[2023] Prehistoric Kingdom - Update 5 (EA 1.1.214)

Welcome, Park Managers!

Update 5 is here! This patch introduces the research system, tutorial improvements and a number of quality of life additions. You can find a rundown of everything that's new in the full patch notes below.

Over the next few months we plan to make even more strides in tidying up the game's flow and addressing some pain points alongside more mechanics. Stay tuned for our next dev diary to learn more about what's coming in the future!

Please provide your feedback and bug reports through the in-game tool or our official Discord server[discord.gg].


Update 5 Features

Research Research is a new gameplay mechanic we're introducing to Challenge mode (optional in Sandbox). Throughout your journey building the park, you'll need to research new types of modules, themes, fences and upgrades to create the ultimate Prehistoric Kingdom.

This is a mechanic we will be heavily expanding upon as more updates come to the game. For example, we have a power management update slated to release in the next few months which adds a dedicated "Energy" section to the research tree.



This update also removes Science Points from the game. Anything that previously used this currency is now purchased with money.

When starting a new Challenge or custom Sandbox mode game, players will now have to choose their initial building theme. This impacts what fences, paths, prefabs, styles and modular objects players will start with. The remaining modular themes will need to be researched!



Structure Filtering Structure Filtering allows players to quickly select what type of items they want to display in the building toolbox. This is handy for filtering out unwanted plant biomes or themes.



Range Graphics Range graphics have been added to power generators, animal info signs, dung beetles and binoculars. These will show up when placing certain modules to indicate their area of effect.




New Gameplay Settings Incubation Speed With the introduction of the research system, different animal species will now incubate at varying speeds. For sandbox games, we've added a new gameplay setting that allows you to multiply how long incubation takes. This means that setting the slider to 0 will result in instant incubation!

Please note that editing this setting will only affect animals that were incubated after your changes.



Guest Welfare This latest update also adds the ability for players to enable or disable guest welfare needs in sandbox mode. Simply deselect the 'Guest Welfare' toggle when starting a new game or from the settings menu.



Landscaping Brush Visuals We've updated the landscaping brushes to better indicate what tool the player is currently using, changing its colors and adding a depth ring when painting water.

Once the player begins an action like terraforming or water painting, the brush will now become transparent to better show what's happening.



Known Issues

• Rain may randomly begin on load.

Full Patch Notes
Features

• NEW: Research System
  • The Research tree is a new progression mechanic that can be accessed from the Management Dashboard near Excavations.
    
  • Hold down the left mouse button on an available item to begin researching it. This will cost money and take time to complete.
    
  • This system will be expanded on in future updates to add new researchable items and categories.

Additions

• Gameplay
  • Added a toggleable ‘Guest Welfare’ option to the starting sandbox settings and to the gameplay options in the options menu, allowing users to turn the guest needs on/off
    
  • Added a toggleable ‘Animal Incubation Time Multiplier’ option to the starting sandbox settings ad to the gameplay options in the options menu, allowing users to change the incubation speeds of their animals
• UI/UX
  • Added the Structure Filtering Menu to the header of the Building Menu, allowing users to quickly sort the displayed structures by a few main criteria (by theme, biome, prefab type) wherever applicable
    
  • Introduced several layers of radius and range graphics both during object placement and management views:
    
  • Added a Theme Selection section to the starting game menu. This allows users to start new games with a bonus theme over the default unlocked ‘Basic’ theme
    • Power Modules now display their grid area of effect
      
    • Dung Beetle Nests now display their effective consumer range
      
    • Animal Info Signs now display their animal registration radius
      
    • Visibility Modules (Binoculars) have cone graphics displaying their effective visibility
  • Added a guest count to the bottom of the Main Board
• Music
  • Added two new intro tracks when loading into a 5 star park

Changes

• Audio (Mixing)
  • Loud animal sounds will now duck the sub/low frequencies of gameplay music
    
  • Notification sounds will now duck high frequencies in the ambient sounds
    
  • UI sounds will now briefly duck ambient menu sounds (e.g. nursery and management screens)
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Renamed some Modern lights to Basic lights
    
  • Renamed some Modern railings to Basic railings
• Gameplay & Balance
  • Removed science points
    
  • Animals are now unlocked with money
    
  • Animals now have variable, and overall longer, incubation times in the nursery. These are generally affected by animal size and can vary from 30 to 600 seconds. Toggleable for Sandbox games
    
  • Improved exhibit crowding calculation accuracy with overall crowding now being more forgiving. This statistic now accounts for exhibit animal count, being always nulled out if only one animal is present in the exhibit
    
  • Changed weather types for the Bahr Harin level, making the overall climate more akin to the hot desert the map is situated in
    
  • Economy balance - decreased overall excavation unlocking costs, decreased fence costs. Removed upkeep cost from 1m Wooden Slat Wall
    
  • Upped maximum guest density and guest count
• Modular
  • Merged the ‘Backstage’ modular theme into the ‘Basic’ theme
    
  • Modular grid graphics will now only show during placement of grid-bound pieces, resulting in less visual clutter
• Graphics
  • Slightly darkened ambient coloring
    
  • Changed look of the management view’s color filter - desaturated blue, from the previous starker black and white
    
  • Improved frustum shadow fullness on all settings - this should make the game’s shading stand out more, especially on farther details
    
  • Improved water graphical fidelity by introducing shore color fading and harder shore waves
    
  • Improved visual feedback for terraforming actions - the water painting brush is now blue, while the foliage painting brush is green
• GUI
  • Notifications and overview buttons now show over full-screen menus, resolving cut-off issues
    
  • Changed Nursery Menu animal preview name layout so it aligns to the left side of the screen - preventing character dialogue GUI from obfuscating it
    
  • Opening the foliage painting panel in the Terraforming Menu will now default to select all trees, streamlining up general action flow
    
  • Improved Excavation Tooltip screen clamping
    
  • Improved Main Menu background image layout on 16:10 screens
• Tutorial - in order to improve the tutorial experience and to prepare for future scenario additions, we’ve been working on a swathe of general improvements:
  
  
  • Added guiding GUI highlights, helping players navigate the various tutorial tasks with ease - these should be especially helpful for those interacting with Prehistoric Kingdom for the first time
    
  • Fixed an issue causing the ‘Helping Hand’ objective to erroneously complete upon changing the feeder’s style
    
  • Management menu types only enable at appropriate times during the tutorial
    
  • Disabled most notifications during the scenario, removing potential hotspots of confusion from the experience
    
  • Changed the types of fences available for placement during the ‘165 Million Years in the making’ objective
    
  • Fixed an early success condition with the ‘165 Million Years in the making’ objective, where closing and reopening the Torvosaurus preview would trigger completion
    
  • Changed the nursery type available for placement during the ‘A small dino-breeding start-up’ objective
    
  • Terraforming actions are no longer completely locked away after completing their respective ‘Accomodating a Predator’ sub-objectives, but rather when the whole objective is successful
    
  • Resolved hard-lock issue caused by the tutorial scenario still allowing animal termination after breeding

Bug Fixes

• Critical
  • Potentially resolved economy data-related initialization issues and memory leaks
    
  • Potentially fixed issue related to excavation sites not unlocking on the correct star rating increase
    
  • Fixed an error that would cause the tutorial scenario to enable itself at the start of normal games if loaded from the tutorial save
• Music
  • Fixed start/load intro music stopping abruptly after opening the Management or Nursery menu
    
  • Fixed reverb not triggering when music is faded out after opening the Management or Nursery menu
• Localization
  • Made countless improvements to Spanish text elements
• UI/UX
  • Fixed notification positions being grossly offset on 16:10 screens
    
  • Fixed modular group economic readout - selecting a modular group while viewing its information panel should now give an accurate report of the structure’s current income, current quarter income, and previous quarter income
    
  • Fixed a common layout issue related to opening the Modular Group Info Panel for the first time after load
    
  • Fixed a long-standing issue with the Terraforming Menu’s intensity slider value setting
    
  • Fixed wrong exposure value during night time in the Screenshot Menu
    
  • Fixed Enrichment layout in the Animal Info panel not refreshing properly when switching between animal selection
• Achievements
  • Fixed achievements: “Menagerie Manager”, “Noah’s Park”, “Exhibit A” and “Exhibit B”

Performance

• Several performance improvements have been made to the tutorial scenario
  
• Slightly improved rendering and CPU performance of far away dung mounds