Jurassic Park: Revolution mod for Carnivores: Ice Age

Howdy! As you might notice, I am not Tormer. I'm Dawn, creator of previous mods such as A New World, Eye of the Hunted, Primordial, and other such projects, currently spearheading the horror themed mod Carnivores Phantasmagoria, a reimagining of A New World and my other classic projects. I have received permission from Tormer to create an updated, ported version of Jurassic Park Revolution to the Modder's Edition Engine ahead of the project's 5th anniversary, with new content, performance fixes, improved balancing, and more dinosaurs, making use of the new MEE features!

I'll run through some of the current progress of the port as well as the planned upcoming features. The first goal of the project is of course to bring JPR into the modern Carnivores modding era, in the Modder's Edition Engine. This will make the game more easily playable for more players. In porting the mod, I have had to make some alterations to the maps for them to function properly, as well as to have better overall performance. Beyond just that, I want to go above and beyond, as JPR is a very standout mod and I'd like to do it proper justice.

The second goal is to slightly update the appearance of all the dinosaurs without impacting the artstyle. Rodrigo Vega's original art and designs were borderline perfection and I do not wish to make drastic changes to them. Instead, I've given them some baked in shading and minor texture tweaks such as adding claws or fixing the eyes of a few of the animals. Here is the entire original roster with their updated textures, as well as the way they incorporate the new MEE features:

Ouranosaurus, which will now spawn in herds of up to 3 individual animals.

Styracosaurus, which can now spawn in pairs, and is no longer functionally blind.

Kentrosaurus, who has been slightly slowed down with a smaller kill radius and somewhat less aggression, while still being dangerous earlygame to be less frustrating to hunt.

Torosaurus, who has become somewhat more aggressive and can now bein herds of up to 3 animals.

Albertosaurus, who has become more aggressive and can now spawn in pairs on occasion.

Edmontosaurus, now capable of spawning in herds of up to 5 animals.

Allosaurus, who appears with overall minor changes aside from adjusted speeds. The primary change is a fix to the claw textures and the shading.

Camarasaurus, who has had rebalanced senses while still being very tanky if you cannot hit the mortal zone. Overall minimal changes aside from shading and some eye definition.

Acocanthosaurus, who not only now has proper eyes, but now only spawns at a max of 5 individuals when selected, preventing the player from being overwhelmed with them and keeping in line with their ecological niche. In later maps, they are planned to be able to spawn at random, rarely.

And lastly of the original roster, the big bad and poster boy, the Carcharodontosaurus, who now spawns at a max of 3 when selected, making for smoother gameplay and upping the impact of these apex predators when you do find one.

The original 2 ambient species, Dryosaurus and Homalocephale, have also received minor texture updates.

That is not all, however. These dinosaurs have not only been ported into the modder's engine with updated textures, but will be receiving new variant skins that will appear rarely or on different maps, styled after the alternate skin system in Jurassic World Evolution. For example, here is an Isla Tronar variant of the Carcharodontosaurus, based on its default skin in Warpath Jurassic Park:

Using the new features of the MEE, the Outcast dinosaurs DLC will also be a part of the mod natively alongside the originals, with the outcast species appearing as random spawn huntable animals on the islands, in a manner like Jurassic Park Hunter Legends or Carnivores Legacy. However, they will all be reskinned in an attempt to match them to the original art style of the mod, as this was something I and several others found lacking about the DLC, as Rodrigo was unable to create the skin assets for Tormer for the DLC. In honor of his incredible style, I am personally attempting to replicate it as best I can for the outcast species, starting with the one I find the most important and standout to the original roster, the Deinonychus, with a skin based on the Warpath unlockable Mega Raptor skin:

Deinonychus will be a fierce, pack hunting ambush predator that will appear on most of the islands, except for Isla Pena in order to make it less dangerous for new players, and Isla Tronar, where the Deinonychus packs fear to go...

It can be a tricky situation to be attacked by a pack, so it is wise to carry the SPAS-12 or MP5 for defense when hunting on these islands. Deinonychus are given a similar bounty to the Allosaurus, as their lethality and ability to swim between the islands makes them extremely deadly to humans, meaning if Roland can take an entire pack down, he will receive a large sum of score.

The other outcast dinosaurs will also be remade in a similar style, making use of classic Jurassic Park era designs, such as Warpath, Jurassic Park Institute, the JP Dinosaur Field Guide Book, The Lost World games, etc. Each will be given lots of care, and they will also receive their own variants.

As for some other tweaks, the weapons are going through a balance pass, to make each more standout and viable throughout the whole game. Every weapon with the exception of the SPAS-12 and LAR/Green Flame (with their already perfect accuracy) has been given better accuracy. Additionally, all the weapons with a capacity of less than 30 have been given a second magazine without the need of double ammo, meaning hunts can go on for longer and more of InGen's bestiary can be brought down. For reference, the original DEagle had 8 shots, but now carries 14 with a reload every 7 shots, with double ammo this goes to 28 total shots instead of 16.

A couple more screenshots to show the original cast with their new textures ingame:

With all that out of the way, here is a brief summary tl;dr of the plans so far;

-Port the mod into MEE 1.06.1 (DONE)

-Balance pass on all weapons for improved gameplay

-Improved performance in every map

-Use of MEE features to create packs and herds of the various species

-Variants for every dinosaur species, both rare and per-island variations

-Reskins of the Outcast dinosaurs to be included as map ambient huntables, trying to match the original artstyle by Rodrigo

-Inclusions of a few species from JPHL with new skins to match the style to fill in additional ambient slots (Open to suggestions! Please keep any picks relevant to the JP franchise WHILE ALSO being animals that were not prominently featured in the original trilogy!)

-A new legacy-style Trophy Room made with the JPR assets to accommodate all the new variants and species

Other changes may occur as well, but that is to be figured out over time. I will not give a concrete release window for this project, as I want it to be as good as possible and be thoroughly tested before release, and I also have my own project Phantasmagoria to work on, as well as assisting on other mods, so I won't be able to solely devote to finishing this. I am open to suggestions and feedback on what could be improved from the original Jurassic Park Revolution, so feel free to message in the comments or comment in my channel on the Carnivores discord server.

I will be periodically doing progress reports and feature update articles similar to how I have been doing for Phantasmagoria as new features and substantive progress are achieved. I am so excited to be able to make this project as I am a big fan of JPR and the original trilogy's side media as I grew up playing and reading them, and I hope others will be excited too for this updated version of my favorite Jurassic Park mod.