Goodlands

This game looks sick and right up my alley. Is it still in development

Firstly, I would just like to mention how wonderfully charming this game is. To me it is animal crossing vibes but better. There is a lot of appeal in the small amounts of character that you get from interacting with the different dinosaurs scattered about (I think I like Oizy the most, though Spencer is a tough contender).  The music and sounds are wonderful. The environment is fun.

I do have a few issues, but just small things. I see another commenter in this thread and I have to agree; the log carrying feels too much like a chore. I also agree with the driving. Personally I think it takes too long to accelerate and decelerate, along with turning being too wide.

Second on the list is the shovel. I press R and return it to the truck, all is good and well. Then I press E to pick it up and from there it will do one of three things. Firstly, and probably the most comment occurrence, instead of going into my "inventory", the shovel gets thrown again. Secondly, it will just disappear. The third thing is it returns to my hands unharmed (though this is least common event).

The third is another bug. If you talk to a dino, sleep, and then try to progress further through the dialogue, the game reenters the "sleep state" where it is night and everyone is snoozing away in their tents. From there, the player is invisible and it does not change back to day (I would like to note that the dialogue box is on screen during this time and cannot be closed/progressed). From there the player must again sleep and continue progressing the dialogue until it is closed, but it puts them back into the before mentioned bug. After that, the game permanently acts as if the player is still standing next to the character they initially interacted with. If the character tries to interact with another character during this time, their movement is (again permanently) locked. This one is rather game breaking (and ending).

The last things I would like to talk about are the more minor things I've found/had issues with. First, I think the camera is too restrictive. I understand that it is withing interest of the game that the camera be locked to a small number of angles on the y axis, but that makes it hard to spot some of the more hidden collectibles like the teeth (the only way i found a majority of the teeth is if i was far away). Second, I think the sensitivity it too high. Third, the aspect ratio is off. My monitor is an ultrawide, and when I load the game, it is scaled to fit to the edges leaving me with a widescreen crop with the top and bottom of my screen cut off. The fourth, and final, thing is the on-screen sprites. I can't help but feel that they fall behind the rest of the game in terms of visuals.

Overall it's a wonderful game, and I enjoyed watching it shape up on the dinosaurs subreddit. I think that it just needs a little cleaning, fixing up, and polishing. I am horribly sorry to barrage you with the wall of text (assuming you are still reading these a month after posting lol) but I really want to see this game come to fruition as the best it can be. I think it will easily earn a spot in my list of favorite games this year.

This is absolutely gorgeous and I’m glad you made it and hope you have a good rest of the year. 

Hey! I tried the game for a while, and I really like the ambiance and the visual and sound design. However, I struggle to find the fun: the platforming mechanics don't have much depth, carrying logs back and forth to the dig sites feels like a chore, and the driving doesn't feel great. I liked the idea and the visuals, but all that made me not want to continue playing.

I found a few bugs, like the sounds for the truck staying on when sleeping from the menu or interacting with multiple things at the same time because everything is bound to E. I also got a log buggily stuck on my hands that still allowed me to pick up other stuff - see gif below.

Anyway, there's still a lot of things to like about this demo, but another design pass is very needed I think.

like the lowpoly desert ambiance!