Welcome to the January Development Update!

It’s a fresh year with new features on the horizon. We’ve been steadily working on improving the animals behind the scenes with work on ontogeny, sociality and combat for 2025. The thing is though, we actually need your help.

As a niche indie project, development funding can be hard to access, especially through the Early Access period when most potential customers understandably hold off from buying the game until it's complete.

Currently, the majority of our funds are generated during major Steam sales, but revenue can otherwise leave us spread too thin to have the financial security necessary to pay the entire team or commission new work from our artists. This has put us in a tough position, having to weigh our vision for the game against what's financially viable.

We currently have an active team of around a dozen people all in different roles, with some of our core members voluntarily taking staggered or reduced payment to keep us moving forward. This isn’t sustainable, and is why we’re looking to Patreon.

[www.patreon.com]By opening a Patreon[www.patreon.com], we’re hoping to help ensure that development remains stable throughout the remainder of Early Access. As of this Dev Diary, we have 7 major updates left to complete before we can consider the game ready to leave Early Access.

Beyond keeping the game alive, the main benefit of becoming a patron will be access to exclusive polls, sneak peeks and our weekly development summaries that provide an informal look at what we’ve been up to. Our monthly Dev Diaries won’t be going anywhere, but certain things from the Patreon will be kept exclusive.

If you are in a position to help support the longevity of Prehistoric Kingdom through Patreon, we would be incredibly grateful. We appreciate everything the community has helped us build over the years, whether it was Kickstarter, buying our game during Early Access or even cheering us on from the sideline. You helped us get this far. Thank you!


As a final note, Volume 1 of the Artbook and Soundtrack are now available to purchase as standalone products on Patreon if you don’t use Steam. They’re also included in certain Patreon membership levels!

[trello.com]Assuming we’re able to secure more funding, we’ve updated our roadmap to Early Access release[trello.com] with an emphasis on animals. It can’t come all at once, but step by step we plan to incrementally improve the animals until they are properly completed. This begins with Ontogeny, coming in Update 14.

Update 14 will feature the first iteration of ontogeny, bringing baby animals to Prehistoric Kingdom. Using an age slider in the Animal Nursery, players will be able to preview the growth of a species and create animals at a specific age. When placed in the park, they’ll grow from a baby to an adult!

Here’s a sped-up demonstration of how growth works, using the Mammoth as an example. Note how there are no model swaps or sharp transitions! Instead, its proportions, shape and skin seamlessly change over time.

We’re still working on the little guy, but here’s an upclose look at the current baby Mammoth. They’re certainly different without their massive tusks!

To make babies extra cute, they’ll have their own locomotion to make them bouncier and more wobbly than the adults. It definitely makes the T. rex much less intimidating!

Babies like those of the cave lion are especially adorable! We love how these little kittens came out with their soft faces and massive paws. We bet they just can’t wait to be king.

On a technical level, we’re implementing ontogeny so that upcoming behaviors such as sociality and combat can factor it in from the start. It also allows us to observe how babies fit into the gameplay loop before more advanced features such as breeding are added at the end of Early Access.

As mentioned in a previous diary, one of the benefits of this approach is enhanced sexual dimorphism. For things like mammoths, we can stop their growth early to give females shorter tusks. It’ll certainly make herds look even more diverse!

This highly requested feature will let players explore their park from the eyes of a human: walking, running and jumping their way around the zoo!

We’d really like for players to be able to interact with attractions such as binoculars and in a later update, incorporate basic managerial tasks such as refilling feeders or cleaning dung in exchange for an upfront cost. We feel this would not only increase the sense of Prehistoric Kingdom being your zoo, but provide a more active way for players to engage with the park itself alongside staff.

Most of sociality will revolve around herding and how animals respond to each other. Depending on things like competitiveness or the territoriality of an animal, this can result in social behavior like friendly communication, scaring off competing herds and running away from threats.

Long term, we want to focus on the herd structure and how animals move up/down the ranks. Seeing herd leaders challenged in competitive species, or animals playfully chasing each other in more social ones.

“Mixed herds” is a concept where small species would essentially magnetize to larger ones, as long as they’re compatible. They’re still totally independent social groups, but it mimics the commensalism that you’d find in the real world.

A question we often see is if Prehistoric Kingdom will have “social animations”. This refers to the idea of a highly choreographed/synced animation between two animals, usually showcasing some sort of “canned” physical interaction.

At this stage, we will be focusing on social behavior (animal AI) instead. Not only are social animations out of our current budget, but they have problems with seamless ontogeny and individual size variation that can only be solved with a heavy tech investment. Regardless of those circumstances, we view social animations as more of the “cherry on top” and should not form the basis for sociality in Prehistoric Kingdom.

Above animations are triggered manually to test how threaten behaviors could look!

Combat is being designed as a dynamic system, making use of triggerable attacks and additive animations. This would allow animals to injure each other while moving around and perform actions such as biting or horn stabs.

It’s important for us to prioritize not only the scalability of aggressive interactions across species, but to consider the size of our team, too. Going dynamic means we can build something that’s variable and potentially more reactive for a lower cost, rather than something built around hundreds of cinematic but ultimately predetermined animations.

With that in mind, here are some mockup images using our current library of prototype animations. They depict an incoming attack, bite and hit reaction.

Below is a short animation test demonstrating how a threaten pose could be combined with locomotion and various attacks to create the appearance of an angry animal. Keep in mind that combat is in such early pre-production that we’re not worrying about polish or making it overly sophisticated yet. We just need animations to test with!

There’s a lot to research, trial and develop before we find a definitive path forward that’s achievable for us, so we ask to keep your expectations for combat and hunting measured.

It may not surprise you, but a lot of prehistoric plants are only known from leaves! We’ve been working with Tom Parker (scientific illustrator and author, worked on Saurian!) to ensure that our interpretations are scientifically plausible. For many species, Prehistoric Kingdom will be the first time some of these plants have been recreated in 3D.

All 8 in-game biomes will offer paleobotany, though the majority of species will be going towards scrubland, tropical, wetland and coastal.

Paleobotany is currently planned to feature around 30 extinct species of foliage when it’s finished, including fan favorites such as Araucaria (monkey puzzle), Kimeriella (Zamites), and Gingkos. Below, you can see some of our first assets created for the Coastal biome.

For the Ginkgo trees, we have two different species: one from the Jurassic (Ginkgo yimaensis) and one from the Cretaceous (Ginkgo adiantoides). It’s incredible to think that Ginkgo’s date all the way back to the Carboniferous, before the dinosaurs!

We decided to give them unique growth habits to better align them to the Coastal and Temperate biomes, with the added benefit of increasing their visual diversity.

In terms of gameplay, we plan to create unique dig sites specifically for paleobotany. They’d be scattered across the world, much like our animals are. Placing compatible paleobotany within a habitat would not only provide enrichment for the animals, but increase their Animal Points rating, too. We will continue to show more plants coming with paleobotany as the year progresses!

Terrariums are an upcoming set of modules that will replace the existing Mini-Exhibit system, acting as a rebrand of sorts. Like before, these facilities will house simplified versions of animals that would be otherwise difficult to include in regular habitats, typically due to their size, unique locomotion or ontogeny requirements.

Our goal with terrariums is to better integrate them into regular gameplay, expand their customization options and revisit their pipeline so it’s easier to setup new species.

Terrariums will have 3 configurations to switch between: amphibious, arboreal and terrestrial. Each configuration will change the inside of the tank, making it more comfortable for your chosen species.

• Amphibious
  Features a shallow pool and terrain for semi-aquatic animals
  
• Arboreal
  Features a set of trees for arboreal animals to perch on or jump between
  
• Terrestrial
  Features elavated terrain with viewable burrows for animals to hide in

Each of these configurations will have a small (4x8) and a large (8x12) version to replace the current Mini-Aviary. The small version will be especially great for custom reptile houses or adding little installations throughout the zoo.

Very early mockup, not the final design!

Players will need to set terrariums to use the right substrate, climate setting and provide enrichment in order to satisfy their terrarium animals. Beyond these few options, we’re planning to keep the insides sparse so that players can go crazy adding their own foliage and create dedicated terrarium prefabs. There will also be null styling for further flexibility, allowing players to visually “combine” multiple terrariums or sink them into the ground.

In terms of management, Keepers will need to supply terrariums with food and clean them in order to keep your animals happy and healthy. When disease is added, terrarium animals would get sick, too.

Regarding animals, Archaeopteryx and Microraptor will be joined by Compsognathus, Tiktaalik and Yi, with more being revealed later in the year. Since these critters are being rebranded to terrarium animals, it certainly opens the door for some larger species!

Inspired by real world zoos and fun fairs, we’ve begun looking into potential flat rides to add to Prehistoric Kingdom. These researchable modules would add a significant amount of Attraction Points to the park rating, giving guests something to do when they’re not watching animals behind fences.

In particular, we’ve been considering a Ferris Wheel, Theater and a Hot Air Balloon that would float straight up to give guests a good view of the park. If you had any suggestions that would fit the game’s tone, we’d love to hear them!

Creative Commons Reference Photos (with authors)
Created by Green Godzilla

Created by W.B.

Created by Roundtable

[www.patreon.com]Thank you for reading January’s dev diary!

As you can see, there’s a lot of great stuff in the works but the future of Prehistoric Kingdom is uncertain. Any extra support we can get would be extremely appreciated to keep the game going. In the mean time, we will be releasing progress summaries on Patreon, with the next Dev Diary releasing at the end of February. Thank you again for all of your support thus far.

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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• Discord[discord.com]
  
• Reddit
  
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Welcome, Park Managers!

The team are now back from their holiday breaks! To celebrate the New Year, Prehistoric Kingdom is currently available for 30% off. If you'd know someone who'd be interested in trying out the game, we'd appreciate the support!

In this patch, we've targetted a number of reported issues such as visitors falling through tiny gaps, various bugs with the building toolbox and more. As a quick little side project, we improved the Animal Nursery preview with new lighting, idle animations, added a 3D animated human scale, and fixed the wetness effect that would appear during rain.

We've also revised different areas of the UI with new tooltips to better explain what certain values or colors mean, such as an animal's "Biome" need. If the wrong biome is present in an animal's enclosure, selecting the biome will now automatically open the removal tool in the Terraforming menu.

Thank you for all the great feedback and we'll be in touch again soon with an early January Dev Diary.

• We're still experiencing instances of animals ignoring all navigation rules and phasing through fences, and we've made this our top fixing priority. Until we fix this, a reload should resolve the issue temporarily.

• Animals
  • Added morphological sexual and skin dimorphism to the Woolly Mammoth. This is especially noticeable in the tusk shape of the various individuals
• UI/UX
  • Improved UX on animal info menu biome reporting by adding button behavior to each biome icon: hovering them with the cursor will show you the correct status of that biome in relation to the animal preferences, and clicking them will set up the relevant terraforming tools
    
  • Added loads of relevant explanatory tooltips to animal welfare bars and animal habitat needs
    
  • Added biome tooltips to the Paleopedia biome icons
    
  • Added biome tooltips to the Landscaping Menu biome icons
    
  • Added a species count to the enclosure info menu rating section

• Balance
  • Changed starting Funds values for Sandbox Settings in the New Game menu - these will now reflect the updated economy more closely
    
  • Increased Tall Feeder capacity to 1500kg
    
  • Slowed large sauropod hunger and thirst drain rates
    
  • Decreased Apatosaurus weight and eating amounts after discovering a data oversight
    
  • Updated needs values for Megaloceros and Ursus
    
  • Increased Megaloceros base score to 430
    
  • Science Teams now properly unlock one star rating earlier
• Gameplay
  • Reduced Price Appeal influence of Bathrooms and Binoculars, increased influence of Park Entry Price
• Animals
  • Animal Nutrition and Hydration welfare now only starts to decrease when the animal is very hungry or thirsty, not slightly hungry or thirsty
• Guests
  • Guests in queue lines will now be more capable of pushing through crowds and other people
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Moved the navigation access portal for staff gates an additional 0.5 meters out, which should address a few issues where it wasn’t allowing staff through even when placed in perfectly legitimate areas
• UI/UX
  • Revised fence snapping to be less aggressive at closer camera distances
    
  • Made several improvements to the Animal Nursery preview
    • Spatialized and animated the human silhouette
      
    • Removed world lighting and world effects (like wetness) from the animal preview, making the preview visuals much more consistent
      
    • Drastically improved fidelity of shadows and fur rendering
      
    • Added idle and action animations to the Animal Nursery animal previews
      
    • Removed redundant animal information from the Animal Nursery, giving the animal preview more screen space. All that information is still available in the animal’s Paleopedia entry
  • Improved Excavations Team menu animal button responsiveness
    
  • Excavations Team menu animal buttons now link to their respective Paleopedia page
    
  • Updated sizing for the Group Editing overlay panel to improve overlapping with other menus
    
  • Improved modular group double clicking selection functionality by only allowing the behavior to run when the first click selects the target structure
    
  • Screenshot Mode: adapted height movement speed to take more after the orbit camera inputs, overall making more precise motions possible
    
  • Enclosure welfare state icons (missing water, missing feed), are now disabled if Animal Welfare is disabled in the gameplay options
• Rendering
  • Improved animal fur rendering during night time

• Critical
  • Fixed distant foliage loading from the wrong maps when browsing the New Game menu before loading a save
    
  • Fixed a critical modular selection bug triggered by undoing user actions
    
  • Fixed a left mouse click input error causing terraforming brush actions to occasionally lock in even if the left mouse button wasn’t held down
    
  • Improved saving diagnostics significantly
    
  • Save system should no longer delete a save when it fails to overwrite the save for any reason
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused loading to fail when saves had more than 256 gates
• Gameplay
  • Loading bay overfill export requests will no longer generate Module Logistics Unfulfilled park issues
    
  • Module Logistics Unfulfilled will now correctly be removed when a staff member takes on the assignment
    
  • Fixed Price Value Appeal not correctly calculating
• Animals
  • Animal pathfinding is more robust
    
  • Fixed an audio bug when removing animals
• Humans
  • Human pathfinding is more robust, reducing unrealistic crowding and improving their capability to find alternate routes.
    
  • Human to human collision has been adjusted to allow people to scoot around each other more aggressively, drastically reducing most crowding scenarios.
    
  • Fixed humans falling through tiny gaps on tall structures. They should also recover more reliably
• Guests
  • Fixed guests rarely getting stuck under the map
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fixed statues not giving their listed Attraction Points
• Foliage
  • Fixed new temperate grasses not aligning to the terrain
• Construction
  • Fixed fence and path length snapping being twice what is listed in the UI
    
  • Fixed vegetation being removed from far above or below a modular piece or path when it is placed with the Remove Foliage toggle enabled
    
  • Fixed a bug that prevented an interactable from updating is registration when placed in an area with no nav access
• UI/UX
  • Fixed a problem with the new Modular Styling menu, causing it to occasionally remain closed if a filter was applied
    
  • Fixed Ecology bonus values being displayed incorrectly in the UI
    
  • Fixed Local Prefabs showing up in the Workshop Prefabs building menu category
    
  • Added back workshop buttons to structure buttons
    
  • State Icons now don’t disappear when opening the Management View menus
    
  • Fixed ‘Animals ready for release’ notification popup sometimes becoming stuck on screen after moving animals
    
  • Fixed several instances of notification popups appearing at the wrong time
    
  • Fixed several text elements not having the proper language localization
    
  • Fixed the ‘Open Guest Needs’ button on the guests’ info menu opening the rating management view
    
  • Fixed several instances of tooltips not getting opened when it was expected (for instance, during user actions)

• CPU Optimizations

Welcome, Park Managers and happy holidays!

Update 13 is now available! This releases introduces 2 new species, an overhauled building experience, reworked park rating system and more. Prehistoric Kingdom is also 30% off right now during the Winter sale!

Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel.

Discover the furrociously lovable cave bear, Ursus spelaeus and the majestic Irish Elk, Megaloceros giganteus. Sharing a formation with ice age classics like the Mammoth and cave lions, these new additions are sure to feel right at home in Prehistoric Kingdom.

The park rating system is now goal oriented, showing the player what exactly is required to move up a star. It's an average of the park's Animal Rating and Guest Rating, each with their set of goals to max out.

The rate at which guests enter is influenced by both your park rating and the park's appeal. Players can now hover over their guest population at the bottom of the screen to see how these factors impact their projected guest population as well as their arrival rate.

A small trend icon let's you know if you're gaining or losing guests at a glance!

The building experience has been revamped with a new toolbox designed to better highlight the various construction options available to the player. The menu is now contextual and can be unpinned to maximize screenspace while building, dropping away.

Additional options such as showing small icons, filtering favorited items and toolbox pinning are now saved across all games, making it easier to configure your preferred way to play. Oh, and you can see every item in a single scroll!

When building with prefabs, items, paths or fences, a side panel appears to clearly list the available settings. For modular building, this includes new options: random rotation, random scale, incremental movement and flipping pieces on their X, Y or Z axis.

The styling menu now not only allows coloring per style, but can be filtered to only show modules, walls, roofs, lights or miscellaneous pieces. Oh, and it can be scaled vertically, too!

As visitors explore the park in Update 13, their rest need will begin to drain. Benches and tables offer respite to guests, giving them a place to sit and catch their breath. Similarly, guests will now seek out benches after purchasing a meal! The restaurant module is a great demonstration of this, as visitors will actually use the booths.

We have improvements planned to make transitioning in and out of seating look better in extreme circumstances, as well as to address visitors dropping their burgers on the floor. Mm, delicious!

That's not the only change to visitors, though! They're now far more likely to view animals and will do so for longer amounts of time. Guests will have a higher chance of trying to view animals with lots Animal Points (detailed below) and will even try to stand approximately near animals to get a good view.

The management view has been updated to include a navmesh viewer for guests and staff, allowing players to see what's traversable and troubleshoot any issues.

26 adorably stylized animal signs have been added in Update 13! These illustrations are available for most creatures in the game.

For the hardcore builders out there, we've also added 17 new shape pieces based on community suggestions. They're joined alongside 5 brand new material styles: matte, metallic, plaster, wood and granite!

The temperate and coastal biomes have been expanded with over 35 pieces of additional foliage. For biome presets, the temperate shrubs and temperate field have been added for ease of creating realistic meadows and transitionary forest.

The camera settings menu has been updated to include a smooth camera toggle! This allows players to replicate our trailers and make their very own cinematics with slowed panning and rotation.

This setting also works while in screenshot mode, so it's easier than ever to get the shot of your dreams!

In addition to the content above, here are some specific changes we've made to animal scoring and how the new attraction points work.

Viewable from the Nursery, Paleopedia or an animal itself, animal points are the perceived worth of a creature, made up of values such as the species base rating and any genetic mutations. Animals that are housed in mixed species exhibits will receive bonuses if they share a dig site, region and time period.

Animals with a high amount of animal points will typically attract more visitors to their enclosure due to their popularity.

This system replaces exhibit score in its entirety and is factored into the park rating. We'll be expanding all of this with the milestones mechanic in the future! Further information TBD.

Attraction points measure the perceived worth of the facilities in your zoo. Granted by placing modules such as kiosks, restaurants, binoculars and statues, each level of park rating will require a higher amount of attraction points than the last.

We intend to add more attraction-oriented modules in the future!

• Visitors will drop their burgers on the floor before using their telekinetic abilities to grab them.
  
• While placing an object, selecting an advanced movement option from the UI will not display the gizmo. This can be resolved by selecting another advanced option (e.g. movement, rotation, scaling) and then switching back to the desired tool. Alternatively, players can use the default keybind of V to access the advanced tools.

• NEW ANIMAL: Megaloceros giganteus
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Ursus spelaeus
  
• NEW FEATURE: Guest Sitting
  Guests will now stop at benches to rest or enjoy a delicious meal. This retroactively applies to all saves!
  A new ‘Rest’ overlay is available for checking on your guests' new need!
  
• NEW FEATURE: Improved rating and park goals
  • Park Rating Stars are earned by achieving incremental goals
    
  • Animal Points are given by every animal in your park based on the species, genetics, and ecology of the animal
    
  • Removed Exhibit Score: the Ecology Bonus is now part of Animal Points, and cleanliness was always part of Animal Welfare (making it redundant)
    
  • Attraction Points are currently given by shops and binoculars, but is planned be expanded in the future
    
  • Park Appeal affects guest population, and is driven by Overall Park Rating, Amenity Prices, and Park Beauty

• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added Stylized Animal Sign, coming in multiple animal designs:
    • Acrocanthosaurus
      
    • Ankylosaurus
      
    • Apatosaurus
      
    • Brachiosaurus
      
    • Coelodonta
      
    • Deinocheirus
      
    • Dilophosaurus
      
    • Dryosaurus
      
    • Edmontosaurus
      
    • Elasmotherium
      
    • Iguanodon
      
    • Leaellynasaura
      
    • Mammuthus
      
    • Megaloceros
      
    • Microraptor
      
    • Ouranosaurus
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus
      
    • Parasaurolophus
      
    • Protoceratops
      
    • Psittacosaurus
      
    • Smilodon
      
    • Spinosaurus
      
    • Triceratops
      
    • Tyrannosaurus
      
    • Ursus
      
    • Velociraptor
  • Added 5 material styles, including the old plastic style, to the shape pieces:
    • Plastic (current material)
      
    • Matte
      
    • Metallic
      
    • Plaster
      
    • Wood
      
    • Granite
  • Added several additional shape pieces to expand the current selection:
    • Cylinder Half
      
    • Cylinder Hollow
      
    • Cylinder Hollow Half
      
    • Pyramid Octagonal
      
    • Pyramid Pentagonal
      
    • Pyramid Hexagonal
      
    • Pyramid Triangular
      
    • Sphere Half
      
    • Torus Half
      
    • Torus 2 (Thicker)
      
    • Torus 3 (Thickest)
      
    • Cone
      
    • Cone Truncated
      
    • Helix 1 (Thin & Spaced)
      
    • Helix 2 (Thick & Close)
      
    • Icosahedron
      
    • Buckyball
  • Added 2 Animal Silhouette signs for the new species:
    • Megaloceros
      
    • Ursus
• Foliage
  • Added or updated the following Coastal plants:
    • Coastal Manroot 1
      
    • Coastal Manroot 2
      
    • False Lily of the Valley 1
      
    • False Lily of the Valley 2
      
    • Maidenhair Fern 1
      
    • Maidenhair Fern 2
      
    • Maidenhair Fern 3
      
    • Scots Pine 1
      
    • Scots Pine 2
      
    • Scots Pine 3
      
    • Scots Pine 4
      
    • Scots Pine 5
      
    • Scots Pine 6
  • Added the following Temperate plants:
    • Beech Tree 1
      
    • Beech Tree 2
      
    • Beech Tree 3
      
    • Beech Tree 4
      
    • Beech Tree 5
      
    • Beech Tree 6
      
    • Beech Tree 7
      
    • Beech Tree 8
      
    • Daisy Grass 1
      
    • Daisy Grass 2
      
    • Daisy Grass 2
      
    • Dandelion Grass 1
      
    • Dandelion Grass 2
      
    • Dandelion Grass 3
      
    • Dandelion Grass 4
      
    • Eared Willow 1
      
    • Eared Willow 2
      
    • Eared Willow 3
      
    • Eared Willow 4
      
    • Field Grass 1
      
    • Field Grass 2
      
    • Field Grass 3
      
    • Flame Azalea 1
      
    • Flame Azalea 2
      
    • Flame Azalea 3
      
    • Flame Azalea 4
      
    • Flame Azalea 5
      
    • Flame Azalea 6
      
    • Flame Azalea 7
  • Added the following Temperate biome presets:
    • Temperate shrubs
      
    • Temperate field
• UI/UX
  • Added a ‘Smooth Camera’ toggle to the Camera Menu, switching between the default camera mode, and a smooth cinematic camera
    
  • Added paleopedia page descriptions for Archaeopteryx, Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus (all species), Dryosaurus, Torvosaurus (both species), Tyrannosaurus, Protoceratops, Velociraptor and their respective formations
    
  • Updated the Building Toolbox menu with a fresh new look and improved functionality
    • Every structure category now has an ‘All’ menu selection, allowing a quick visualization of the entire structure list set for that category
      
    • Added ability to switch between large and small icon size for the Building Toolbox
      
    • Added save preference functionality to structure favoriting - newly favorited structures will now carry over across all saves
      
    • Added a set of contextual Building Action panels to the right hand side of the screen - these menus appear while any structural action is active and are highly contextual based on the current action type. Through these menus, several QoL features have been added to the building suite:
      • Improved keybind tooltip readability
        
      • Modular: random rotation and scale settings
        
      • Modular: gimbal move increment
        
      • Modular: gimbal Axis Flip, available during gimbal scaling. This allows quick mirroring on any local axis for the current objects
  • Building Toolbox settings (‘Button Scale’, ‘Pin Toolbox’, and ‘Show Prefabs’) are now saved across all saves and game sessions
    
  • Added a new keybind: Toggle Fences/Path Replacement Mode - bound to ‘R’ by default. When pressed, this keybind will toggle the current fence/path action from ‘Build’ mode to ‘Replace’ mode, and vice versa
    
  • Updated the modular styling and coloring panel to be completely independent of the building toolbox, allowing for more screen real estate when changing modular pieces!
    
  • Color controls are now relative to piece types, giving more granular control over the coloration of each piece style
    
  • Updated the Management View menu and included a new park rating report to match the new rating additions
    • Added a Guest Navigation view - allowing guest navmesh visualization
      
    • Added a Staff Navigation view - allowing staff navmesh visualization
  • Added explanatory tooltips to several gameplay GUI elements in the Management View menu, detailing various systems within the game
  • Added a Projected Park Population report tooltip that appears when hovering the park guest count on the main board
    
  • Added a trend icon next to guest population that shows when the projected number of guests is higher or lower than your current amount
    
  • Clicking the finances, staff, animals and guest numbers at the bottom of the HUD will open up their respective management menus

• Gameplay
  • Removed individual price categories for different food and gift brands, unified into two simple categories
    
  • Added price setting for Binocular modules
• Animals
  • Lowered shininess of Coelodonta fur
    
  • Animal overall welfare has been reworked to better consider each component of an animal’s life
    • Animal needs drain slower
      
    • Animal excretion amount lowered
  • Adjusted minimum exhibit sizes for the following species’ default grouping size:
    • Charonosaurus: 5,550m2 → 4,340m2
      
    • Deinocheirus: 3,400m2 → 1,575m2
      
    • Edmontosaurus annectens: 14,000m2 → 6,125m2
      
    • Edmontosaurus regalis: 33,440m2 → 10,425m2
      
    • Iguanodon: 13,580m2 → 4,030m2
      
    • Juxia: 6,220m2 → 1,100m2
      
    • Lambeosaurus: 11,400m2 → 2,500m2
      
    • Muttaburrasaurus: 6,524m2 → 2,796m2
      
    • Nasutoceratops: 3,600m2 → 1,400m2
      
    • Ouranosaurus: 7,920m2 → 3,300m2
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis: 18,800m2 → 13,100m2
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai: 11,780m2 → 6,570m2
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum: 5,500m2 → 2,400m2
      
    • Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus: 9,845m2 → 2,737m2
      
    • Parasaurolophus walkeri: 9,510m2 → 3,538m2
      
    • Styracosaurus: 6,000m2 → 2,400m2
      
    • Ugrunaaluk: 6,220m2 → 2,860m2
• Staff
  • Removed staff unhappiness for now, we have plans to reintroduce it with more gameplay in the future
• Guests
  • Adjusted guest population cap and spawn rates as a function of Park Rating and Park Appeal
    
  • Guests should now look at animals much more frequently, with higher Animal Points resulting in more frequent visits
    
  • Guests now view animals for significantly longer
    
  • Guests now consider the number of binoculars vs animals when selecting how to view them
    
  • Guests will now only view animals when they can get close to their enclosure
    
  • Guests now leave line queues if they think they are waiting too long
    
  • Guests should be less likely to stand on something that is not the correct part of the navmesh
    
  • Shopping behavior is no longer a need that builds up over time, instead guests will shop after having positive park experiences
    
  • Guests should now walk faster in general, and even faster still when they have a pressing need
    
  • Guest AI will no longer ‘explore’ for overlong periods
• Buildings & Scenery
  • In addition to benches and tables having interaction points, the Restaurant now has functional tables. Guests will get in line to purchase food, then take it to a table to sit and eat. Guests will also attempt to find nearby seating after purchasing from Food Kiosks or Vending Machines
    
  • Guests will now get in line to make a purchase after viewing products on shelves in the Gift Shop
    
  • Kiosks now have an exit point slightly to the right of the register interaction point, which helps clear up traffic jams when guests try to leave the kiosk. Guests moving from the register to this exit point are able to move through navmesh obstacles for that short distance, making it possible to build queue line ropes/barriers to direct the line, while still allowing guests to leave without walking backwards through the queue
    
  • Large bathrooms now have an internal capacity of 8 “stalls” for guests to use
    
  • Slightly reduced nav-cutting size of flat feeders
• Environment
  • Updated sunrise/sunset ambient light to be brighter and warmer, reducing pitch black shadows
    
  • Updated Tanzania map lighting to be more consistent with other maps and appear less harsh
    
  • Updated environmental reflections to include fog
    
  • Adjusted clouds to appear less saturated and overblown during sunrise/sunset
    
  • Slightly brightened grass in the shade
• Foliage
  • Updated wind settings on older trees and removed wind from various cactus species
    
  • Adjusted global wind simulation to look more lively
    
  • Adjusted elephant grass coloring to better fit with the rest of the foliage
    
  • Adjusted shading on boreal fireweed and labrador tea to appear less round
    
  • Adjusted sizes for temperate arrowwoods 1 and 2 for better leaf size consistency, making them smaller overall
    
  • Reduced wind during rain
• UI/UX
  • Updated building tutorial screenshots to show the new building toolbox
    
  • Updated biome preset icons for temperate foliage and coastal pines
    
  • Updated the enclosure info panel to reflect the new rating changes
    
  • Updated the animal rating info panel to reflect the new rating changes
    
  • Opening the Terraform Menu now clears all non-animal selection
    
  • Changed help link buttons on the Park Issues items to instead be displayed on the issue header
    
  • Converting a Challenge game to Sandbox will now properly update the Weather Menu settings
    
  • Improved camera tracking calculations to better focus on animals’ heads or guests’ faces when up close
• Post-Processing
  • Adjusted auto-exposure to improve the game’s base brightness and increase visibility when in dark areas. This is most noticeable in dense forests, buildings and at nighttime
    
  • Adjusted bloom to have less spread and appear less intense. Most noticeable on metal objects such as feeders. It now mostly acts as light bleed for dark areas
    
  • Looking at navigation in the Management View no longer tints the screen blue, making the navmesh more visible
• Rendering
  • Improved selection outline clarity

• Crashes
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when deleting a fence section if that fence had been loaded in overlapping another fence section
    • This enforcement of fence proximity rules may break existing enclosures which had gates and fences trying to occupy the same space!
  • Fixed improper process scheduling that could lead to a rare crash
• Critical
  • Fixed the “Sabre Toothed Cat” and “Three Horned Face” Steam achievements not properly triggering
    
  • Added better keybind validity checks, to ensure certain controls can’t be mapped to specific keybinds, affecting both saved bindings, as well as new user settings. This measure fixes selection problems some users have reported
    
  • Fixed a long standing resolution saving bug that would cause the game window resolution to reset any time a level was loaded
• Gameplay
  • Fence placement undo and redo now properly changes the park balance
• Animals
  • Fixed Brachiosaurus drink intro
    
  • Reworked interactable access which should help address animals not always using interactables after modifying them
• Staff
  • Fixed staff going on eternal breaks
    
  • Fixed rare navigational issue that prevented staff from moving
    
  • Fixed keepers being able to walk through obstacles to clean up dung if there was no navigable path
    
  • Fixed keepers getting stuck in an infinite loop of offloading dung if the assignment for that dung pile had previously been attempted and failed
    
  • Brought back staff end-of-assignment reaction animations
    
  • Fixed Auto-Hire-Cashiers not hiring anyone at the moment the toggle is activated
    
  • Fixed Staff Placement only showing correct placement validity while the mouse is moving
• Guests
  • Fixed Visitor Welfare being incorrect at roughly 75% of the desired value
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused guests to be unable to see animals
    
  • Fixed guests falling out of a queue line occasionally
    
  • Fixed guests getting stuck because they thought that roofs were walkable area
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused guests to have a slightly lower opinion of animals than they were supposed to
    
  • Adjusted nav recovery timeout to reduce cases where humans get truly stuck
• Foliage
  • Fixed incorrect alphabetical ordering for Coastal biome trees in the terraforming menu
• Construction
  • Fixed a major bug that caused modular piece colors to desynchronize after deletions
• UI/UX
  • Fixed a GUI Input oversight that would cause toggles to turn on graphically but otherwise not trigger their intended behavior upon right clicks or middle clicks
    
  • ‘Animals ready for release!’ localization element is now capitalized and exclamatory
    
  • Fixed camera min/max zoom not being properly enforced while the camera was in tracking mode
• Rendering
  • Improved synchronization of human and prop animation
    
  • Generally improved human animation system
    
  • Fixed outline desync when camera field of view changes

• Numerous small memory improvements
  
• Human animation is more optimal
  
• Many performance improvements to the building menu, especially for the search function
  
• Slightly improved save loading speed
  
• Minor CPU Optimizations

Welcome, Park Testers!

This PTB release adds a work-in-progress version of the cave bear, improves animal viewing behaviour for guests and addresses some feedback for the updated building tools. The bear will be receiving additional sounds, animations and vocalizations very soon!

We will continue polishing Update 13 before its release in a few days. Thank you for the help so far!

The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.

1. Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library
   
2. Go to Properties
   
3. Betas
   
4. Select 'ptb_public_testing'

Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel.

• NEW ANIMAL: Ursus spelaeus (work in progress!)

• UI/UX
  • Added an ‘Attraction Points’ tag to the structure button tooltip in the Building Toolbox
    
  • Re-added the filtering menu to the Building Toolbox, allowing for theme and prefab filtering
    
  • Re-added global coloring settings to modular selection after player feedback. This goes alongside the granular per-style coloring controls
    
  • Building Toolbox settings (‘Button Scale’, ‘Pin Toolbox’, and ‘Show Prefabs’) are now saved across all saves and game sessions

• Balance
  • Mini Aviary now has 500 Attraction Points
• Guests
  • Visitors have a vastly higher chance of viewing animals when not doing something more important
    
  • Visitors now view animals for significantly longer
    
  • Visitors now consider the number of binoculars vs animals when selecting how to view them
    
  • Visitors now leave line queues if they think they are waiting too long
    
  • Visitors should be less likely to stand on something that is not the correct part of the navmesh
    
  • Rebalanced spawn rates to be about double the previous base rate, and reduced overall park capacity by about half. There was also a rather steep invisible spawn penalty that reduced spawn rate as guest count reaches the projected population, which has not been removed but has been changed to only begin when current count is above 80% of the projected population
    
  • Improvements to where visitors decide to view animals from
    
  • Visitors will now only view animals when they can get close to their enclosure
• UI/UX
  • The modular style menu can now be resized
    
  • Properly resolved building menu and modular style menu overlapping with other GUI panels
    
  • Improved building toolbox search function accuracy
    
  • Reduced sensitivity of modular gimbal rotation angle snap
    
  • Changed help link buttons on the Park Issues items to instead be displayed on the issue header
    
  • The various action panel angle snap sliders now contain all the value granularity from previous updates
    
  • The ‘Pin Toolbox’ toggle on the Building Toolbox is now selected by default
    
  • The ‘hover to view items’ panel is now shorter, wider and matches the same style as the header beneath it

• Critical
  • Fixed a couple bugs where incorrect data could be read when making changes to the navmesh while many paths are calculating, potentially resulting in crashes
    
  • Fixed the “Sabre Toothed Cat” and “Three Horned Face” Steam achievements not properly triggering
    
  • Fixed IndexOutOfRange error in LogisticsAnalytics
    
  • Reduced Burger Size by 10%
• Guests
  • Fixed buggy animations when getting up from sitting
    
  • More diverse animation selection when viewing animals
    
  • Adjusted interact position in small bathrooms so guests aren’t visible from outside while using them
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fixed Feeder Empty status icon persisting after style change
    
  • Fixed feeders not always registering as interactable for animals when placed
• UI/UX
  • Fixed a big underlying issue in the modular style selection code that caused pieces to not properly initialize with the last selected styling
    
  • Fixed guest kiosks, restaurant, vending machine, info sign and binoculars not displaying their attribute icon correctly
    
  • ‘Animals ready for release!’ localization element is now capitalized and exclamatory

Season's greetings, park managers!

To celebrate the festivities, Prehistoric Kingdom is on sale for up to 30% off. This comes just in time for Update 13 which will be releasing in a few days!

This patch will be adding two new species: the Cave Bear (Ursus spelaeus) and the Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus). Alongside these creatures are improvements to the building experience, a revamped park rating system and more. In fact, existing owners of Prehistoric Kingdom can jump onto the Public Test Branch to help look for bugs right now!

We hope you're looking forward to the next update!

- The PK Team

Welcome, Park Testers!

This PTB release features a work-in-progress look at Update 13's content, including the reworked building toolbox, building experience, park rating rework, guest sitting and biome updates. Please note that Megaloceros and Ursus are not included in this pre-release and will be available once the patch is completely finished.

Here are some specific things that we'd like to get feedback on:

• Balance and Park Rating Changes: The conditions and various thresholds required to achieve higher park ratings have been changed, with goals that are laid out in the new rating UI.
  
• Building Toolbox and Building Experience: Help us find any oddities, bugs or experience downgrades from the previous system. It's totally new, so please take a little time to play with it!
  
• Guest AI: Visitors have had quite a few AI changes, including the addition of a rest need. Let us know how they distribute in the park and how their needs feel in terms of balance.

Once we've fixed the most prevalent bugs and finalized the content on our end, we will be releasing Update 13 very soon! Please send your feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel. Thank you!

The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.

1. Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library
   
2. Go to Properties
   
3. Betas
   
4. Select 'ptb_public_testing'

Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel.

• This version of the building toolbox temporarily does not contain filtering for specific themes or prefabs. This will be added for the official release of Update 13!
  
• Due to a crash fix, some exhibits may be broken if they had fences and gates occupying the same space! Please update habitats accordingly.
  
• Some menus, such as the new building style and coloring menu and the modular selection info panel can seldom overlap. We are working on improving the automatic scaling behavior of any overlapping menu.

• NEW FEATURE: Guest Sitting
  Guests will now stop at benches to rest or enjoy a delicious meal. This retroactively applies to all saves!
  A new ‘Rest’ overlay is available for checking on your guests' new need!
  
• NEW FEATURE: Improved rating and park goals
  • Park Rating Stars are earned by achieving incremental goals
    
  • Animal Points are given by every animal in your park based on the species, genetics, and ecology of the animal
    
  • Removed Exhibit Score: the Ecology Bonus is now part of Animal Points, and cleanliness was always part of Animal Welfare (making it redundant)
    
  • Attraction Points are currently given by shops and binoculars, but is planned be expanded in the future
    
  • Park Appeal affects guest population, and is driven by Overall Park Rating, Amenity Prices, and Park Beauty

• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added Stylized Animal Sign, coming in multiple animal designs:
    • Acrocanthosaurus
      
    • Ankylosaurus
      
    • Apatosaurus
      
    • Brachiosaurus
      
    • Coelodonta
      
    • Deinocheirus
      
    • Dilophosaurus
      
    • Dryosaurus
      
    • Edmontosaurus
      
    • Elasmotherium
      
    • Iguanodon
      
    • Leaellynasaura
      
    • Mammuthus
      
    • Megaloceros
      
    • Microraptor
      
    • Ouranosaurus
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus
      
    • Parasaurolophus
      
    • Protoceratops
      
    • Psittacosaurus
      
    • Smilodon
      
    • Spinosaurus
      
    • Triceratops
      
    • Tyrannosaurus
      
    • Ursus
      
    • Velociraptor
• Foliage
  • Added or updated the following Coastal plants:
    • Coastal Manroot 1
      
    • Coastal Manroot 2
      
    • False Lily of the Valley 1
      
    • False Lily of the Valley 2
      
    • Maidenhair Fern 1
      
    • Maidenhair Fern 2
      
    • Maidenhair Fern 3
      
    • Scots Pine 1
      
    • Scots Pine 2
      
    • Scots Pine 3
      
    • Scots Pine 4
      
    • Scots Pine 5
      
    • Scots Pine 6
  • Added the following Temperate plants:
    • Beech Tree 1
      
    • Beech Tree 2
      
    • Beech Tree 3
      
    • Beech Tree 4
      
    • Beech Tree 5
      
    • Beech Tree 6
      
    • Beech Tree 7
      
    • Beech Tree 8
      
    • Daisy Grass 1
      
    • Daisy Grass 2
      
    • Daisy Grass 2
      
    • Dandelion Grass 1
      
    • Dandelion Grass 2
      
    • Dandelion Grass 3
      
    • Dandelion Grass 4
      
    • Eared Willow 1
      
    • Eared Willow 2
      
    • Eared Willow 3
      
    • Eared Willow 4
      
    • Field Grass 1
      
    • Field Grass 2
      
    • Field Grass 3
      
    • Flame Azalea 1
      
    • Flame Azalea 2
      
    • Flame Azalea 3
      
    • Flame Azalea 4
      
    • Flame Azalea 5
      
    • Flame Azalea 6
      
    • Flame Azalea 7
  • Added the following Temperate biome presets:
    • Temperate shrubs
      
    • Temperate field
• UI/UX
  • Updated the Building Toolbox menu with a fresh new look and improved functionality
    • Every structure category now has an ‘All’ menu selection, allowing a quick visualization of the entire structure list set for that category
      
    • Added ability to switch between large and small icon size for the Building Toolbox
      
    • Added save preference functionality to structure favoriting - newly favorited structures will now carry over across all saves
      
    • Added a set of contextual Building Action panels to the right hand side of the screen - these menus appear while any structural action is active and are highly contextual based on the current action type. Through these menus, several QoL features have been added to the building suite:
      • Improved keybind tooltip readability
        
      • Modular: random rotation and scale settings
        
      • Modular: gimbal move increment
        
      • Modular: gimbal Axis Flip, available during gimbal scaling. This allows quick mirroring on any local axis for the current objects
  • Added a new keybind: Toggle Fences/Path Replacement Mode - bound to ‘R’ by default. When pressed, this keybind will toggle the current fence/path action from ‘Build’ mode to ‘Replace’ mode, and vice versa
    
  • Updated the modular styling and coloring panel to be completely independent of the building toolbox, allowing for more screen real estate when changing modular pieces!
    
  • Color controls are now relative to piece types, giving more granular control over the coloration of each piece style
    
  • Updated the Management View menu and included a new park rating report to match the new rating additions
    • Added a Guest Navigation view - allowing guest navmesh visualization
      
    • Added a Staff Navigation view - allowing staff navmesh visualization
  • Added a Projected Park Population report tooltip that appears when hovering the park guest count on the main board
    
  • Added a trend icon next to guest population that shows when the projected number of guests is higher or lower than your current amount
    
  • Clicking the finances, staff, animals and guest numbers at the bottom of the HUD will open up their respective management menus

• Gameplay
  • Removed individual price categories for different food and gift brands, unified into two simple categories
    
  • Added price setting for Binocular modules
• Animals
  • Lowered shininess of Coelodonta fur
    
  • Animal overall welfare has been reworked to better consider each component of an animal’s life
    • Animal needs drain slower
      
    • Animal excretion amount lowered
  • Adjusted minimum exhibit sizes for the following species’ default grouping size:
    • Charonosaurus: 5,550m2 → 4,340m2
      
    • Deinocheirus: 3,400m2 → 1,575m2
      
    • Edmontosaurus annectens: 14,000m2 → 6,125m2
      
    • Edmontosaurus regalis: 33,440m2 → 10,425m2
      
    • Iguanodon: 13,580m2 → 4,030m2
      
    • Juxia: 6,220m2 → 1,100m2
      
    • Lambeosaurus: 11,400m2 → 2,500m2
      
    • Muttaburrasaurus: 6,524m2 → 2,796m2
      
    • Nasutoceratops: 3,600m2 → 1,400m2
      
    • Ouranosaurus: 7,920m2 → 3,300m2
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis: 18,800m2 → 13,100m2
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai: 11,780m2 → 6,570m2
      
    • Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum: 5,500m2 → 2,400m2
      
    • Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus: 9,845m2 → 2,737m2
      
    • Parasaurolophus walkeri: 9,510m2 → 3,538m2
      
    • Styracosaurus: 6,000m2 → 2,400m2
      
    • Ugrunaaluk: 6,220m2 → 2,860m2
• Staff
  • Removed staff unhappiness for now, we have plans to reintroduce it with more gameplay in the future
• Guests
  • Adjusted guest population cap and spawn rates as a function of Park Rating and Park Appeal
    
  • Should now look at animals much more frequently, with higher Animal Points resulting in more frequent visits
    
  • Shopping behavior is no longer a need that builds up over time, instead guests will shop after having positive park experiences
    
  • Guests should now walk faster in general, and even faster still when they have a pressing need
    
  • Guest AI will no longer ‘explore’ for overlong periods
• Buildings & Scenery
  • In addition to benches and tables having interaction points, the Restaurant now has functional tables. Guests will get in line to purchase food, then take it to a table to sit and eat. Guests will also attempt to find nearby seating after purchasing from Food Kiosks or Vending Machines
    
  • Guests will now get in line to make a purchase after viewing products on shelves in the Gift Shop
    
  • Kiosks now have an exit point slightly to the right of the register interaction point, which helps clear up traffic jams when guests try to leave the kiosk. Guests moving from the register to this exit point are able to move through navmesh obstacles for that short distance, making it possible to build queue line ropes/barriers to direct the line, while still allowing guests to leave without walking backwards through the queue
    
  • Large bathrooms now have an internal capacity of 8 “stalls” for guests to use
• Environment
  • Updated sunrise/sunset ambient light to be brighter and warmer, reducing pitch black shadows
    
  • Updated Tanzania map lighting to be more consistent with other maps and appear less harsh
    
  • Updated environmental reflections to include fog
    
  • Adjusted clouds to appear less saturated and overblown during sunrise/sunset
    
  • Slightly brightened grass in the shade
• Foliage
  • Updated wind settings on older trees and removed wind from various cactus species
    
  • Adjusted global wind simulation to look more lively
    
  • Adjusted elephant grass coloring to better fit with the rest of the foliage
    
  • Adjusted shading on boreal fireweed and labrador tea to appear less round
    
  • Adjusted sizes for temperate arrowwoods 1 and 2 for better leaf size consistency, making them smaller overall
    
  • Reduced wind during rain
• UI/UX
  • Updated biome preset icons for temperate foliage and coastal pines
    
  • Updated the enclosure info panel to reflect the new rating changes
    
  • Updated the animal rating info panel to reflect the new rating changes
    
  • Opening the Terraform Menu now clears all non-animal selection
• Post-Processing
  • Adjusted auto-exposure to improve the game’s base brightness and increase visibility when in dark areas. This is most noticeable in dense forests, buildings and at nighttime
    
  • Adjusted bloom to have less spread and appear less intense. Most noticeable on metal objects such as feeders. It now mostly acts as light bleed for dark areas
    
  • Looking at navigation in the Management View no longer tints the screen blue, making the navmesh more visible

• Crashes
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when deleting a fence section if that fence had been loaded in overlapping another fence section
    • This enforcement of fence proximity rules may break existing enclosures which had gates and fences trying to occupy the same space!
  • Fixed improper process scheduling that could lead to a rare crash
• Gameplay
  • Fence placement undo and redo now properly changes the park balance
• Animals
  • Reworked interactable access which should help address animals not always using interactables after modifying them
• Staff
  • Fixed staff going on eternal breaks
    
  • Fixed rare navigational issue that prevented staff from moving
    
  • Fixed keepers being able to walk through obstacles to clean up dung if there was no navigable path
    
  • Fixed keepers getting stuck in an infinite loop of offloading dung if the assignment for that dung pile had previously been attempted and failed
    
  • Brought back staff end-of-assignment reaction animations
    
  • Fixed Auto-Hire-Cashiers not hiring anyone at the moment the toggle is activated
    
  • Fixed Staff Placement only showing correct placement validity while the mouse is moving
• Guests
  • Fixed Visitor Welfare being incorrect at roughly 75% of the desired value
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused guests to be unable to see animals
    
  • Fixed guests falling out of a queue line occasionally
    
  • Fixed guests getting stuck because they thought that roofs were walkable area
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused guests to have a slightly lower opinion of animals than they were supposed to
• Foliage
  • Fixed incorrect alphabetical ordering for Coastal biome trees in the terraforming menu
• Construction
  • Fixed a major bug that caused modular piece colors to desynchronize after deletions
• UI/UX
  • Fixed a GUI Input oversight that would cause toggles to turn on graphically but otherwise not trigger their intended behavior upon right clicks or middle clicks
• Rendering
  • Improved synchronization of human and prop animation
    
  • Generally improved human animation system

• Numerous small memory improvements
  
• Human animation is more optimal
  
• Many performance improvements to the building menu, especially for the search function
  
• Slightly improved save loading speed

Welcome to the November Development Update!

In this blog post, we’ll be taking a quick look at the remaining parts of Update 13, including a brand new animal. Oh deer! We’re also 25% off on Steam right now, so if you’re yet to support us, it’s a great time to jump in!

To summarize the last Dev Diary,[www.prehistorickingdom.com] Update 13 will be released in December as our final update for the year. It’s primarily a content update focused on adding two new animals, stabilizing parts of the game’s balance and including quality of life improvements such as a redesigned building toolbox. There’ll be a trailer announcing the release date soon!

Going into 2025, the team will be focused on completing long awaited updates such as animal socialization, babies and paleobotany. Since these features are so large, we don’t have an ETA for when they’ll be playable. As usual, though, we’ll be releasing Dev Diaries to keep the community informed and show progress as we’re further along.

It may not be a reindeer, but we reckon a Megaloceros could pull Santa’s sleigh just as well! This massive deer is best recognised by its absurdly large antlers, measuring in with a span of over 3 meters.

Also known as the Irish Elk, Megaloceros once lived across Eurasia with the cave bear and woolly mammoth. Despite the nickname, Megaloceros is more closely related to a living species, the fallow deer. Our scientists have noted the two animals making very similar calls, highlighting their common ancestry!

We’re excited to see what habitats you create for Megaloceros and the cave bear in Update 13!

Rounding out the foliage additions from Update 12, we’ll be adding a few more plants to the Coastal biome. These include the Coastal Manroot, False Lily of the Valley, Maidenhair Fern and improved Scots Pines. There are 13 individual plants between them.

Similarly, the temperate biome will be getting quite a lot of love, too! This update adds beech trees, daisy grass, dandelion grass, field grass, eared willows and flame azaleas (flowered and unflowered versions!) for a whopping 29 new foliage pieces. These plants have quite a bit of color, making them particularly great for more diverse habitats or within decorative planters.

Finally, let’s take an in-game look at some of the animal signs that were shown off last month! There are quite a lot of these coming in Update 13, so please look forward to discovering them all when it releases in December.

Created by Nerd

Created by W3

Created by luci257

Thank you for reading November's dev diary!

Although a shorter one, we hope you’re looking forward to Update 13. We’ll be taking a little break over the holiday period at the end of December, so in case we don’t end up doing a Dev Diary due to New Years, we wish everyone a happy holidays. See you soon, park managers!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

• Facebook[www.facebook.com]
  
• Twitter
  
• Discord[discord.com]
  
• Reddit
  
• YouTube

Welcome, Park Managers!

This patch improves stability and introduces notifications that tell the player about one-time events such as finished research, animal unlocks and excavation changes. The next major release will be Update 13 in December!

Please send your feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel. Thank you!

Prehistoric Kingdom's now 25% off until December 4th! It's a great time to jump in and cozy up while building the ultimate prehistoric zoo.

• UI/UX
  • Added the new Notifications Menu, where the player can receive information about one-time events in the park. Current notifications include:
    • New Animal Unlocked
      
    • Research Completed
      
    • Excavation Completed
      
    • New Excavation Event

• Gameplay
  • Changed how interactables work behind the scenes, the positions of interact points on various modules may change. This change lays groundwork for future expansion, but in the immediate term will provide fixes for traffic jams at queue lines, binoculars not always connecting to the navmesh correctly, misaligned positioning at some modules, and modules being inaccessible from some directions when the game thinks they are accessible.
• Staff
  • When a keeper is cleaning dung, selecting the keeper will show which dung piles they are planning to clean up in this trip
• Audio
  • Adjusted large theropod eating sounds

• Critical
  • Fixed a critical guest issue that caused them to misbehave after removing an interactable item that they were using previously
    
  • Fixed a rare freeze when trying to exit the game
• Animals
  • Fixed a case where animals could get permanently stuck if they’re too far above or below the navmesh
    
  • Fixed Dilophosaurus sleep using the rest animation
• Staff
  • Fixed staff being assigned to different shops than the ones they were at previously on loading a save
    
  • Fixed keepers being overly picky about distances and fill levels when finding a compost heap
    
  • Fixed staff members not playing their post-assignment reaction animations
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fixed placement and nav detection bounds for many modular pieces
• UI/UX
  • Fixed park issue icons displaying as blank in the Park Issues menu
    
  • Fixed a message popup layout issue causing popups to overlap on screen when in instances where they are meant to be hidden
    
  • Fixed main board economy report not properly displaying negative numbers
    
  • Fixed park issues arising when the relevant gameplay settings are disabled
• Rendering
  • Improved light LODs transitioning behavior
• Misc.
  • Many stability improvements behind the scenes

• Fixed a few significant CPU performance regressions
  
• Improvements to CPU performance (on top of fixed regressions)
  
• Exiting the game shouldn’t take as long

Welcome, Park Managers!

This hotfix fixes issues such as animals not eating from feeders, crashes, and some critical save/load issues.

Please send your feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel. Thank you!

• Animals
  • Reduced amount of time it takes animals to get dry after emerging from bodies of water

• Crashes
  • Fixed an issue during shutdown which could cause a crash
    
  • Fixed a couple oversights in terraforming that could potentially cause crashes when terraforming near the edge of the map
• Critical
  • Fixed a critical save/load issue related to empty animal info screens
    
  • Improved modular/save load behavior so that file writing errors for specific pieces won’t completely skip saving the whole modular group - this will minimize missing groups on load in the future
    
  • Fixed critical modular bug causing random extra ‘ghost’ pieces to be loaded in bulk in saves
    
  • Fixed click input collision that would cause actions to finalize if left click input is detected during right click hold input
    
  • Addressed animals not being able to eat from feeders until moved
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fixed bad floor collision on official prefab ‘Rustic Restaurant’
• Environment
  • Fixed Aurora not showing up in the ‘Canadian Rockies’ level
• UI/UX
  • Fixed GUI exception in the modular Storage Widget
    
  • Fixed a layout issue at the bottom of the Modular Prefab saving panel