http://www.gamezone.com/news/item/mankind_fights_to_survive_in_b_c_a_game_where_dinosaurs_rule_the_world/Just look at those screenshots. *Sigh*... Talk about someone
finally deciding to design my ideal sandbox game, then go and bloody abandon it.
JP: Operation Genesis is the closest anyone has come to making a prehistoric ecosystem sandbox, and that's only in "Site B" mode, not even the main mode of gameplay. Is it really so niche to want to watch herds of Parasaurs wading through lake shallows, while mother Ceratops tend to their nests along the shore and jumpy little Oviraptors dance amongst the dangerous guardians hoping to steal a few eggs from the sand?
Well I guess it
is niche, but... gah. I wouldn't care what the actual goal of the game is, just as long as it simulated the animals and I could choose to just sit there and watch them.
Or better yet;
be one. How cool would that be? A dinosaur survival RPG! Find enough food to stay alive, avoid predators (or chase down prey), defend territory from rivals, join hunting packs or migrating herds, find a mate to continue the game after you get old and die, and all the while, the world around you carries on living, breeding, fighting, dying. You know, what Spore should have been like.
If I ever manage to get into game dev for real, something like that would easily become my life's goal. I'd do the animating, and probably texture work, but the AI is what would interest the heck outta me. Shame I don't have a brain for code stuff.