Saurian: An open world dinosaur survival experience

Since Saurian started its Kickstarter recently and because I couldn't find a Saurian thread, I figured that I might as well make one myself.

Main site

Youtube

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As for what it's about, copypasting from the main site:

Initial playable dinosaurs are Dakotaraptor, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops, and T. rex, and there'll be a Post-Impact mode that has your dinosaur attempting to survive after the meteor impact.

WOW!!

New Playable Dinosaurs Unlocked!

Possible candidates include Anatosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and Anzu.

I dunno. I mean, kuddos on the concept and scientific accuracy, but it seems.... boring as fuck. Like, after an hour, what's there to do?

And that's without going into games who've tried a similar concept (Bear Simulator comes to mind)

edited 6th Jun '16 10:05:37 AM by CobraPrime

Bear Simulator ruined the experience by having missions. I want the authentic immersive freeroam experience. It'd be real sweet if they managed to do away with a HUD entirely.

The point is like why people play games like Operation Flashpoint and ARMA, except instead of a super-realistic soldier simulator it's a dinosaur simulation based on our best knowledge of the Hell Creek ecosystem and the animals that inhabited it at the time of release.

Open World Simulators are in a bit of a glut right now aren't they?

Yeah, but ARMA and Flashpoint both offer massive content. And mutiplayer. The entire reason Flashpoint is still relevant is its multiplayer. Ditto with Arma, one of the appeal is to join these giant severs with a tons of people. This is a single player game with the promise of maybe someday some form of multiplayer. Arma 3 also features several dozen vehicles and several dozen weapons.

I'm not saying realism isn't interesting, or even an asset and a draw for a game, but beyond that, what is there TO DO. Will I have seen all the content after 20 minutes? What's there to draw you back if it's the same single player gameplay.

And yet one of the most common criticism (other than it looks like shit) is that the game is BORING. And that's despite having "extra content" like the missions you mentioned.

Survival games are an overcrowded market nowadays, and while the "You're a dinosaur rather than a dude and it's based on science" aspect is interesting, the kickstarter fails to show me how that will fight off repetition.

I am curious of the concept and want to see where this goes, but I do have concern about the longevity of the game.

edited 7th Jun '16 11:20:48 AM by CobraPrime

I just like the idea of being a feathered Tyrannosaurus.

Nifty. A long time ago Discovery had a text and tile-based version of this idea where you played an Allosaurus from birth to death. It was pretty fun for a while, but you're right in worrying about the longevity. Pretty sure that one had an end-game but I never survived long enough to find it.

Only thing that kept me playing it as long as I did.

The Big Al game, one of my favorites. If the Kickstarter manages to reach at least $155,000 there should be multiplayer in the base game, which I figure has a good chance of happening since it's at more than $140,000 already with 14 days to go.

So the multiplayer got funded shortly after noon yesterday.

That just opened up some replayability. The ability to run in an entire pack of dinosaurs instead of by yourself or with the AI? Pretty damn sweet.

Multiplayer Unlocked

I feel like the multiplayer that would best serve Saurian is GTA-style free-roam.

A game where you play as a dinosaur and evade the police? Sure, why not.

The Dakotaraptor cops will drop from the trees and kill you.

Anatosaurus and the Name Game

Or why they're going with Anatosaurus over Edmontosaurus, and how the largest members of the species could outsize a T. rex. (However, most didn't get that big.)

An element to the Kickstarter that I hadn't quite considered

And so the VR has been funded (Plus a sample of the OST.)

Since the Kickstarter ends in 16 hours I think this is as far as it's going regarding rewards, though IIRC this just means the Two Medicine Formation and console support will have to wait until after launch.

Didn't Bear simulator actually give up the lie about being a straight up bear simulator pretty quickly into the game, though? I think I remember watching a let's play, and it pretty quickly became a different thing than it appeared to be.

In any case, I'm all for any game involving dinosaurs. It's nice that they seem to be showcasing some of the lesser used ones instead of just doing all the popular ones pop culture knows.

Looks cool. And YAY for feathered Tyrannosaurus.

Candidates for the Kickstarter playable dinosaur vote

While it hasn't started yet, the voting is for one omnivore and one herbivore.

Omnivores: Anzu and an ornithomimid. (Probably Ornithomimus since it survived right up to the K-T event.)

Herbivores: Anatosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and Denversaurus

Oh god, Ankylosaurus would be fucking AWESOME! I've always loved those wrecking ball tanks.

I'm definitely interested. I don't find the idea of a biologically accurate dinosaur simulator boring at all, I'd be interested in hyper-realistic simulators for numerous animals in fact. Sandbox games are their own thing and those who love them, love them well. Hell, I can think of multiple gameplay modes I'd want to experiment with - individual dino control, ecosystem management, herd/species control, etc.

Honestly I don't know how you couldn't squeal with glee at the very concept of being part of a raptor pack.

I hope they model anatomy and feeding with some accuracy. I mean I know people don't want it to be an outright gore simulator but it would be nice if different kinds of carnivores ate different parts of the animal (i.e. prey stealing, scavenging, etc, simulating the actual process that all large kills go through then and now).

Pic of Acheroraptor for the Saurian field guide

Playing with Saurian's Genericometer:

On the controversy behind Saurian's choice of nomenclature for its hadrosaur.