Here is a small snippet I read in the Third Iteration of the Jurassic Park Novel, page 117.
This is when the group are with Dr. Henry Wu and are discussing about how dinosaur DNA was extracted and gets prepared for incubation.
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'....Nedry Turned back to the group as Grant asked, "And once the computer has analyzed the DNA, how do you know what animal it encodes?"
"We have two procedures," Wu said. "The first is phylogenic mapping. DNA evolves over time, like everything else in an organism - hands or feet or any other physical attribute. so we take an unknown piece of DNA and determine roughly, by computer, where it fits in the evolutionary sequence. It's time consuming, but it can be done."
"And the other way?"
Wu shrugged. "Just grow it and find out what it is," he said. "That's what we usually do. I'll show you how that's accomplished."....'
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And that got me thinking, how cool it would be to play challenge mode where the player does not know what dinosaur they have until they incubate that species for the first time?
A lot of elements are hidden to make the reveal a surprise.
• Digsites only show you the number of dinosaur species available. No names or diet, they would only be shown after you have incubated that extinct animal.
• Research lab dinosaurs (if there are in this game) would be part of the main digsites roster, so as to not identify them before digging them.
• Fossils from the dig sites are hidden in transport crates so to hide the species.
• Incubation laboratories won't show the dinosaur species or diet, and would have a "?" for the name and image.
• Once you have reached 50% or 100% of a species genome, it will not inform the player what animal it is, just that it is ready for incubation.
The challenge here is not knowing what you should prepare for. You could end up digging in hopes for a triceratops, but would end up with an ankylosaurus after incubating the dinosaur. And in preparations for a albertosaurus, you could have incubated a troodon instead. This will encourage the player to get resourceful with what they have, and adapt quickly enough to accommodate the new dinosaurs. The only thing the player has to identify the dinosaur if the genome was determined to be an air, land, or marine species, where the fossils came from, the cost of incubation, and if the genome could be identifiable.
But I also think that genome modification could be locked until the species has been identified after the initial incubation, so that the genetic traits won't give away the species. And the first incubation for a species is set at a locked price, so that the first dinosaur could not be identified based on how cheap or expensive that dinosaur is. It could be an expensive first struthiomimus, or a cheap first Tyrannosaurus, the reveal would be the surprise.
I think this mystery digsite option could be a lot of fun as it could lead to some surprising park inclusions or unexpected chaos management. JWE2 will come out with 75+ species of animals, and that large roster number could make this an interesting mode. What do you think?
This is when the group are with Dr. Henry Wu and are discussing about how dinosaur DNA was extracted and gets prepared for incubation.
*********************
'....Nedry Turned back to the group as Grant asked, "And once the computer has analyzed the DNA, how do you know what animal it encodes?"
"We have two procedures," Wu said. "The first is phylogenic mapping. DNA evolves over time, like everything else in an organism - hands or feet or any other physical attribute. so we take an unknown piece of DNA and determine roughly, by computer, where it fits in the evolutionary sequence. It's time consuming, but it can be done."
"And the other way?"
Wu shrugged. "Just grow it and find out what it is," he said. "That's what we usually do. I'll show you how that's accomplished."....'
*********************
And that got me thinking, how cool it would be to play challenge mode where the player does not know what dinosaur they have until they incubate that species for the first time?
A lot of elements are hidden to make the reveal a surprise.
• Digsites only show you the number of dinosaur species available. No names or diet, they would only be shown after you have incubated that extinct animal.
• Research lab dinosaurs (if there are in this game) would be part of the main digsites roster, so as to not identify them before digging them.
• Fossils from the dig sites are hidden in transport crates so to hide the species.
• Incubation laboratories won't show the dinosaur species or diet, and would have a "?" for the name and image.
• Once you have reached 50% or 100% of a species genome, it will not inform the player what animal it is, just that it is ready for incubation.
The challenge here is not knowing what you should prepare for. You could end up digging in hopes for a triceratops, but would end up with an ankylosaurus after incubating the dinosaur. And in preparations for a albertosaurus, you could have incubated a troodon instead. This will encourage the player to get resourceful with what they have, and adapt quickly enough to accommodate the new dinosaurs. The only thing the player has to identify the dinosaur if the genome was determined to be an air, land, or marine species, where the fossils came from, the cost of incubation, and if the genome could be identifiable.
But I also think that genome modification could be locked until the species has been identified after the initial incubation, so that the genetic traits won't give away the species. And the first incubation for a species is set at a locked price, so that the first dinosaur could not be identified based on how cheap or expensive that dinosaur is. It could be an expensive first struthiomimus, or a cheap first Tyrannosaurus, the reveal would be the surprise.
I think this mystery digsite option could be a lot of fun as it could lead to some surprising park inclusions or unexpected chaos management. JWE2 will come out with 75+ species of animals, and that large roster number could make this an interesting mode. What do you think?
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