Saurian (Dinosaur simulation game).

[The Romulan Republic]

So, apparently some folks decided to create a dinosaur simulation game which aims to recreate, as accurately as possible, what it was like to be a dinosaur living in the Hell Creek ecosystem at the end of the Cretaceous.

Its still in development, but is purchasable on Steam as an "early access" game:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/587450/Saurian/

Has anyone here played this? And is there a single reason this shouldn't be my next game purchase?

[montypython]

Just heard about this and the concept sounds great; if the current gameplay looks good enough to try and no visible outstanding bugs/poorly thought out ideas show in game then it's worth trying. I'd say how well the early access game plays and/or improves upon would be indicative of how well the final product plays out, based on the games in Alpha status that I'm interested in.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, the criticisms I'm seeing seem to mostly boil down to a) updates coming too slowly, or b) it being not action-y enough/too realistic (ie, the critics are not the target audience this game is made for, which is people who want a realistic dinosaur sim).

Going to give it a try tonight, now that I've got a couple days off work.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, gave it a try.

The graphics and sound aren't necessarily top-notch, but not terrible either. I do find it freezes/glitches a lot, though I don't know if that's due to the game being unfinished, my computer not being up to snuff, or both. It helped when I lowered the graphics settings, though.

As a dino-sim, its pretty nice. The music distracts from the realism a bit I find, but you can just turn it off. It does take patience, though, and its fairly unforgiving. I gave it a trial run as a Dakotaraptor (one of four Hell Creek dinosaurs the game is evidently going to let you play, the others being Tyrannosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, and Triceratops, though only Dakotaraptor is playable so far). I made it to the morning of my second day before my poor raptor croaked from lack of food and water- I wasted a lot of time figuring out the controls and moving in the wrong direction before finding water and prey (there were some animals near the water, on the far side, but I met the DEATH of dinosaurs trying to swim across before getting close enough to see what they were or try to hunt them).

The Dakotaraptor in this game is a pretty good swimmer by the way. I don't know how plausible that is, but I moved faster in water than walking (I haven't really tried out the sprint feature yet).

Definitely got a kick out of playing a raptor, especially since I've just been re-reading Robert Bakker's Raptor Red (if you haven't read it, think Watership Down but with raptors instead of bunny rabbits).

[The Romulan Republic]

Yay, managed a more exciting death this time- death by crocodile attack. Made my first clumsy attempt at hunting, but since the only prey I could find (other raptors and crocodiles don't count, since they're more predators) was a freaking bird, it simply flew away as I got close.

It definitely pays to find and stick close to water, even if it means crocs and other raptors, because that's where the water and prey seems to be. There does seem to be a bit of luck element- second try I couldn't even find water from where I started.

I think the reason swimming seems faster is that the swimming animation, for whatever reason, is less glitchy than the walking animation- feels much smoother.