DINOSYSTEM PR

EVIEW

R E V I EW S

Hello fellow gamers, my name is Adam and I run a gaming site called Gamescroller. I create regular livestreams, reviews, previews, unboxings and indie game showcases for YOU my fellow gamers. I try to help out indie developers where I can and so a lot of my content is based around indie gaming, this particular post is about an Indie game called DinoSystem where you must survive a harsh wilderness of Dinosaurs!

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that Gamescroller is a part of the EotP Gaming Network, a young network of like-minded gamers who want to stream and create content for all gamers and create a vast community where we are all united as one glorious gamer base.

So sit back and enjoy as we jump into prehistoric world of DinoSystem!

What’s this all about?

What is it?

Game title: DinoSystemDeveloper/Publisher: CapriByte Studios/Black Shell MediaPlatforms: PC (Steam), MAC & Linux (may be ported to mobile at a later date).Genre: Dinosaur survival/simulation.Price: £5.59 on steam (price correct at time of editing)Expected release date: Early-mid 2016.Developer Description: "DinoSystem is a 2D, top-down ecosystem and survival simulation that allows players to either manage the ecology of a randomly generated island (inhabited by dinosaurs), or survive in it as a human, dealing with realistic survival mechanics, and with a deep character progression system that tracks how your character's body adapts over time."

Game features – world features

• Ecology simulation: the game simulates a Cretaceous ecosystem populated mainly by dinosaurs, animals and plants that don't "spawn"; they are born, then grow, reproduce and die.  

• DinoSystem uses a complex seasonal model that calculates day and night length, relative position of the sun, and influences the weather. The season transition is gradual; there is no sudden change between two seasons.   

• There is a realistic weather model that takes into account variables like time of day, humidity, temperature, and pressure; generating weather conditions like rain, snow, wind, sand/snowstorms, thunderstorms and fog.   

• Thunder can trigger huge wildfires, burning down entire forests.    • A realistic water cycle: rain creates puddles that can either

evaporate or grow into ponds and lakes. Evaporation takes into account air humidity, temperature and sun exposure.

Game features – world features

• The terrain changes according to factors like presence of water, weather, vegetation, and location. Any area can become fertile or arid. New forests or grasslands may form or disappear over time.    

• Fire (from torches, campfires and wildfires) consume available fuel, which then release heat and light. Fire is influenced by air humidity and wind. Your body and all objects near a fire are heated up. Fire can spread to nearby vegetation and trigger a wildfire, if ambient    conditions are favourable.    

• Animals AI allows them to survive in their world and adapt; they'll reproduce, care for their young, look for protection or compete for food and mating.    

• Each new island is randomized at the start of the game, based on parameters set by the player.    

• Everything from dead animals to branches, decompose based on factors like temperature, humidity, and location. There is no "timer" after which an item or a carcass disappears.

Game features – survival features

• Deep, complex and rewarding character progression system: metabolism, body muscles and fat change according to your lifestyle, and even your character's sprite changes in appearance to reflect this.    

• Get fat to survive winter, get slim to be lighter and swifter, or get muscular to be stronger in combat and more capable of hard work, but make sure you eat enough protein.    

• Needs like thirst and hunger are not just bars that drop at a constant rate: everything from performing actions to metabolism and body weight influence the rate at which you burn calories, consume water or get tired. For example, high temperature or intense activity make you sweat, requiring you to drink more water.    

• Dozens of skills, both mental and physical, rise as you perform a particular action, but they can also decay if you don't use them for a long time (only in "hard" difficulty).

Game features – survival features

• Crafting system allowing you to create items and weapons, advancing in technology at each step. NOTE: few items are craftable in the current Early Access build; expect many more to be added throughout the development!

• Foods with different nutrition values: meat is valuable because of proteins, but make sure you cook it before consuming.

There are more features to be implemented and as such you will notice that DinoSystem is in early access so will be subject to a lot of changes as it progresses.

Game screenshots

Game screenshots

Game screenshots

Game screenshots

Thoughts

Upon looking at the screenshots for DinoSystem and reading what it's about, you would be forgiven for thinking it's the love-child of the first GTA and Ark: Survival Evolved with the GTA birds-eye view and 2D assets along with all the survival and depth of ARK. This looked rather interesting to me so I gave Black Shell Media a poke and asked them very nicely if they would like me to support the game and do some articles on it, they indulged me with a key for free which was rather nice of them! Take DinoSystem in its current early access form with a massive lorry load of salt, the menus are very basic and it currently doesn't look all that fancy.

Thoughts

Thoughts

• The menu screen does what it needs to but should we need to play a game of spot the settings/options menu? Yep keep looking... You're right, there isn't one! But there is, it just appears later once you've created your world.

• As you can see in the image above we have all the usual suspects that a menu screen normally has: new game, load saved as well as "full screen" on/off and menu music on/off (I recommend off as the music is rather repetitive).  We also have a rather nice news window to the side letting us know what the latest version update has done to our client.

Thoughts

I was slightly frustrated at not being able to setup my game first; I then turned to starting a new game which led me to the menu screen:

Thoughts

The world generation screen allows you to alter the game mode (there are currently two modes being a literal "god" mode and survival), season, island size and initial fertility (affects plant growth). We can also change how many mountains we have and if we would like to watch the map generate (I recommend you don’t as it makes the game load slower).

Thoughts

After hitting start we get taken to the generation screen. If you opted to have map gen turned on then you will be treated to watching your island come to life before your very eyes... very... very slowly. If you didn't then good job, your game will now load twice as fast! This screen also gives you little tips which are always nice to have.So the gen screen hits its end goal, here you would expect to head straight into the game... But no, you're not done yet!

System requirements

So just a quickie, here is DinoSystems' system requirements directly from the Steam page:OS: Windows XP/7/8 (32/64)Processor: Dual Core 2.0 GHz (or better)Memory: 2 GB RAMGraphics: 512MB graphics w/ DX 9.0cDirectX: Version 9.0cHard Drive: 250 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: Performance may be poor with integrated graphics!And here are my current specs:OS: Windows 10 64bitProcessor: Intel Core 2 Quad Core Q8200 @ 2.33 GHzMemory: 4GBGraphics: AMD Radeon HD6570 2 GBDirectX: 10Hard Drive: I used more than 250MB trust me

Frames per second

With that now being brought to light, I have no idea as to why DinoSystem runs at a horrific 15FPS when set to high. It's literally unplayable and that's coming from me! I can usually tolerate a low framerate because, let's be honest, I hardly have the USS Enterprise under my desk but still! Just to get a solid frame rate I had to turn the graphics down to low. This is what that does:

Frames per second

The highest setting provides a nice crisp edge on most things as well as pretty lighting and shadows. If you take a look at the top right, you'll notice the 15FPS that Steam was informing me of.

Above is the game on lowest settings. The edges are not as sharp and all around the game itself doesn't look as pretty but it runs at a much smoother 60FPS. The funny thing is that it doesn’t seem to have made much difference.

Frames per second

The next odd thing is how much power this game draws from the PC to run. I wondered what was going on so I took to the almighty power known as task manager to see if I had anything running that was sapping my CPU/RAM, here's what I found:

If you take a look at the Task Manager on the left, you will indeed see not one version of DinoSystem running but three! That shouldn't be a thing should it? It might just explain why I'm getting such framerate issues, I shouldn't be though as I easily cleared the recommended spec.

Playing the game

Issues and ranting aside, I did eventually get to play DinoSystem. It isn't an easy starter at present, there is a tutorial but I think it's a bit long winded and best kept as a pause guide (which it kind of has at the moment but it's nowhere near complete). I managed to master the basics and eventually I conquered all and created fire...a vast, out of control fire!

Playing the games

“It’s lonely playing rock, rock, rock by yourself…”

Playing the games

“I did it! Uhh! I mean, ugg, ugg!”

Playing the games

“Hmm, if only I could figure out how to make a fire pit so I could control this…”

Playing the games

“Fire! Fire! It burns!”

Playing the games

“Yep, I definetely f***ed up… 1000% fire is not good. I must make a note of that!”

Final thoughts

So I am still on the fence about DinoSystem. I can see the potential of it as it's got a huge, no massive amount of depth to it. It's insane trying to keep up with all the stats as well as keeping safe from carnivorous dinosaurs. It just needs a bit of performance tweaking and we might just have a game worth its salt. But having said that, it's definitely a game I'm going to revisit.

So what now?

Have we caught your interest yet? To read the full article all you have to do is head on over to our website or click the link below!

DinoSystem Preview