Dinosaurs are pretty awesome. I, as well as many others, had a deep fascination with the creatures as a child and some of that love still exists. That’s why any crowdfunding campaign related to dinosaurs is of immediate interest. Dinosaur Island is an attempt to be the best-researched, and therefore most realistic, dino sim out there. The game certainly comes with some immediate pedigree thanks to the creator being none other than Dr. Ezra Sidran. In case you’re not familiar with the name, he created Designasaurus (and many other games) back in the day which was a hit in the edutainment world.
Dinosaur Island is focused on bringing highly researched AI routines with each dinosaur in the game. Along with that, there will be variable era-appropriate ecosystems on each of the three proposed islands. There are also plans for “eco-challenges” which give players different tasks to complete by controlling and modifying dinosaurs to survive a habitat. Such a level of detail is worthy of applause, although it remains to be seen how many hardcore dinosaur fans will flock to fund it. The primary expense for this project is simply licensing a modern 3D engine (Unity3D or CryENGINE) as well as purchasing high quality dinosaur 3D models.
As nice a goal as that is, the campaign’s layout does not really showcase the fact that the current images are only proof of concept shots and videos. Yes, they do mention it multiple times, but I fear many are simply checking out the pictures, finding the current graphics underwhelming, and moving on. With a $40,000 goal it’ll take a lot of attention but there should be enough dinosaur-obsessed Windows, Mac, and Linux gamers out there to fund Dinosaur Island.
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