Prehysteria - The Hatchery & The First Q/A news

I've decided to not only show off some things regarding the Hatchery but to also answer some questions that I've been emailed, PMd, and just general questions and concerns I've been seeing regarding the game and what to expect so bear with me as I do the best to answer these without giving away too much. We still want you to be surprised when the game launches.

Just a small little glimpse at an area of the hatchery that players will encounter through their travels on the island. As you can see there's a decaying dinosaur, some broken egg-shells and a room that's just in a mess after the humans were evacuated during the dinosaur breakout. Don't expect the hatchery to be a happy place. You will most likely find some baby dinosaurs who never made it through the "birth" stages. You won't be safe in here either. Something dangerous lurks the hallways off this derelict building.

We also have some of the props from the Hatchery that you'll encounter while roaming through the building.

Let's get to the meat of this post though. Let's answer some of the question you've all had regarding Prehysteria and what to expect when the game launches. So bear with me as I do the best to get through this.

Q: We will have weapons, or the ability to craft weapons?
A: No. You're a survivor of a ship sinking and have become effectively stranded on this island. Most of the weapons left behind from the company that owned the island left them in a state of disrepair after vanishing completely a few years prior. Also, we want you to feel really useless and at risk 100% of the time while playing. I'd feel better while playing if I could carry some sort of weapon, so we want the players to be completely vulnerable against the inhabitants of the island.

Q: Since there's no weapons, can we at-least defend ourselves?
A: Sort of. Instead of using guns, swords, spears, etc players will be able to find rocks around the outside areas of the island. The rocks can be used as distractions to make a getaway while the bigger carnivores go take a peek. The rocks will scare off smaller dinosaurs like Compies, but they'll only stall the bigger carnivores like a T-Rex, Baryonyx, Raptor for a few moments. Throw the rock, and run like hell.

Q: Will the game be free to play?
A: Chances are no. Some of us have quit our full-time jobs to focus on this project or are already doing this as a career. We also can't continue to bring extra content to the game after release without some price-point to fund those future endeavors. There's nothing concrete in terms of price yet but it won't be anything insane. Most likely it will be standard indie-game fare.

Q: How many dinosaurs are going to be in the game, and can they all kill me?
A: We're looking for around 10 for the initial release of Prehysteria. We don't want to overwhelm the players with dinosaurs, but we also want variety unlike most dinosaur games we see nowadays. All carnivores will be a risk, but only some of the herbivores may play a risk. There's also a change we'll be adding in sea-based dinosaurs like Plesiosaur, and Tylosaurus but this isn't a confirmed thing yet. Gotta focus on the land before diving into the ocean.

Q: How will the co-op aspect work?
A: We're looking into a drop-in/drop-out style of play. That means if you're playing an online game and have it set to open, any of your buddies can drop in and say hello at any time. This means that you have no worry about being paired up with randoms, but we may work in some sort of server library if the game can get on Steam sometime in the future. Don't fret though, you can also play the game entirely in offline singleplayer if you so desire.

That being said, co-op needs to be scary too. This means features like proximity voice chat would come into play if we can work it into the Unity engine. That also being said, if co-op isn't working out and is making the game less enjoyable we'll probably scrap it for an entirely singleplayer experience. We're hoping for co-op, so we'll see what happens down the road.

Q: Why Oculus Rift?
A: Imagine traversing through a dense, terrifying jungle while seeing dinosaurs up close, and like you're actually in a world with them. I've been nuts about dinosaurs since I was a little kid, and this is something I've dreamt about all my life. Just imagine it.

If you'd like to send in questions for future Q&As please either PM myself, post here in the comments, or whatever! Also be sure to check out our Facebook page for regular updates regarding the game, follow the Lead Developer on Twitter (@EEManio) and be sure to join our forums to take part in discussions about the game, and even give us dinosaur suggestions!