Set in a world where humans live alongside various prehistoric animals, you play as the caretaker of Lucky, a Parasaurolophus you raised from an egg. Hearing about an island called Paleo Pines where wild Parasaurolophus roam free, you set off to find Lucky a proper home and family, but they are nowhere to be seen when you arrive. Together with the island's human and dino inhabitants, you'll restore a neglected ranch, explore the island, and solve the Parasaurolophus puzzle.
The official website can be found here
. The developers also have a YouTube channel and Twitter account.
This game contains examples of:
- Alternate-History Dinosaur Survival: The Steam page used to say that evolution took the path of "survival of the kindest" in this universe, so humans live alongside easily-tameable prehistoric creatures. Most of them are non-avian dinosaurs, but there are a few others such as Dimetrodon (a synapsid), Desmatosuchus, and Postosuchus (both pseudosuchians).
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The dinosaurs in Paleo Pines come in a wide variety of colors and patterns, ranging from subdued greens and browns to vibrant purples, pinks, and blues. If you're lucky, you may even find dinosaurs that are albino or melanistic.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The game mostly tries to avert this, but there are certain small things here and there.
- Wuerhosaurus is portrayed with the traditional short plates, which are based on a most likely broken fossil.
- Bizarre Seasons: Paleo Pines has just three seasons, each lasting 21 days. "Triassea" resembles spring, and has mostly calm weather. "Jurassos" resembles summer, and has mostly sunny and hot weather. "Cretumnus" resembles fall, and has mostly cloudy and rainy weather.
- Broken Bridge: There are obstacles littered all over that require either a dino's skill or a bunch of resources to remove. The two most prominent are the boulder that blocks the road to Dapplewood, and the ruined gateway that must be repaired before Ariacotta Canyon can be reached.
- But Thou Must!:
- At the very beginning, Owynn and Mari ask you if you intend to stay in Paleo Pines. The possible responses are all just increasingly-enthusiastic levels of "yes".
- Later, Mari will ask what Lucky's favorite snack is, with the choices being beetroot, mushroom, or tomato. They're all among Lucky's favorites.
- Distinctive Appearances: Every named dinosaur sports a unique color pallet that cannot be found on wild dinos. This includes Lucky, who is the only Parasaurolophus in the game that has the "Sky Blue" pallet.
- Domesticated Dinosaurs: All the dinosaurs are capable of being tamed and helping you with tasks round the farm.
- Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: The tamablume is a flower that's full of protein, used for making cakes, and has a shiny yellow pistil surrounded by white petals. Its name sounds like a combination of tamago (Japanese for egg) and bloom.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The 1.2.2 patch gave the Switch version a tendency to crash during loading screens due to running out of memory, which could reportedly progress to the point where you couldn't leave the ranch. This was fixed in the following patch.
- Heart of Happiness: Each animal's happiness is represented by a heart that gains more outlines as their relationship with the player increases.
- Herbivores Are Friendly: Most of the dinosaurs in the early areas are herbivores, and they're all easily approachable and willing to help humans. However, the carnivores completely avert Carnivores Are Mean by being just as friendly and approachable to humans.
- Mineral MacGuffin: Dreamstones, softly glowing pink crystals are found all around Paleo Pines. Why dinosaurs like to live around dreamstones is unknown to science; whatever the case, each dinosaur you keep on the ranch needs a dreamstone of their own.
- Mystery Meat: Carnivore food resembles cubed ham or salmon, but what exactly it is or where Corlan gets it from are never elaborated upon. The only description you get is that carnivores eat it.
- Power Up Mount: The player can ride certain dinosaurs, known as helpers, which have different abilities, such as dashing, breaking rocks, ploughing fields, and watering plants.
- Recurring Riff: Most of the music contains the first five notes of the main theme.
- RPG Elements: Your helpers gain experience whenever they perform actions. Levelling up gives them more stamina.
- Shout-Out:
- A few dinosaurs can have a blue and orange colour scheme called "portals"; this is a reference to the Portal series of video games, which makes use of Blue and Orange Contrast.
- The description for the gooseberry is "Untitled Gooseberry, full of attitude", a reference to Untitled Goose Game.
- Shown Their Work: The development team has a palaeontology adviser, so the dinosaur models are based on up-to-date discoveries.
- Psittacosaurus has quill like structures on its tail, referencing those found on specimen SMF R 4970.
- Theropods such as Gallimimus and Utahraptor are appropriately feathered, and looking closely at the Coelophysis model reveals it has slight fuzz in its texturing, referencing the hypothesis that feathers (or protofeathers) are a basal trait to dinosaurs.
- Sprint Meter: Both the player and their helpers have stamina. Whenever they perform certain actions, such as destroying objects, dashing, or plowing, they lose a set amount of stamina. It doesn't regenerate automatically.
- Thought They Knew Already: In one sidequest, Pippin holds a feast in Pebble Plaza which includes poppins. Pippin is distraught that nobody wants to eat them, and after Bongo the Gallimimus steals some, the other villagers explain that poppins taste terrible and they feed them to their dinosaurs. They never told Pippin this because they assumed they knew already.
- Through His Stomach: You befriend wild dinosaurs by feeding them crops and poppins that match their species' preferred flavor. Once they trust you enough to move to the ranch, you can befriend them even faster by figuring out their favorite flavor combo and feeding them snacks with that combo.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Downplayed; the Dino Journal mentions that several of the carnivores (eg: Carnotaurus) like to eat fruit, but their diets are still listed as meat. This is reflected in the gameplay, where any carnivore will happily accept fruits or vegetables as a snack as long as one of the two flavors matches its favorite.
- We Used to Be Friends: One long sidequest is about repairing the relationship between Agami and Avery. She was his Parental Subtitute, but they had a falling out when Avery became more interested in performing than farming, and left to travel the world. As a result, Agami never attends Avery's Shenanigan festival.
- Windmill Scenery: The game takes place on a rural island where people live in harmony with nature. Each area contains a damaged windmill that can be repaired in a sidequest, and they can be used to convert certain crops into crafting resources.
