It's always the way - you wait your entire life for a decent dinosaur theme park tycoon management sim and three come along at once. The big one is Jurassic World Evolution from Planet Coaster developer Frontier, mixing perfect developer with the perfect IP, and we're also getting the scrappy, humorous, more Bullfrog-style take with Parkasaurus too.
And now we've got a third one coming. Developer Shadow Raven Studios has announced Prehistoric Kingdom, a more Zoo Tycoon-style take on the Dinosaur Park Management idea - and unlike the other two games, you can play it now.
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Prehistoric Kingdom has a free demo on Steam available now. Be warned it's a very rough taste of what the final game will be like, with only four dinosaur types, no real tutorials, and no patrons, but it's certainly the bones of what could be a very interesting game.
The final game will have four game modes. Challenge (Tycoon-style, research, build, manage finances etc), Campaign (pre-built missions), Sandbox (unlimited resources, customisable settings, and all content unlocked), and Staff Mode (take the role of a Keeper in the park!). You can research new dinosaurs and buildings, breed unique animals (and name them too), and craft every aspect of your dinosaur park. There will be mod support, including Steam Workshop support. There'll even be other extinct animals, like saber-toothed tigers and mammoths. Hopefully sloths and weird squirrel things will be implemented to create that Ice Age reunion we've been after.
Of course developer Shadow Raven are aware of Jurassic World Evolution, and had this to say on how they were making Prehistoric Kingdom stand apart from the competition:
"The biggest distinctions between the two games is perhaps what they have to offer. Jurassic World Evolution seems to be more cinematically oriented from what we've seen, with a bigger focus on danger and action (again, from what we've seen). Prehistoric Kingdom stands apart for its more pronounced focus on the zoo aspect of the game, as well as special attention to the animals scientific accuracy and the way they change throughout their aging process, among many others!"
Shadow Raven are looking for £40,000 to fund the game on Kickstarter, which is a tiny sum really - and they're halfway to that goal already with 21 days to go on their crowdfunding campaign. Less than a year ago we'd be jumping all over this, but unless Jurassic World: Evolution is terrible and Parkasaurus is lying to us and you can't actually put sunglasses on your Triceratops we're worried that the competition will be too stiff. Life will find a way, we guess.
We'll probably back it anyway. You can never have too many dinosaur park building games.
