Welcome to the October Development Update!
We hope you’ve had a spOoOky month with plenty of park building to go around. In this post, we’ll be exploring more of the new content coming in Update 16 and meeting a particularly cute friend.
As we continue to march forwards, we’ve made good progress on Update 16! Six out of the nine upcoming vivarium species have had their models fully finalized, meaning it’s time to move onto their animations and sound. You might even be able to get an early look at some of them over on the Patreon!
Our original duo, the Archaeopteryx and Microraptor, have seen some adjustments, too. While both have received a new rig and updated proportions, the Micro in particular has been given updated textures to truly make it pop. Those pants have never been fluffier!In October, we were also able to finally integrate FSR 3.1 into the game. For those unaware, using FSR basically allows the game to render at a lower resolution and then get scaled back up. Depending on the scene, this can greatly increase rendering performance, especially for devices like a Steam Deck. Using FSR’s ‘Native AA’ mode can also make the game look super crisp, though it won’t improve your performance.
We should note that using FSR can come with some caveats, especially in motion (e.g more “ghosting” or smeared guests). Since PK is a simulation game, performance is also more closely tied to the CPU than you may think. Rendering itself is not always the biggest bottleneck!Regardless, we hope the integration of FSR will help a number of players run the game better than before once U16 releases. There will be various levels of quality to choose from (Native AA, Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced, Performance, Ultra Performance), as well as regular anti-aliasing options. You can get a broad sense of how the quality levels compare below (click for fullscreen).
Beyond this, the team’s developed the first functional prototypes for the Ferris Wheel and Panoramic Tower rides coming soon. We’re using placeholder art at the moment, but visitors are able to properly board the rides and disembark when finished. Without a cashier, a ride cannot operate!
These “landmark” style attractions have been notably absent in the zoo-sim space, so we’re super excited to finally bring them to the community. After all, who wouldn’t want to see across a dinosaur park?
Coming soon to a park near you is the terrifying, massive-jawed… tiny… Simosuchus? This adorable "pug-nosed crocodile” was originally found in the late Cretaceous floodplains of Madagascar, sharing a formation with popular dinosaurs like the mighty Majungasaurus.
Despite its rugged appearance, Simosuchus was actually a herbivore! It had dozens of tiny, leaf-shaped teeth in its mouth that were perfect for stripping low lying vegetation. Thanks to the fossil record, this is another species our scientists were able to restore with a high degree of genetic accuracy!
Over the last month, we’ve managed to add leaping and flying to the vivarium locomotion. Perhaps surprisingly, one of these new features can be seen with the Compsognathus! By adding enrichment to their habitat, your Compies can see the world from a whole new perspective, jumping up onto logs or basking rocks. All of this is still very much work in progress, so please keep that in mind!
Of course, aerial species like Archaeopteryx can also leap, fly or walk around their enclosure. Just like the Compy, enabling enrichment such as climbing structures or forage boxes will give your birdies plenty of destinations. Flight as well as their pathing will be smoothed out in the final version.
Using a new water rendering system, vivariums will be able to generate their own water volumes on demand. It’s fast, efficient and makes your amphibious habitats look that much more beautiful!
This development extends to the tide pool enrichment, too! Your Spinosaur’s prey will feel much more refreshed, uh, for the moment.
In the future, we’d love to add some fountains or dedicated water pieces that can take advantage of the new tech. It’s really great to see what nice looking water does for the environment.
The art for the vivarium facades, cladding and terrain have now been finished. Come November, we’ll be ready to start populating them with nature and enrichment items.
Whether or not the Terrestrial Vivarium displays burrows depends on the species inside!
The Arboreal Vivarium will also have a tree “shell” enrichment item that makes it look more like the current Mini-Aviary.
This month we were able to get started on a melancholy but necessary part of the game: disease. Though we’re still working on it, animals will soon be able to grow old, contract afflictions and unfortunately… die.
Animals will be able to develop a variety of issues stemming from things like swimming, bad weather, poor habitats or even contaminated feeders. Most diseases can also evolve into something more extreme if left unchecked by vets, for example, the common cold can go from pneumonia all the way to respiratory failure or a heart attack.
While many afflictions can lead to a more “peaceful” death induced by a coma, not all are that lucky. In the worst case scenario, your animals may suddenly collapse to the ground and eventually pass away if they don’t receive treatment. To do this, we’re actually using some of the combat “knockdown” animations from U17!Animals that collapse (or that are knocked over once combat is added) will struggle on the ground before they’re able to find their footing again. As you’ll also see below, animals that are too weak will never make a recovery. Despite our budget limitations, we think things like this will set Prehistoric Kingdom apart and offer a more dynamic solution to how animals respond to the gameplay sandbox.
No matter how morbid, we genuinely can’t wait to share more about this part of the game. Diseases tend to be an overlooked aspect of zoo-sims and our planned approach to visualising various conditions and symptoms is something we think you’ll be very interested in! Stay tuned.
Jumping ahead to next year, U18 will be the last Early Access update before we hunker down for the full release. While it’ll offer new gameplay in the form of breakouts, security and engineers, it’s also where you’ll finally get the wetland map!
Alongside this new level and wetland foliage improvements, we are going to replace the painted water rendering system with the one coming to Vivariums in U16. It’ll be quite a lot of work, but it should run faster, look better and finally allow us to render pieces underwater! Builders rejoice.
This update is still quite a ways off, but we think you’ll truly love it when it arrives. Weird and a little bittersweet to think that PK’s Early Access journey is almost coming to an end!
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Thank you for reading October’s dev diary!
If you thought the game looked a little different in all these screenshots, that’s because we’ve been touching up the lighting and post-processing. Along with the addition of FSR, we think U16 will be one of the prettiest updates yet. We’ll be back next month for the final dev diary of the year as the team will be on break at the end of December.Until next time,- The PK Team