Monday, October 19, 2015

Carboniferous Forest Simulator

After having played Ark: Survival Evolved, I thought they had pretty much cornered the market on paleo-themed games. And, okay, they still have. No other game I've played with dinos comes close, but that hasn't stopped these guys from making a very interesting game themselves!

Yup, these people took it upon themselves to make an entire simulator of at least one prehistoric time period, that being loooooong before our favorite animal group showed up. I mean, look at this!
http://extra-life.de/index.html

I admit, I've been wanting to see more of prehistoric environments for awhile now to help me with my writing. I don't want it to all either be generic jungle or redwood forests. There were lots of bizarre plant forms back in the day, but it's hard to get a really good grasp on what such an environment actually looked like. I could read a 400 page book on paleobotany, but that's more something for someone wanting to know all of the elaborate science behind it rather than just getting a general grasp of functionality and applying it in a practical manner for entertainment.

Well, this game seems to fit the bill nicely! It's in extremely early stages of development, so it is of course very primitive. Kind of like the environment it's trying to convey, it's just barely getting started and trying to develop. Pretty ironic actually.

I just played a very short session, and this is purely an educational game. No tricks, no cheats, no competition, just hopping into a prehistoric world and learning about the plant life around you. It's actually not quite as boring as you think, as it is quite atmospheric. Thank you guys for the background sounds! I'm hoping ya'll get more. :) Here are a few screenshots!

Intro screen! Yay! 

Cousin It disguised a tree

Educational windows upon examining plants
 Maybe I'm just an uninteresting nerd, but I'm eager to see what else this produces. It's certainly something I haven't seen before!
Good luck to you guys and keep on developing! :)

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