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Welcome to October’s Development Update!
To all of our new fans or those who recently found the project - welcome. It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, so we’ll be recapping everything you might’ve missed in the months gone by.
A handful of our developers also took part in live streams during August and September with Crytivo, so be sure to check out the archive if you’re interested!
The Team
As keen-eyed fans may have noticed, Shadow Raven Studios has since been rebranded to Blue Meridian - the new and official name for our development studio. With an ever-expanding team and bigger aspirations, we felt that it was time for a new coat of paint that matched our ambitions.
On the developer side, our team continues to grow with the addition of a new animator, Max! Some of you may already be familiar with his work found over on Twitter and we couldn’t be more excited to keep the studio growing with fresh talent.
Work in progress Edmontosaurus locomotion animations. Issues with root motion will be addressed.
Development Report
The art and audio members have had their hands full these past few months creating new buildings, the wetland biome, animals, animations, sounds and music for the game. You saw and heard the fruits of their labour in our latest trailer, showcasing the passion our team is putting into this project.
The programmers aren’t messing around, either! Fences, paths, animal AI, modular building and water rendering continued to receive further work whilst power management started development in the background. In terms of optimization, a flexible voice management system for audio was developed and integrated to ensure that the game sounds great and performs well in dense scenes.
Modular Building: Lighting
An assortment of recolorable lights can be used to make your park more interesting at night! In this spooky Halloween environment, creative use of coloring can help change the mood of an area in an instant.
Though lamps and similar objects will only turn on at night by default, players can enable an option that forces them to stay lit regardless of the time.
Modular Building: Decorative Plants
What’s the point in building a zoo if you can’t spend hours detailing the park with gardens? Our art team’s got you covered with the addition of decorative tropical plants and world-space mulch shapes. These fancy items can be scaled without the issue of texture stretch, making them an ideal solution for all your flower bed needs!
Unlike regular flora, these vibrant plants are purely decorative, meaning they won’t contribute to an exhibit’s foliage density.
Wetland Biome
The wetland biome is home to many amazing creatures. Though there’s a few more trees to create before it’s done, plants like the amazonian giant lilies, small lily pads, mangroves, reeds and cypress already make any exhibit feel appropriately swampy.
Click on an image below to see the fullscreen preview.
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Once the biome is complete a final overview image will be available in a later devlog !
Improved Terrain Blending
All biomes were updated to make enhanced use of height-based texture blending to better mix and match various ground types in a realistic fashion.
Stacking textures on top of each other at a low intensity can create some very unique and interesting combinations, as seen above.
Structure Showcase
Get to know the buildings of Prehistoric Kingdom with Structure Showcases! Traditionally featuring one building per month, these spotlights provide a quick-look at new architecture from multiple angles.
First up was the Industrial Power Station! This key utility provides power for the park by contributing to the local power grid, allowing guest facilities, infrastructure and eletricified fences to keep the lights on.
Mini-Exhibits
Designed to meet the optimal needs for its specialized inhabitants, Mini-Exhibits bring a selection of tiny animals to the park. Beginning with the Microraptor, players are able to customize the environmental preset, temperature, lighting and material of its home inside the brand new Mini-Aviary.
Announcement Trailer & Alpha
It’s been a long time coming, but we finally revealed our release window and Early Access Announcement Trailer to the world. Arriving Q2 2021, get ready to build, manage and grow the ultimate zoo for extinct animals in Prehistoric Kingdom.
Thanks to our fantastic publisher Crytivo, we were given the opportunity to work with IGN as part of an exclusive first-look. We couldn’t have asked for a better reception and we are deeply humbled by the support we’ve been shown.
We know everyone’s hungry for more timeframes, so we’re pleased to announce that alpha will be available early next year to our eligible Kickstarter backers and Crytivo pre-purchasers. Over the next few months we’ll be discussing exactly what to expect and when to expect it as we get closer to its release.
Working with Nigel Marven
For years, our fans have wished for a very specific person to be a part of Prehistoric Kingdom and that’s now becoming a reality.
We are incredibly honoured to have British wildlife television presenter Nigel Marven lend us his voice in our latest trailer. The reaction from the community has highlighted just how special this opportunity was and we can’t thank Nigel and his team enough for working with us. It’s a relationship we hope to continue growing, so this mightn’t be the last you hear from this beloved time trav- uh, park supervisor!
Stream Recap
Early Access Launch Roster
To begin, players will be able to breed and play with a selection of 22 adult species found on our brand new website, including the fabulous Deinocheirus, Nasutoceratops and Microraptor!
Refocusing the initial release roster was a choice made earlier in the year to find a consistent basis for quality and to ensure that we’re not stretching ourselves too thin when adding new behaviours and features like ontogeny via updates.
The team wanted to give a good summary of what to expect during our time in Early Access, so keep in mind that a small number of animals shown in the trailer may be reworked or swapped come Q2 2021. We have a fantastic catalogue of fan favourite creatures to work from, so rest assured that more species will be added back into the game over time.
Early Access Launch Features
Apart from the animals, players will be engaging with creative tools, management features and progression loops during their time in Prehistoric Kingdom.
Designs for management and progression mechanics have been locked down with implementation already started on a few core components like power management. Once those new features have spent enough time in the oven we’ll be sure to showcase them here in a future devlog.
Future Content
During our time in Early Access we’ll be looking to build upon our foundations, adding new content such as breeding, growth, expanded behaviours and more.
Created by Dino Dan.
Created by RT2.
Created by Narwhaler.
Created by ParrotAlex.
Thank you for reading October’s devlog!
With a release window out in the wild, we want our monthly dev updates to be focused and digestible. Going forward, all devlogs will follow the format set by this one, showing off development highlights and recapping extra tidbits released during the month.
We sincerely hope everyone is excited as we are and we can’t wait to show what’s in store down the line.
Until next time,
- The PK Team