Dev Diary: October 2021
Welcome to October’s Development Update!
In this month’s dev diary we’ll be showcasing a modular surprise, the scrubland environment and providing details on our support roadmap for Beta.
Modular Building: Modules & Prefabs
Modules are coming to Beta! These items offer functional support for custom kiosks, animal nurseries and more using the modular system.
If you’re feeling hungry, make sure you visit Tiny’s Fast Food or the Sweet Tooth Dessert Shop, two of the four available styles for the Nutrition Kiosk! The number of modules and their application in the park will be improved over time as new types are added through updates.
Beta will also be introducing custom modular prefabs, letting players save their creations for repeated use around the park or in other saves. Though it is not yet linked to the Steam Workshop, prefabs can be shared locally by finding them on your computer and uploading them online. We can’t wait to see what you make!
Scrubland Level & Foliage
In Beta, players will be working on our new Scrubland map - a subtropical haven. Equipped with the same building space as Alpha, this new location offers beautiful vistas and enhanced distant terrain. Please note that the tropical foliage below is being used as a placeholder.
New plants are also coming to the Scrubland biome! The Aleppo and Norfolk Island pines provide a number of new environment options, including five shape and size variants each.
New variants are also available for the Foxtail palm, a true staple of the scrubland look.
Beta Information & Roadmap
Unlike Alpha, our roadmap for Beta includes content updates up until Early Access launch. Our goal is to add new features while getting direct feedback and thoughts from the community. Of course, this support will continue post EA launch, too.
In terms of what you can expect to see day one, not much has changed from our public beta announcement. There’s some larger mechanics that have since been pushed to updates, but most of those hadn’t been announced yet. If you’re expecting to play a more robust version of Alpha with new features like Excavations, Science Points, modular recoloring, an enhanced economy and improved power management, we think you’ll have a good time with the initial release.
With that said, here’s a quick glimpse at a handful of new things coming during Beta’s updates.
At the launch of Early Access, all 22 animals will be available alongside other additions like Nigel Marven and three maps (Scrubland, Temperate and Tropical). Though Beta will see a lot of improvements, we’re making sure to save some stuff for launch day.
State of Development
So, let’s talk about the game’s budget and where we’ve been! We’ve been rather quiet on our social accounts which isn’t quite like what you’re used to.
To start, production definitely slowed over the last few months as we started to feel the squeeze of the funding available to us. This wasn’t an unexpected issue given how long we’ve been going for, but it’s certainly been a reminder to not shoot for perfection. There were a few unannounced features we wanted from Beta’s launch, but they soon became unrealistic given the circumstances and our team size (they’ll come back as updates during Beta).
We’ve since resolved our budgeting issues and are now looking for additional talent to join the team and help develop Prehistoric Kingdom. If you’re interested in working with us, be sure to keep an eye out on our social pages in the next few days.
As a whole, we’re expecting production speed to pick up significantly over the next year now that we can work more comfortably and afford to pay for more people’s time. We very much want to get the game out so that people can play it and give us the necessary feedback to improve it. Afterall, it is still an Early Access title and we should be treating it as such.
Created by Mrs TeaRex.
Created by Sdanwolf.
Thank you for reading October’s dev diary!
Until next time,
- The PK Team
