Dinosaur world

Dinosaur World is a three-dimensional computer educational game in the genre of a life simulator with sandbox elements. The gameplay is similar to a semi-interactive documentary about wildlife, where the main goal is to observe the prehistoric world of the Jurassic period , in particular dinosaurs ^[5] . The player controlling the camera in the first person should find and study all creatures and objects scattered across five different locations of the open world . Periodically, events occur in locations that the player can inspect after receiving a notification. There is an in-game narrator who describes the found goals, as they approach them and comments on the events happening nearby. In the game inventory, called "Electronic Field Guide" ( English Electronic Field Guide ) posted a map with notes, a description of the tasks, discovered finds and other clues. There are special "cameras" that a player can freely place in a limited amount on the entire map and on dinosaurs, and then quickly switch between them watching what is happening. Also, when approaching an animal, you can change the camera view and watch it from the side. As soon as a player completes all the required tasks at all locations, a bonus level opens where he can place dinosaurs and watch how they interact with each other.

Dinosaur World is the official game in the universe of the Walking With ... franchise ( English Walking with ... ) and created based on the popular science series “ Walking with Dinosaurs ” from the BBC, is a spin-off ^[3] . The game recreated many scenes of the original television series, in particular from the second episode of Time of the Titans , as well as the special release The Ballad of Big Al ^{[2] [6]} In addition, the game offers a number of new events to explore.

Locations

The game takes place in North America in the Upper Jurassic, about 145 million years ago, at the beginning of the dry season . An open card with several locations is available to the player for research. The game begins at the edge of the Mossy Plain level, a prairie with araucaria, tree-like ferns and populated by herds of sauropods ^[b] . Through mountain passes you can get to other levels ^[7] . The desert ( Eng. Desert ) is rich in cygnus, there are pterosaurs and several diplodocus on which the predatory allosaurus hunt. Stegosaurs live in the south of the map, one of which is stuck in a mud swamp and died. After a while, a small meteorite falls in the desert, and one of the allosaurs, attracted by the decomposing corpse of a stegosaurus, falls into the “predator trap” ^{[c] [8]} . In the canyon on the location of the Dry Riverbed ( Eng. Dry Riverbed ), you can find traces of dinosaurs, and in the depths of the valley there is a female allosaurus devouring a young diplodocus. Later, a young male will challenge her for prey, seriously injuring her in a subsequent battle ^[9] . South of the plains of the prairies, there is a Forest ( Eng. Forest ) of sequoias and tree ferns ^[b] . In the forest there is a nest with allosaurus eggs, and nearby you can hear the sounds made by ornitholest, which later, together with the lizards, will destroy the nest, which will anger the mother who came after that ^[10] . From the forest, through a winding stalactite cave, there is a passage to an extinct volcano - Crater. This area consists of a large thermal lake, surrounded by a warm beach and destroyed ledges of a volcanic crater . Bennettitic ones grow there and only insects live - dragonflies and flies ^[11] .

As soon as the player completes all tasks in an open area, a landslide will occur in the desert allowing him to climb a rocky ledge and move on a pterosaur to a secret zone - Salt Lake ( ^d . Salt Lake ) ^[d] . The bonus level is the bottom of a dried-up salt lake, where the player is given the opportunity to independently place dinosaurs (diplodocus and allosaurus), observe their behavior and the hunt of predators for herbivores ^[12] .

Learning Objectives

The main goal of a player in Dinosaur World is to complete 26 tasks, upon completion of which access to the bonus level will be obtained. The player must study 10 species of organisms of the Jurassic period, as well as examine 16 places of interest. The game features 5 species of animals and plants that you want to find. There are also unnamed species that are not required for detection: in the forest, ornitholests ( Ornitholestes hermanni ) are mentioned and heard, and in the crater lies the skeleton of a prehistoric mammal, which could be frutafossor ( Fruitafossor windscheffeli ). Unidentified plants such as ferns and horsetails also grow under the trees in the forest.

Species of animals and plants

At the same time, the sights, called the “Features”, are scattered across five gaming locations. These are various geological formations and other objects, the number of which varies from region to region.

The game was developed in 2001 by the British studio Asylum Entertainment and published by BBC Imagineering ^{[13] [14]} . It is built on a three-dimensional game engine Q version 1.0 from the company Qube Software ^[1] . Artificial intelligence in in-game creatures, well-designed and simulates the realistic behavior of dinosaurs, allowing them to interact with each other. So herbivorous dinosaurs - diplodocus and stegosaurs, move around the location and feed, at the same time predatory allosaurs prey on sauropods and periodically attack them, and they, in turn, fight back. Dragonflies also respond to the player, taking off from the branch when approaching them. To give authenticity to the game, dinosaur sounds made in Dinosaur World are used from the original Dinosaur Walks series.

The game is distributed as free software and is only available on PCs running the Windows operating system. Formally, the project did not reach the final version, remaining a prototype in the beta stage. The exact date of the original release of the game remains unclear, so according to Qube Software, this is June 2001 ^[1] , and according to information from the Asylum Entertainment website, December 2001 ^[13] . On July 3, 2006, the official Dinosaur World page on the BBC website ^{[3] appeared} , where the installation file in two versions became available for download: the standard version and the version for weak computers ^[4] . Due to the incompleteness of the project, non-critical program errors sometimes occur in the game that do not particularly affect the gameplay ^[15] .

• Walking with Beasts: Operation Salvage is an official game based on the BBC monstrosity television series Walking with the Beasts .

Comments

Sources

• bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/games/dinosaur_world/ - official Dinosaur World website