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[Ishi]

My partner is vegetarian so I obviously made a healthy delicious eating stand. Any suggestions for a name? "VeganSnacks" isn't that catchy.

A few ideas
Human Herbivores
Vegan Bites
Veggie Vittles
Green Grub
Natural Nibbles

[ifire]

This game reminds me of rollercoaster game. I like this genre. The game looks fun...would be way more interesting thay dinos can eat visitors too like the other poster mentioned

[Taky]

Ive attached a small gif to illustrate my point.

Just had a meeting with the whole team on this (so just me and MT - we're of two minds. We think you raise a good point, enough that we're going to try a few different tones for the path color after Alpha2 (current target). He quite likes to white pop - but has enough experience to recognize when alternatives might be better. I agree, it really is going to come down to the contrast between the exhibits vs. buildings vs. path. Personally for me a big question is how much "path" do people use in their park? I'll have this in the back of my mind when we get some Alpha2 testing (first people to ever play game besides me and MT)

ps. amazing gif work 

[Taky]

Human Herbivores

I'm going with this one, thanks, you've officially named one of our food stands Human Herbivores kept within the Dino theme so was our favorite. Is it shameless for me to get you to name a few other stands?

The game looks fun...would be way more interesting thay dinos can eat visitors too like the other poster mentioned

Yes sort of. Our objective is to make dino escapes funny / fun / have meaning to gameplay. We just chatted for our roadmap for this an hour ago, and are getting a first draft in by this week. The big question (which I'll be asking a lot) is, do dinosaurs actually eat people, or just throw them around? There is a difference in tone. No matter what, it won't be "gory", that's just not the feel of the game, but what could work is "funny eating" of humans. I think we're going to feel it out but feedback welcome.

[Taky]

Update #6: Dynamic Biomes

This is a feature we’d been banging our heads against the wall for a while. One of the design pillars for Parkasaurus is that designing your exhibit should matter. If a player wants to spend a ton of time fine turning various aspects of their exhibit to perfectly match their Dino, then that time spent should have a tangible benefit in game. On the other hand, this needs to be balanced with people who want to focus more on the management / sim side, and less on adjusting their exhibits down to every strand of grass.

One way we’re doing this is with Dynamic Biomes. Essentially you can start with a base biome, say Desert, but then able to push it into other biomes as required by your Dinos. This is done w/ the adjusting terrain heights and humidity (with water tool). This is all based on pyramid biomes (google image search) which are very very cool. In the pic you can see the current selected exhibit is in a Desert biome, but could be pushed into a Grassland biome with an increase in humidity and increase in terrain “bumpiness” (usually manifested in terrain height).

We also want the ambient foliage to change with biome change. (Currently you add most of the larger foliage to your exhibit, but there is always ambient foliage to depending on biome).

By utilizing our water/terrain tools we’re able to easily have the player explore up to 9 different biomes; and this is really limited only by our imagination.

[io3 creations]

My partner is vegetarian so I obviously made a healthy delicious eating stand. Any suggestions for a name? "VeganSnacks" isn't that catchy.

So, no delicious *Dino Burgers*   

A few ideas
Human Herbivores
Vegan Bites
Veggie Vittles
Green Grub
Natural Nibbles

When I first read that, Herbivore men came to mind ... but that's a hole different topic.

Hmmm, "Last Bite" feels like it has more of a carnivorous feel, but "Bronto Bites" might work.  Especially, with an "Eat like a Brontosaurus" tagline.

[Taky]

So, no delicious *Dino Burgers*  

Au contraire; we have all the food establishments for a whole host of appetites. With the burger stand you can dictate how the burgers are made, if you want an all meat burger (including bun) you can!

[Taky]

Any preference for Dino exhibits? I was thinking of choosing one style for a "park map" and the other for exhibit signs.

[Pixel Noise]

Middle row looks best for the park map I think. Far right, personally. And then the front row (or back sign) for exhibits.

[Taky]

Inspired from my dog sneezing. I now must make sneezing animations for all the dinos...

[Canned Turkey]

Saw that and heard this sound.

[Taky]

Middle row looks best for the park map I think. Far right, personally. And then the front row (or back sign) for exhibits.

Thanks for feedback, this is seeming to be the majority opinion.

Saw that and heard this sound.

Ya so that link made my day. God that dog is cute.

[Taky]

The way we're calculating bio-diversity is all wrong. We're scrapping it. I think it's become this classic case of designer masturbation, forgetting that your clever "cool" design system on paper is on occasion just NOT FUN for the player. Anyhoo, we kind of came to this conclusion yesteday whipping up a small exhibit as a test (image). Let me try to summarize the problem, and I'll probably use this excerpt in the discord to find some help, and other places. Brain dump:

###
There seems to be 2 fighting desires; first and of utmost importance is for the player to enjoy tinkering and designing their exhibit. To carefully and joyfully(hopefully) manicure their gardens to maximize their Dino happiness, but not just that, in a larger sense grow their own inner peace/happiness one gets with a Rock/Zen garden. From a gameplay perspective we want players to create bio-diverse exhibits to maximize Dino happiness. Also, this makes the exhibits looks way more cool. We're trying to encourage players not to place 74 Pine trees and move on. What we've found with our current implementation is that it just isn't fun trying to find the "correct" balance of trees vs plant vs rocks. Instead of the player freely creating what they think is most beautiful, they're following this graph trying to hit the correct ratio (tree/plant/rock). This is our conumdrum.
###

If anyone has a suggestion, or general thought on this, especially tycoon players, very welcome. Or pm me. Either one is great.

[Pixel Noise]

Sneeze is too cute!

It's great that you identified something wasn't working, and allowed yourselves to let go of it and find a solution. I don't have any great ideas yet...but I'm sure you'll figure something out!

[io3 creations]

The way we're calculating bio-diversity is all wrong. We're scrapping it. I think it's become this classic case of designer masturbation, forgetting that your clever "cool" design system on paper is on occasion just NOT FUN for the player. Anyhoo, we kind of came to this conclusion yesteday whipping up a small exhibit as a test (image). Let me try to summarize the problem, and I'll probably use this excerpt in the discord to find some help, and other places. Brain dump:

###
There seems to be 2 fighting desires; first and of utmost importance is for the player to enjoy tinkering and designing their exhibit. To carefully and joyfully(hopefully) manicure their gardens to maximize their Dino happiness, but not just that, in a larger sense grow their own inner peace/happiness one gets with a Rock/Zen garden. From a gameplay perspective we want players to create bio-diverse exhibits to maximize Dino happiness. Also, this makes the exhibits looks way more cool. We're trying to encourage players not to place 74 Pine trees and move on. What we've found with our current implementation is that it just isn't fun trying to find the "correct" balance of trees vs plant vs rocks. Instead of the player freely creating what they think is most beautiful, they're following this graph trying to hit the correct ratio (tree/plant/rock). This is our conumdrum.
###

If anyone has a suggestion, or general thought on this, especially tycoon players, very welcome. Or pm me. Either one is great.

That is kind of a conundrum and I wonder if you having to manicure gardens will be too much of an issue.
-players not being interested in it
-communicating it during the game
But, I'm not a tycoon fan so I'm not sure what fans would think of that.


On a different note, just came across a similar game that got funded on Kickstarter:
Prehistoric Kingdom: zoo building simulator game focused on the creation and management of a theme park filled with extinct animals    
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1536990940/prehistoric-kingdom

[Taky]

-players not being interested in it
-communicating it during the game
But, I'm not a tycoon fan so I'm not sure what fans would think of that.

The communication part we're polishing up and works pretty well. The manicured part I suppose was a bit of a mis-speak; in theory once the player has achieved the desired quality of exhibit, they don't necessarily have to back for it besides to address their Dino's needs.

On a different note, just came across a similar game that got funded on Kickstarter:
Prehistoric Kingdom: zoo building simulator game focused on the creation and management of a theme park filled with extinct animals    
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1536990940/prehistoric-kingdom

Yup, there's this game and another. Truth be told I've played them both and our game is very different, it's quite a relief. You can play the demo of the above game on Steam.

[io3 creations]

On a different note, just came across a similar game that got funded on Kickstarter:
Prehistoric Kingdom: zoo building simulator game focused on the creation and management of a theme park filled with extinct animals    
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1536990940/prehistoric-kingdom

Yup, there's this game and another. Truth be told I've played them both and our game is very different, it's quite a relief.

Looks like you've done your homework.

Of course, you know it'll be important to make sure that you "quickly" let players who already seen the other game(s) of the differences instead of them assuming that both games are the same/similar.

[Taky]

Of course, you know it'll be important to make sure that you "quickly" let players who already seen the other game(s) of the differences instead of them assuming that both games are the same/similar.

Very true. This is actually one of my biggest concerns at the moment (besides, you know, making a great game...). My current thought is high-liting what *I* think makes our game special, and maybe seeing the largest criticisms of the other games. Not sure though, open to suggestions.

[whistlerat]

I love flat-shaded low-poly looks, I love animal management sims, I love tycoon games... so sign me up

The 'biodiversity' issue is similar to one I see myself facing in the near future - does it work if you just relax the constraints a lot? So rather than actively punishing players for just plopping down 74 pine trees (which is servicable, if uninspired), you reward players who take care in creating diversity. It's like that resting problem that WoW used to have: rather than frame it as 'if you don't rest, we'll cut your experience gains', they framed it as 'if you rest, we'll boost your experience gains'. Making 'minimum requirements' which are very forgiving, and then some (abstracted, so players can't just play the optimisation game - unless that's what you're going for) elevated levels of 'requirements' which affect dino happiness or somesuch, but nothing fundamentally game-changing. A reward for players who engage with that aspect of 'we want you to really care about these animals', but not a punishment for those who want to focus on the tycoon part.

[Taky]

I love flat-shaded low-poly looks, I love animal management sims, I love tycoon games... so sign me up

Thanx! 

It's like that resting problem that WoW used to have: rather than frame it as 'if you don't rest, we'll cut your experience gains', they framed it as 'if you rest, we'll boost your experience gains'. Making 'minimum requirements' which are very forgiving, and then some (abstracted, so players can't just play the optimisation game - unless that's what you're going for) elevated levels of 'requirements' which affect dino happiness or somesuch, but nothing fundamentally game-changing.

Right, I totally get what you're saying (especially as an ex-wow player). You summed that up nicely, hope you don't mind me pasting that into our slack channel for the next review. After reading this I'm feeling more confident in the new direction; our ethos for this game is a lot along the sentiment you're expressing. We originally started with being more "hardcore" punishing, but realizing we can be hardcore, but hardcore loving; so the game is way more accessible for those who don't wanna go all super nerdy on exhibit min/maxing.