Parkasaurus PC Review
If you’ve ever dreamed of owning your own dinosaurs but Jurassic Park was a little bit too real for you and you prefer your dinosaurs outfitted, then Parkasaurus might just be the tycoon game for you. The game was first released by Washbear Studio in 2018 in early access and has been receiving a steady stream of updates ever since adding new features and even a redesigned UI look. With a cute cartoon graphic style and relaxing music, I took a dive into this dino park simulator!
The goal in Parkasaurus is very much like those of other park tycoon simulators; your job is to build a successful dinosaur park filled with a variety of different lizards and manage the business side of your lot with food, drink and entertainment! You must control everything from the biomes of your dinosaur’s habitats to the price of balloons. To unlock new dinosaurs, you must dig for fossils in a small puzzle mini-game that allows you to find new fossils or currencies for your park.
In reality there isn’t really an ultimate end-game and it’s a very easy game to hop on and play for a few hours at a time as you steadily work on your park letting it grow from a 1 star farm to a 5 star attraction. As a bonus they even added mission challenge parks that allow you to earn rocket ships which can be used to buy boons to increase your parks success even further. You will win bonus rockets for completing challenges quickly, giving you motivation to replay for that extra boon!
The first stage is a simple tutorial with clear and easy to follow instructions. It was easy to pick up the basics of what tool is where and how to look after dinosaurs on the base level. After completing the initial tutorial, it quickly became apparent that some of the later levels were in fact tutorials with information that would have been handy to have from the very start rather than a couple of hours in once unlocked.
In terms of creativity, there are a few transform tools where you can create mountains or areas of water, trees and rocks to decorate and comfort your dinosaurs/visitors. When playing around the lack of an undo button was a real dampener on the whole experience. As the transform tool is finicky, it is even harder to reset when something goes wrong as you have to manually flatten everything. There are different “themes” you can apply to your enclosures which have special effects depending on how you’ve decorated and what items are present giving you a way to make your enclosures feel more individual.
The decorations of the park look very nice and fit the style well; having elevated walkways through your exhibits also adds an extra layer to where you can take visitors or what you can see when in first person mode. There are also items included which will change the appearance of the guests and give certain boosts/changes to gameplay. The addition of the Steam Workshop functionality means that hopefully in the future there will be even more decorations and building ideas to incorporate into your winning park!
Speaking of first-person mode, when trying this out, I found that you could only look around or tranquillise your rampant dinosaurs. I felt like they had missed out on letting us get involved with the manual labour, maybe emptying the bins or fixing any broken fences before the dinosaurs escape to add a bit more engagement as the park manager. I did encounter a few irritating glitches including one where I couldn’t click and drag my staff members to their stations having to instead save and reload to get around it. There are a few issues that need ironing out such as this that once sorted will allow for a much easier experience.
One of the best things I experienced during this game that makes it stand out are the addition of hats; you can give your dinosaurs or workers a variety of silly hats but they aren’t just for show, no! Each hat has perks and nature changes which, for example, might change your dinosaur’s gender or biome suitability to enable you to fit it into a different environment than it would normally associate with. I think this added a whole other level of depth to the park experience. And also, who doesn’t love a cute Spinosaurus with cheese on his head?
The real downfall of this game comes in the longevity; once you have your park up and running, your dinosaurs all made happy, there isn’t really anywhere else to go from there. Having fully happy dinosaurs, I kept playing and focussed on other aspects but my dinosaurs never lost happiness even though I had forgotten about them. I wasn’t going back constantly to make sure they were all happy. All it took to achieve this was to give them the correct biome, food, something to play with and a friend (or 5!). My janitors were constantly on it with fence repairs so in my own custom game my dinosaurs never escaped unless I wanted them to! Washbear Studio advertised weather catastrophes however I did not see any in the many hours I spent playing, the inclusion of natural disasters or faulty fences would have given a whole other element to prepare for as once those dinosaurs are out, it’s total destruction!
Over the many hours that I played Parkasaurus, I have to say that I did feel very relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed the simple yet goofy style picking out appropriate hats for all my dinosaurs. Going into this as a tycoon game you know exactly what is included but if you want an all singing all dancing experience then this game may fall a little short of your expectations. Hopefully in the future with more updates and steam workshop engagement there might be more to offer in the future and a reason to come back for more. Even though I don’t believe the Overwhelmingly Positive review score it has received is warranted and I do think Parkasaurus has come a long way in early access and I am excited to see what new updates and games Washbear Studios will bring.
