as dissatisfaction, lack of efficiency and quitting their position.
Needs
Basic needs include a worker’s mood, effectiveness, energy and salary. These four statistics can influence each other in addition to outside forces such as animal escapes, deaths and natural disasters.
If a staff member’s mood drops below their minimum tolerance level, they are far more likely to quit as a result. To efficiently manage your park, we suggest keeping an eye on your staff members and ensure that they’re operating to the best of their ability
Benefits
“My park sucks but I don’t want my staff to leave; what can I do?”
The answer to this question is simple - provide benefits! When disaster strikes and the worst occurs, staff may quit if they don’t feel safe. Benefits allow the player to pay for various coverages to improve the longevity of their staff in the event of tragedy.
Examples of some of the togglable benefits.
Although expensive, benefits will greatly increase the tolerance level of staff across the board. When you’re a corporate managerial mogul with a park full of extinct animals, keeping it up and running is your number one priority!
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Thank you for reading October’s Devlog!
We hope you enjoyed this month’s development update! We’ve got some more great things cooking up behind the scenes and we can’t wait to show it off in the future.
- The PK Team
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