I wanted to post this as I feel like this game has so so so much potential, but seeing the content of the latest patch I feel like the ongoing development of this game isn't heading in the right direction.
I understand that fleshing out the number of dinosaurs and allowing the players to engage more with the gorgeous graphical world is low hanging fruit, in a sense -- it's what the Frontier team is clearly already good at
Jurassic World Evolution has got all the pieces of a great game but I feel like the team hasn't really asked themselves, what about this game is fun? The underlying systems and mechanics that create thrilling moments are lacking -- whether it's in story or challenge mode, there really just isn't much drama. There isn't a great deal of peril, and for a game that sells itself on the backdrop of burning buildings and roaring dinosaurs its surprisingly dull when a dinosaur actually does break out. You send a chopper out to tranq it, a ranger to fix the fence, figure out what lead to the problem and... that's about it. Hardly Spielberg.
I think what the game is currently doing so well, is capturing the profound wonder and majesty of the dinosaurs, as well as the philosophical arguments about whether we should be doing all this in the first place, but we want to see the promise of Jeff Goldlums fear mongering play out. Jurassic Park is at its core is about crisis management, the message is always that nature cannot be contained, “Nature finds a way” -- it's a lesson in our hubris in thinking we can contain these creatures -- especially as I keep adding bigger and meaner dinosaurs i find myself constantly wondering when I'm going to see that house of cards topple down... yet that moment never really comes.
That's where I think the game isn't strong - we DON'T come to Jurassic World to wonder at the majesty of dinosaurs, we come for the action!
When I hit my stride playing this game i want it to feel like a pressure cooker ready to explode at any moment, instead the experience gets very placid. Its disappointing whenever i do get sabotaged, for example, because if I’m meeting all of my dinosaurs needs, when the power comes back on, my dinosaurs are all still just happily kicking around their enclosures -- sabotage should set me into a dreaded panic. Sabotage, or a power outage should, like in the source material, set off a chain reaction of events that leads to bigger and bigger problems that are harder (and more fun) to try and get under control.
The game is quite simply boring when everything is running well, and i find that even when I set the challenge up high, apart from having to wait around longer for cash to arrive, parks just hum along taking care of themselves, just needing me to babysit a few buttons.
Here are the key things;
Rangers and ACU helicopters are OP -- they can solve your problems too easily. Yet the mechanics of being able to fly and drive them offer so much potential. Hard to implement definitely, but rangers should be vulnerable to being eaten, jeeps should be able to take damage, break down, or be destroyed - and especially in driving mode be allowed to flip over and crash. This would add so much fun, do i dare drive fast to try and fix that broken fence before that dinosaur gets out and risk tipping over the car as i race over there?
Helicopters too feel fun to fly, yet seeing as they can elegantly clip through buildings without any problem, what's the fun? The thing about those helicopters is that they aren't at risk from the dinosaurs, but the potential of having them catch those power lines hanging through the air is such a cool potential mechanic -- you fly your helicopter to a crisis and end up chopping up a power line, maybe it sends your helicopter crashing into the ground, but more importantly you've just chopped the power connecting the other half of your park to the power plant - down go the electric fences and out come the raptors.
It's scenarios like this that should be encouraged to happen
Some work should be done to make normal fences, or downed electric fences an irresistible target for carnivores, whether their needs are being met or not - forcing us to use electric fences and causing huge problems for the player when the powers goes down, or when power gets in short supply.
I also think that 'switch to live ammunition' should be a button that both the ranger and the helicopter should be allowed to do. A dangerous last resort, but one that should be allowed to be made by the player, to kill the dinosaurs rather than letting them kill the guests. Instead of a rifle similar to the tranquilizers, a short range shotgun would mean that it would be a risky choice to switch to.
Furthermore, these elements could be enhanced by;
Bunkers having limited capacity, meaning I'm constantly running the risk of a Titanic situation -- where I just haven't got enough space to save everyone. Crisis gates would also be an easy implementation, allowing me to decide to sacrifice a small group of tourists to a roving T-rex, by sealing off the section of the park that he has broken out into.
Like many other simulation games I think there should also be a range of potential disasters. Much harder to implement from a development perspective, but the current storm is lackluster and repetitive and rarely leads to a fun domino effect. I should be facing down lava flows for example, like in the movies, imagine jets of flaming rock shooting from an off map volcano and landing in a carnivore's enclosure and starting a wildfire -- with a complimentary ranger danger mechanic -- sending a ranger in to put out the fire would be dangerous, as the carnivore could eat the rangers, yet if i leave the wild fire it might spread and burn down the fence setting an agitated carnivore free. See how this could be fun?
Another fun one would be when the power goes out, fog of war kicks in in that area, not knowing where the fence breach is in a crisis, would mean I'd have to fly or drive my vehicles around carefully, hunting out the dinosaurs who are also hunting me. Not being able to build fences or place new powerlines in these areas till say a 'crisis level' meter level drops below a certain point would also prevent the player from cheating their way out of a crisis. Dinosaurs need to be neutralized first before this type of quick fixing can be done.
Yes pursuing this would be a lot of work -- but look at how Paradox's Stellaris developed over it's patch cycle -- it's 2.0 release was a complete overhaul of key mechanics, placing the strategy and combat at the core of the game, which they'd been constantly criticized for and which wasn't strong in their 1.0 release.
I would so love to see a 2.0 patch for Jurassic World Evolution that didn't have any more dinosaurs added, but instead focused on what can be done with the existing assets to make the game around them the most fun of its kind.
I understand that fleshing out the number of dinosaurs and allowing the players to engage more with the gorgeous graphical world is low hanging fruit, in a sense -- it's what the Frontier team is clearly already good at
Jurassic World Evolution has got all the pieces of a great game but I feel like the team hasn't really asked themselves, what about this game is fun? The underlying systems and mechanics that create thrilling moments are lacking -- whether it's in story or challenge mode, there really just isn't much drama. There isn't a great deal of peril, and for a game that sells itself on the backdrop of burning buildings and roaring dinosaurs its surprisingly dull when a dinosaur actually does break out. You send a chopper out to tranq it, a ranger to fix the fence, figure out what lead to the problem and... that's about it. Hardly Spielberg.
I think what the game is currently doing so well, is capturing the profound wonder and majesty of the dinosaurs, as well as the philosophical arguments about whether we should be doing all this in the first place, but we want to see the promise of Jeff Goldlums fear mongering play out. Jurassic Park is at its core is about crisis management, the message is always that nature cannot be contained, “Nature finds a way” -- it's a lesson in our hubris in thinking we can contain these creatures -- especially as I keep adding bigger and meaner dinosaurs i find myself constantly wondering when I'm going to see that house of cards topple down... yet that moment never really comes.
That's where I think the game isn't strong - we DON'T come to Jurassic World to wonder at the majesty of dinosaurs, we come for the action!
When I hit my stride playing this game i want it to feel like a pressure cooker ready to explode at any moment, instead the experience gets very placid. Its disappointing whenever i do get sabotaged, for example, because if I’m meeting all of my dinosaurs needs, when the power comes back on, my dinosaurs are all still just happily kicking around their enclosures -- sabotage should set me into a dreaded panic. Sabotage, or a power outage should, like in the source material, set off a chain reaction of events that leads to bigger and bigger problems that are harder (and more fun) to try and get under control.
The game is quite simply boring when everything is running well, and i find that even when I set the challenge up high, apart from having to wait around longer for cash to arrive, parks just hum along taking care of themselves, just needing me to babysit a few buttons.
Here are the key things;
Rangers and ACU helicopters are OP -- they can solve your problems too easily. Yet the mechanics of being able to fly and drive them offer so much potential. Hard to implement definitely, but rangers should be vulnerable to being eaten, jeeps should be able to take damage, break down, or be destroyed - and especially in driving mode be allowed to flip over and crash. This would add so much fun, do i dare drive fast to try and fix that broken fence before that dinosaur gets out and risk tipping over the car as i race over there?
Helicopters too feel fun to fly, yet seeing as they can elegantly clip through buildings without any problem, what's the fun? The thing about those helicopters is that they aren't at risk from the dinosaurs, but the potential of having them catch those power lines hanging through the air is such a cool potential mechanic -- you fly your helicopter to a crisis and end up chopping up a power line, maybe it sends your helicopter crashing into the ground, but more importantly you've just chopped the power connecting the other half of your park to the power plant - down go the electric fences and out come the raptors.
It's scenarios like this that should be encouraged to happen
Some work should be done to make normal fences, or downed electric fences an irresistible target for carnivores, whether their needs are being met or not - forcing us to use electric fences and causing huge problems for the player when the powers goes down, or when power gets in short supply.
I also think that 'switch to live ammunition' should be a button that both the ranger and the helicopter should be allowed to do. A dangerous last resort, but one that should be allowed to be made by the player, to kill the dinosaurs rather than letting them kill the guests. Instead of a rifle similar to the tranquilizers, a short range shotgun would mean that it would be a risky choice to switch to.
Furthermore, these elements could be enhanced by;
Bunkers having limited capacity, meaning I'm constantly running the risk of a Titanic situation -- where I just haven't got enough space to save everyone. Crisis gates would also be an easy implementation, allowing me to decide to sacrifice a small group of tourists to a roving T-rex, by sealing off the section of the park that he has broken out into.
Like many other simulation games I think there should also be a range of potential disasters. Much harder to implement from a development perspective, but the current storm is lackluster and repetitive and rarely leads to a fun domino effect. I should be facing down lava flows for example, like in the movies, imagine jets of flaming rock shooting from an off map volcano and landing in a carnivore's enclosure and starting a wildfire -- with a complimentary ranger danger mechanic -- sending a ranger in to put out the fire would be dangerous, as the carnivore could eat the rangers, yet if i leave the wild fire it might spread and burn down the fence setting an agitated carnivore free. See how this could be fun?
Another fun one would be when the power goes out, fog of war kicks in in that area, not knowing where the fence breach is in a crisis, would mean I'd have to fly or drive my vehicles around carefully, hunting out the dinosaurs who are also hunting me. Not being able to build fences or place new powerlines in these areas till say a 'crisis level' meter level drops below a certain point would also prevent the player from cheating their way out of a crisis. Dinosaurs need to be neutralized first before this type of quick fixing can be done.
Yes pursuing this would be a lot of work -- but look at how Paradox's Stellaris developed over it's patch cycle -- it's 2.0 release was a complete overhaul of key mechanics, placing the strategy and combat at the core of the game, which they'd been constantly criticized for and which wasn't strong in their 1.0 release.
I would so love to see a 2.0 patch for Jurassic World Evolution that didn't have any more dinosaurs added, but instead focused on what can be done with the existing assets to make the game around them the most fun of its kind.
