I'm making my case for two dinosaurs that I feel really really really need to be in the game. Neither however are very large and in fact both are rather small. These two are Compsognathus and Hypsilophodon. So why would I care enough to write a post asking for specifically them to be added into the game?
There are a core set of dinosaurs I would identify as "icon-level" dinosaurs that in some sense represent each major category of dinosaur over and above any others that one would expect to appear in any archetypal dinosaur setting or book, without which a comprehensive dinosaur picture just somehow doesn't feel complete. For example when one thinks of ceratopsian dinosaurs there are a wide range of dinosaurs that come to mind, Chasmosaurus, Protoceratops, Styracosaurus, Triceratops, Sinoceratops etc. However only one of these, Triceratops sticks out as in some sense permanently representative of the group as a whole if one were to pick only one dinosaur for the entire group.
Growing up I identified twelve such "archetype" level dinosaurs. Here they are with the "dino-archetypes" they represent. As follows:
(1)"The Long Neck" (Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus)
(2)"The Large Meat-Eater" (Tyrannosaurus),
(3)"The Ostrich Mimic" (Struthiomimus)
(4)"The Raptor" (Velociraptor or for those who remember the pre-JP days, Deinonychus, which was the basis for JP raptors)
(5)"The Small Theropod" (Compsognathus)
(6)"The Duck-Bill" (Parasaurolophus)
(7)"The Spike-Thumb" (Iguanodon)
(8)"The Small Ornithopod" (Hypsilophodon)
(9)"The Bonehead" (Pachycephalosaurus)
(10)"The Horned Dinosaur" (Triceratops)
(11)"The Plated Dinosaur" (Stegosaurus)
(12)"The Armored Dinosaur" (Ankylosaurus)
Thus far Jurassic Park Evolution has done a pretty good job in including these, and I was very happy to see Iguanodon added to the game this last Christmas. However there are two dinosaurs representing two of the "archetypal" dinosaur categories not on this list. Namely Compsognathus and Hypsilophodon. Somehow a comprehensive dinosaur scene just doesn't look complete without a small theropod and a small ornithopod, and given that these are the two best representatives of these respective groups if there were any one dinosaur from each of these two group I would like added it would be Compsognathus and Hypsilophodon. I mean lets face it, for the longest time until the last few decades Compsognathus was historically the official "smallest dinosaur" and is still seen as the iconic small dino today. Likewise there is a reason for the longest time small ornithopods were termed "hypsilophodonts," although the term is largely seen as a waste-basket taxon now save for the few members of the much smaller family Hypsilophodontidae.
Additionally, both of these animals have good grounds for existing in the game based on official JP canon. Compsognathus of course comes from movie canon in the Lost World, JP3, and Fallen Kingdom. Meanwhile, Hypsilophodon is seen in Crichton's The Lost World novel when Sarah Harding goes to the island the first time and after waking up under a stegosaur sees a pack of raptors hunting a herd of Hypsilophodon. For these reasons alone they should be in the game. Now of course both are small animals, Compsognathus much more so, and it is well known that JPE has complications with adding in smaller animals. However I will get to that in a minute.
Furthermore no animals in either of these two categories exist in the game yet. The closest there is in the case of small ornithopods is Muttaburrasaurus which is still comparatively quite large. As for small theropods, the closest is Troodon, but that really belongs more in the raptor category, although that is of course still a "small theropod." So this would be a perfect opportunity to add these two in.
Of course, if we try to include animals based on them being from this archetypal list, one may ask why not press for Brontosaurus for these same reasons? Afterall it is a thing again (it was split from Apatosaurus in 2015) and is the true original archetypal sauropod dinosaur. This is a good question and perhaps it should be included in a future Jurassic DLC. Though given that it and Apatosaurus were synonymous for so long, we have this situation where in some sense both are the quintessential sauropods, and the game already has Apatosaurus. This is a good issue for elsewhere. Though it is not the point of this post, so I will pass on it here.
Anyway here is the data and suggestions for the two dinosaurs I want to propose.
Compsognathus longipes
Late Jurassic Period
Solnhofen Formation (Germany)
1.2 meters long (4 feet)
Hypsilophodon foxii
Early Cretaceous Period
Isle of Wight Formation (England)
1.8-2 meters long (6 feet)
Small Dinosaur Problems:
Now we come to the issue of dinosaur size and all of the problems surrounding that in the game given that JPE seems to want to shy away from smaller animals. I should preface this by pointing out that the situation is a little bit different for Hypsilophodon than it is for Compsognathus. I think my proposals here are relatively realistic however.
For Hypsilophodon the situation is easier as we already have an animal in the game that is comparable in size to it, that being Troodon. Of course Troodon is a bit longer at around eight feet, whereas Hypsilophodon is around six feet. However, what Hypsilophodon lacks in length it makes up for in bulk, with Troodon being a rather slender animal with a long neck and tail, and slender body, in contrast to Hypsilophodon's shorter neck and tail and stockier build. So there really should not be any more of a problem adding Hypsilophodon into the game than there was for Troodon which is already in the game.
For those interested here is an image of what Hypsilophodon might look like in the game (being stalked by a Neovenator) courtesy of tigris115 on Reddit:
Now Compsognathus would be a bit more of a challenge, though I think it should be reasonably doable with not too much trouble. One would need a small Dinosaur DLC with appropriate research expansions to accomodate it. However that would be simple enough to do. For escape situations, one could research tracking and stun chips which would taser the animal and render it immobile until ACU can arrive. Another possibility would be baited cage traps. Perhaps park rangers rather than ACU could even be tasked to take it back to the appropriate enclosures or to remove dead compys.
Similarly the stun chips could be used to keep the compys behind an invisible electric fence so there would be no escapes through the small holes in the fences. We have already seen this concept as movie canon in JW to contain the Pachycephalosaurus afterall.
As for sickness, one could either bait and trap sick compys with a special food only for sick dinos, which could then allow park rangers to medicate them without need to dart them. Alternatively one could medicate special feeders for small dinosaurs and allow them to be healed that way.
Now of course there is also the issue of population size. Compys would realistically have a relatively large population requirement yet most other dinosaurs in the game would not. I have the following suggestion for that. One could have a regular population limit requirement for dinosaurs as well as an independent small dinosaur limit. Apatosaurs for instance would have a maximum regular population of 22 dinosaurs, but it is not unrealistic to think that it would seriously mind 20 or so compys running underfoot as it shares the same pen with two or three others of its kind and a small herd of stegosaurs as well. This would be no more unrealistic than a small grouping of semi-solitary black rhinos coexisting with a few dozen birds in the wild.
This additional separate population cap would aid with visibility as well, which is of course another issue for small dinosaurs. To further accommodate this, perhaps incubation time could be shortened for compys, or maybe compsognathuses could be produced in small batches rather than one at a time.
If anyone wants to see what a compy might look like in JPE, here is a small animation of what Compsognathus would look like in the game courtesy of Sohail Visual Effects on YouTube: [video=youtube;ABTVW-I4jZ4]
]Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABTVW-I4jZ4[/video]
In any event, the issues surrounding adding small dinosaurs into the game are not insurmountable and I believe could be dealt with with a little brainstorming.
Now lastly, of course Frontier is not going to focus too much on any one request for (a) new dinosaur(s) unless they see some demand for it. So if you like these suggestions and want to see Hypsilophodon and Compsognathus in the game, comment below and talk the idea up elsewhere. If we get a little steam behind it perhaps Frontier will notice and add these two historically iconic dinosaurs into the game.
There are a core set of dinosaurs I would identify as "icon-level" dinosaurs that in some sense represent each major category of dinosaur over and above any others that one would expect to appear in any archetypal dinosaur setting or book, without which a comprehensive dinosaur picture just somehow doesn't feel complete. For example when one thinks of ceratopsian dinosaurs there are a wide range of dinosaurs that come to mind, Chasmosaurus, Protoceratops, Styracosaurus, Triceratops, Sinoceratops etc. However only one of these, Triceratops sticks out as in some sense permanently representative of the group as a whole if one were to pick only one dinosaur for the entire group.
Growing up I identified twelve such "archetype" level dinosaurs. Here they are with the "dino-archetypes" they represent. As follows:
(1)"The Long Neck" (Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus)
(2)"The Large Meat-Eater" (Tyrannosaurus),
(3)"The Ostrich Mimic" (Struthiomimus)
(4)"The Raptor" (Velociraptor or for those who remember the pre-JP days, Deinonychus, which was the basis for JP raptors)
(5)"The Small Theropod" (Compsognathus)
(6)"The Duck-Bill" (Parasaurolophus)
(7)"The Spike-Thumb" (Iguanodon)
(8)"The Small Ornithopod" (Hypsilophodon)
(9)"The Bonehead" (Pachycephalosaurus)
(10)"The Horned Dinosaur" (Triceratops)
(11)"The Plated Dinosaur" (Stegosaurus)
(12)"The Armored Dinosaur" (Ankylosaurus)
Thus far Jurassic Park Evolution has done a pretty good job in including these, and I was very happy to see Iguanodon added to the game this last Christmas. However there are two dinosaurs representing two of the "archetypal" dinosaur categories not on this list. Namely Compsognathus and Hypsilophodon. Somehow a comprehensive dinosaur scene just doesn't look complete without a small theropod and a small ornithopod, and given that these are the two best representatives of these respective groups if there were any one dinosaur from each of these two group I would like added it would be Compsognathus and Hypsilophodon. I mean lets face it, for the longest time until the last few decades Compsognathus was historically the official "smallest dinosaur" and is still seen as the iconic small dino today. Likewise there is a reason for the longest time small ornithopods were termed "hypsilophodonts," although the term is largely seen as a waste-basket taxon now save for the few members of the much smaller family Hypsilophodontidae.
Additionally, both of these animals have good grounds for existing in the game based on official JP canon. Compsognathus of course comes from movie canon in the Lost World, JP3, and Fallen Kingdom. Meanwhile, Hypsilophodon is seen in Crichton's The Lost World novel when Sarah Harding goes to the island the first time and after waking up under a stegosaur sees a pack of raptors hunting a herd of Hypsilophodon. For these reasons alone they should be in the game. Now of course both are small animals, Compsognathus much more so, and it is well known that JPE has complications with adding in smaller animals. However I will get to that in a minute.
Furthermore no animals in either of these two categories exist in the game yet. The closest there is in the case of small ornithopods is Muttaburrasaurus which is still comparatively quite large. As for small theropods, the closest is Troodon, but that really belongs more in the raptor category, although that is of course still a "small theropod." So this would be a perfect opportunity to add these two in.
Of course, if we try to include animals based on them being from this archetypal list, one may ask why not press for Brontosaurus for these same reasons? Afterall it is a thing again (it was split from Apatosaurus in 2015) and is the true original archetypal sauropod dinosaur. This is a good question and perhaps it should be included in a future Jurassic DLC. Though given that it and Apatosaurus were synonymous for so long, we have this situation where in some sense both are the quintessential sauropods, and the game already has Apatosaurus. This is a good issue for elsewhere. Though it is not the point of this post, so I will pass on it here.
Anyway here is the data and suggestions for the two dinosaurs I want to propose.
Compsognathus longipes
Late Jurassic Period
Solnhofen Formation (Germany)
1.2 meters long (4 feet)
Hypsilophodon foxii
Early Cretaceous Period
Isle of Wight Formation (England)
1.8-2 meters long (6 feet)
Small Dinosaur Problems:
Now we come to the issue of dinosaur size and all of the problems surrounding that in the game given that JPE seems to want to shy away from smaller animals. I should preface this by pointing out that the situation is a little bit different for Hypsilophodon than it is for Compsognathus. I think my proposals here are relatively realistic however.
For Hypsilophodon the situation is easier as we already have an animal in the game that is comparable in size to it, that being Troodon. Of course Troodon is a bit longer at around eight feet, whereas Hypsilophodon is around six feet. However, what Hypsilophodon lacks in length it makes up for in bulk, with Troodon being a rather slender animal with a long neck and tail, and slender body, in contrast to Hypsilophodon's shorter neck and tail and stockier build. So there really should not be any more of a problem adding Hypsilophodon into the game than there was for Troodon which is already in the game.
For those interested here is an image of what Hypsilophodon might look like in the game (being stalked by a Neovenator) courtesy of tigris115 on Reddit:
Now Compsognathus would be a bit more of a challenge, though I think it should be reasonably doable with not too much trouble. One would need a small Dinosaur DLC with appropriate research expansions to accomodate it. However that would be simple enough to do. For escape situations, one could research tracking and stun chips which would taser the animal and render it immobile until ACU can arrive. Another possibility would be baited cage traps. Perhaps park rangers rather than ACU could even be tasked to take it back to the appropriate enclosures or to remove dead compys.
Similarly the stun chips could be used to keep the compys behind an invisible electric fence so there would be no escapes through the small holes in the fences. We have already seen this concept as movie canon in JW to contain the Pachycephalosaurus afterall.
As for sickness, one could either bait and trap sick compys with a special food only for sick dinos, which could then allow park rangers to medicate them without need to dart them. Alternatively one could medicate special feeders for small dinosaurs and allow them to be healed that way.
Now of course there is also the issue of population size. Compys would realistically have a relatively large population requirement yet most other dinosaurs in the game would not. I have the following suggestion for that. One could have a regular population limit requirement for dinosaurs as well as an independent small dinosaur limit. Apatosaurs for instance would have a maximum regular population of 22 dinosaurs, but it is not unrealistic to think that it would seriously mind 20 or so compys running underfoot as it shares the same pen with two or three others of its kind and a small herd of stegosaurs as well. This would be no more unrealistic than a small grouping of semi-solitary black rhinos coexisting with a few dozen birds in the wild.
This additional separate population cap would aid with visibility as well, which is of course another issue for small dinosaurs. To further accommodate this, perhaps incubation time could be shortened for compys, or maybe compsognathuses could be produced in small batches rather than one at a time.
If anyone wants to see what a compy might look like in JPE, here is a small animation of what Compsognathus would look like in the game courtesy of Sohail Visual Effects on YouTube: [video=youtube;ABTVW-I4jZ4]
In any event, the issues surrounding adding small dinosaurs into the game are not insurmountable and I believe could be dealt with with a little brainstorming.
Now lastly, of course Frontier is not going to focus too much on any one request for (a) new dinosaur(s) unless they see some demand for it. So if you like these suggestions and want to see Hypsilophodon and Compsognathus in the game, comment below and talk the idea up elsewhere. If we get a little steam behind it perhaps Frontier will notice and add these two historically iconic dinosaurs into the game.
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